<p>This article examines the 2025 judgments of the Jordanian Constitutional Court through the lens of legal semiotics, focusing on how constitutional meaning is produced, stabilized, and constrained through judicial language and procedure. Rather than evaluating the substantive constitutional correctness of the Court’s rulings, the article analyzes the Court as a semiotic authority that actively constructs a regime of constitutional meaning. Drawing on classical and contemporary semiotic theory, legal semiotics, and theories of judicial performativity, the study conceptualizes constitutional adjudication as a process that simultaneously speaks and silences the Constitution. Through close readings of key judgments, most notably the decision invalidating the Teachers’ Syndicate Law and procedural dismissals of constitutional challenges, the article demonstrates how definitive language, categorical framing, procedural gatekeeping, and institutional finality function to close interpretive possibilities. The Court’s discourse is shown to privilege formal classifications and procedural correctness while omitting or marginalizing alternative constitutional narratives, particularly those grounded in rights-based or societal claims. Silence—whether procedural, substantive, or institutional—is treated as a meaningful semiotic act that contributes to the stabilization of constitutional meaning. The article argues that the Jordanian Constitutional Court operates not merely as an interpreter of an open constitutional text, but as a producer and regulator of constitutional signs, shaping who may speak, what may be said, and when constitutional debate is deemed complete. In doing so, the Court constructs a semiotic regime characterized by closure, hierarchy, and authoritative control over constitutional discourse.</p>

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Speaking—and Silencing—The Constitution: A Semiotic Analysis of Jordan’s Constitutional Court Judgments (2025)

  • Anas Abdelrahman,
  • Salah Mohammed Awaisheh,
  • Sadam Mohammad Awaisheh,
  • Osaid Hasan Ahmad Al-Thnaibat

摘要

This article examines the 2025 judgments of the Jordanian Constitutional Court through the lens of legal semiotics, focusing on how constitutional meaning is produced, stabilized, and constrained through judicial language and procedure. Rather than evaluating the substantive constitutional correctness of the Court’s rulings, the article analyzes the Court as a semiotic authority that actively constructs a regime of constitutional meaning. Drawing on classical and contemporary semiotic theory, legal semiotics, and theories of judicial performativity, the study conceptualizes constitutional adjudication as a process that simultaneously speaks and silences the Constitution. Through close readings of key judgments, most notably the decision invalidating the Teachers’ Syndicate Law and procedural dismissals of constitutional challenges, the article demonstrates how definitive language, categorical framing, procedural gatekeeping, and institutional finality function to close interpretive possibilities. The Court’s discourse is shown to privilege formal classifications and procedural correctness while omitting or marginalizing alternative constitutional narratives, particularly those grounded in rights-based or societal claims. Silence—whether procedural, substantive, or institutional—is treated as a meaningful semiotic act that contributes to the stabilization of constitutional meaning. The article argues that the Jordanian Constitutional Court operates not merely as an interpreter of an open constitutional text, but as a producer and regulator of constitutional signs, shaping who may speak, what may be said, and when constitutional debate is deemed complete. In doing so, the Court constructs a semiotic regime characterized by closure, hierarchy, and authoritative control over constitutional discourse.