Kategorie: Rule of Law Reflections
Rule of Law Reflections features selected publications from the re:constitution Working Paper series that address and deliberate current questions regarding democracy, the protection of fundamental rights and the rule of law in Europe. The series collects contributions from re:constitution Fellows & alumni and other members of the network connected to the programme. It includes both perspectives from academia and practice and aims to encourage debates and exchange across professional fields, disciplines and (national) borders. It is an open access format, informed by the ongoing research and experience of the authors and aiming to promote debate and commentary.
re:constitution – Exchange and Analysis on Democracy and the Rule of Law in Europe aims to inspire comprehensive discussion about and around questions of democracy, the rule of law, and the protection of fundamental rights in Europe. Funded by Stiftung Mercator and co-managed by the Forum Transregionale Studien and Democracy Reporting International, the programme awards Fellowships to early-career scholars and practitioners, offers topical analysis and builds up a growing European network of experts on the rule of law and democracy.
By Oliver Garner. It may have seemed that the EU’s “Rule of Law crisis” was finally being resolved as 2023 commenced. For the first time since 2015, action by the EU institutions induced both Hungary and Poland to adopt legislation on the organisation of their judiciaries. The decisive factor appears to have been the use of financial pressure through the withholding of EU funds. Nevertheless, problems on a number of fronts suggest that this will not be the silver bullet to solve the values crisis.
By Viktoria Kraetzig. The copyright/free speech conflict is inherent in copyright law: copyright grants its owners a limited monopoly on a work, which is also a communication content. If third parties copy the work, they might infringe copyright while invoking their fundamental right of free speech. The conflict arises because free speech doctrine does not distinguish whether someone speaks with own or other people’s words, whether something has been said for the first, second or hundredth time: speaking is speaking. And so is copying.
By Colleen Boland. Europe faces increasing patterns of crimmigration, or the merging of criminal and migration law, discourse and practices. Refugees and asylum seekers are conflated with more general migrant populations, and are likewise subjected to these phenomena as well. This article asks how refugee or asylum seeker women experience or negotiate crimmigration rhetoric, policies and practices, particularly in light of the EU fundamental rights to asylum and non-discrimination.
By Théo Fournier. This essay argues that rule-of-law culture could be an avenue of research to address the issue of constitutional resilience of liberal democratic regimes, i.e. the capacity of liberal constitution to resist the passage of time and to remain legitimate in the eyes of the citizenry.
By Catherine Warin. This article argues that enhancing rights consciousness across societies in Europe can help make individual rights a reality and strengthen individual and collective confidence in the EU’s legal system. The author gives a brief reminder of the nature, function and value of rights in the EU legal system and discusses rights consciousness as a precondition for rights effectiveness.
By Veronica Anghel. This contribution delves into the intricate interplay between formal and informal institutions in contemporary
European political landscapes. It investigates the vital role of informal institutions in supplementing and at times
circumventing the formal rules that define the parameters of political functioning.
By Maciej Taborowski. This contribution takes a closer look at how the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has shaped the value of rule of law as the “very identity of the EU legal order”, and how it has used the rule of law to build a “shield” that serves as a defense for national judges against interference with their independence on the basis of the principle of effective judicial protection. Such a “shield” is particularly useful in those EU Member States where there is an ongoing rule of law crisis, such as Poland.
By Felipe Hernández. This article explores the socio-political costs of global destabilization in countries where democracy is a contested terrain between opposing actors and where the rule of law is a reality experienced by a minority. Nowadays, South Eastern Europe and Central America allow us to follow the shadow zones of democracy, where a large part of their inhabitants live a life on the margins of the globalization of capital.
By Amélie Jaques-Apke. As Europe begins to emerge from a pandemic, we begin to evaluate emerging
political damages. Now more than ever, we must understand how radical right populist parties design their message toward vulnerable, crisis-shaken populations. The objective of this study is to reflect critically on the interplay between democracy and populism, exploring recent discursive developments of
the parties Vox and The League and its power relations, which are linked to the exogenous shocks provoked
by the pandemic. The author used qualitative techniques of content analysis, and conducted interviews with scholars and political actors, and group discussions with local actors for several months.
In this article, Katilin Sulyok analyses the growing body of future generations litigation, i.e. lawsuits in which plaintiffs seek protection to long-term needs of future generations typically in domestic climate change and environmental
litigation.
