Judicial institutions have become the standard solution to umpire multilevel polities across much of the European continent. However, such arrangement is not free from complexities. This paper analyses the problems associated with the construction of legitimacy regarding constitutional courts in European multilevel democracies. In these polities, constitutional courts tend to rely on three different forms of legitimacy, which are embedded into their institutional design: democratic, multilevel; and technocratic. However, these forms of legitimacy are in tension, often undermining one another when combined. Furthermore, this tension is exploited by political actors to attack the courts, resulting in reputational costs for these institutions.

中文翻译：

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欧洲多层次民主国家司法裁判的不完美合法性

司法机构已成为欧洲大陆大部分地区裁判多级政体的标准解决方案。然而，这种安排并非没有复杂性。本文分析了欧洲多级民主国家宪法法院合法性建构的相关问题。在这些政体中，宪法法院倾向于依赖三种不同形式的合法性，这些合法性嵌入到其制度设计中：民主的、多层次的；和技术官僚。然而，这些形式的合法性是相互矛盾的，结合在一起时往往会相互削弱。此外，政治行为者利用这种紧张局势攻击法院，导致这些机构蒙受声誉损失。