Are liberal democracies in decline? If they are, what role does populism play in this? What can and should democracies do to defend their core features against ‘democratic decay’? And which features can be considered essential? These are difficult questions further complicated by the realisation that their answers depend on perspective. Populism and democratic decay are global phenomena but they play out differently in different countries and regions. They also cannot be properly understo...

This book presents a selection from papers, including some speeches and book chapters, published by Ernst Hirsch Ballin in English since 1991. His work, both in academic life and in several public offices, expresses an awareness of the impact of a lack of public trust and trustworthiness concerning respect for human rights and the rule of law, and the effects that this often has in cross-border relations.

The papers, starting with a programmatic speech on ‘investing in confidence’ at a sy...

The book is the extended version of the inaugural lecture given by Professor Petra Bárd on 21 September 2023 on the occasion of her taking up the Chair in Sustainable Rule of Law at the Research Centre for State and Law (SteR) in the Faculty of Law at Radboud University, Nijmegen.

Professor Bárd places the specific manifestation of rule of law deficiencies in the evolution of European criminal justice within a broader constitutional context. She has led the way in reframing the academic and...

Proportionality analysis describes a particular legal technique of resolving conflicts between human or constitutional rights and public interests through a process of balancing. As a general tendency, the current vivid academic debate on proportionality pays, however, insufficient attention to the institutional context – the question of judicial review. Based on the premise that proportionality analysis is a permissible approach to resolve conflicts between rights and other interests, the ...

This book analyses the institution of Minister of Justice in the constitutional systems of several European countries: the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, and Poland. The research was based on the hypothesis that the Minister of Justice is, in fact, inessential, because the institution is to a large extent incompatible with the principles of the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary. Certain competences currently assigned to this institution migh...

Comparative Constitutional Justice adopts an innovative approach to constitutional justice. From a methodological perspective, it assumes that it is impossible to apply an absolute criterion of classification, which depends on the purposes comparative scholars aim to achieve when delivering their own taxonomies. A broad definition of constitutional justice is adopted, which revolves around the following taxonomy: 1) the legality of norms, 2) the conformity of actors’ behaviours with the dis...

Judicial dialogue is one of the pressing phenomena in contemporary EU law and constitutional law. It is a device of judicial policy-making and networking and instrument for policy coordination and negotiation between the national, international and supranational legal orders. Judicial dialogue is also tipping point of the influence of courts on multilevel constitutional politics in the context of global constitutional (dis)order.

This book provides original analysis of the different aspects o...

This book provides a selection of interesting papers presented at the Third REALaw Research Forum, which was held in Utrecht on January 30, 2015. The overarching theme of the colloquium was Judicial Coherence in the European Union.

Ever since the establishment of the EU's judicial system, coherence in the administration of justice within the EU has been an intriguing topic for debate amongst legal scholars and practitioners. Throughout the development of EU (administrative) law in recent decad...