Abstract
One of the objective of constitutional design in a liberal-democratic system is to achieve such functioning of constitutional court that the court is at the same time independent on political power and reflexive of the long-term development of society. Institutional instruments, such as the length of mandate, the division of appointment powers among several constitutional organs, requirements on judges' expertise, etc. are complemented by the requirements on court's argumentation, in particular the methods of intepretation.
The method of constitutional cycles democratises judicial interpretation by tying it to the societal discourse in extraordinary moments of constitutional development. This creates a 'natural' duality of constitution, where provisions with higher societal legitimacy (provisions stemming from a constitutional cycle - the higher law) co-exist alongside provisions with lower societal legitimacy (provisions adopted in inter-cycle periods - ordinary constitutional law).
Provisions of the higher law trumps the ordinary constitutional provisions in case of conflict, without applying tests of proportionality, effectiveness, etc. The court establishes the content of the higher law through the historical analysis of constitutional discourse during the constitutional cycle.
In case, the applicable provisions belong to several constitutional cycles, an intergenerational synthesis is needed. Only when provisions of the same rank are in conflict, the court applies traditional tests balancing affected interests.