Constitutional Disobedience by Statute
For two decades, Indonesia’s Constitutional Court rolled back vague speech offences, unchecked police powers, and procedural rules that enabled arbitrary prosecution. The new criminal and criminal procedure codes, in force since January 2026, reverse course. Some constitutional rulings were codified, others quietly revived, and still others stripped of their practical effect through legislative redesign. The result is a legal framework that expands state power while reopening constitutional conflicts once thought settled.
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Schulische Inklusion in Gefahr
Kinder mit Förderbedarf gehen im Schulsystem unter. Das BMBF will nun die Eingliederungshilfe grundlegend reformieren – und legt einen Entwurf vor, der den bisherigen individuellen Rechtsanspruch auf Schulbegleitung weitgehend abschafft. Damit greift das Ministerium zwar ein reales Problem auf. Doch die vorgeschlagene Lösung dürfte den Druck in den Schulen weiter erhöhen, die betroffenen Kinder schlechter stellen und verstößt gegen die UN-Behindertenrechtskonvention.
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Towards an “Associate Membership” Status for Ukraine?
In a recent letter addressed to the Cypriot Council Presidency and the leaders of the European Commission and the European Council, German Chancellor Friederich Merz proposed a status of “associate membership” for Ukraine. This “innovative solution” is presented as an intermediate step towards full membership. Whereas the political inspiration of Merz’s proposal is clear, its translation into practice raises significant questions.
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Vetoing the President?
Following Fidesz's electoral defeat, the country's new political leadership has pledged to dismantle the legal and institutional structures that enabled sixteen years of democratic backsliding. Yet one of the most powerful obstacles to that project may be hidden in plain sight: the constitutional powers of the President of the Republic. If President Tamás Sulyok chooses to use them aggressively, Hungary could soon find itself facing an unprecedented constitutional crisis.
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Sensibilität, nicht Nervosität
Am 27. April gab das Verwaltungsgericht Berlin dem Eilantrag der „Jüdischen Stimme für gerechten Frieden in Nahost e.V." statt: Der Verein hatte sich dagegen gewehrt, im Verfassungsschutzbericht 2024 als extremistisch eingestuft zu werden. Dahinter steckt ein grundsätzliches Problem. Der Verfassungsschutz bewegt sich auf einem schmalen Grat: dem zwischen noch Worten und schon Taten. Allzu schnell droht ein falsches Verständnis von Wehrhaftigkeit in Angst vor der Freiheitsausübung von (Grund-)Rechtsträgern umzuschlagen. In diesem Fall jedoch beweist das Verwaltungsgericht Berlin Sensibilität statt Nervosität.
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Constitutionally Anti-constitutional
Peru's presidential runoff on June 7 will decide between Keiko Fujimori and Roberto Sánchez – and whoever wins will become the country's tenth president in ten years. The presidency, however, has seemingly lost its political import. Parliament has effectively ruled Peru for the last decade: it has impeached four presidents since 2020 and rewritten the constitution to introduce a powerful new Senate, set to begin functioning on July 28. This Senate is, in essence, constitutionally anti-constitutional – its powers systematically undermine the very checks and balances that liberal constitutionalism exists to protect.
Continue reading >>Endstation Strafjustiz
Der Streit um das „Schwarzfahren“ kreist meist um Strafwürdigkeit, Verhältnismäßigkeit und überlastete Gefängnisse. Doch diese Perspektive verdeckt, worum es eigentlich geht: um die Frage, wer Zugang zu gesellschaftlicher Infrastruktur hat und unter welchen Bedingungen. § 265a StGB schützt nicht nur Vermögensinteressen, sondern stabilisiert eine soziale Zugangsordnung – mit weitreichenden Folgen für Sichtbarkeit, Zugehörigkeit und die Erfahrung staatlicher Kontrolle. An diesem für viele banalen Alltagsdelikt zeigt sich, wie eng Strafrecht und soziale Ungleichheit miteinander verflochten sind.
Continue reading >>Specifying a Fourth Integrity
The European Digital Fairness Act, which the Commission will table at the end of 2026 under the portfolio of Michael McGrath, is being drafted in the grammar of consumer protection. For adults, that grammar holds. For children, it is the wrong category. A child cannot meaningfully consent to the architectural shaping of the very faculties through which she would, as an adult, consent. The missing piece is the specification of a fourth layer of integrity for subjects in formation, grounded in the EU Charter and made operational by the legal occasion that the DFA provides.
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Kein Hindernis für die Drohnenabwehr
Berichte über Drohnen im europäischen und deutschen Luftraum reißen nicht ab. Mehrfach wurden Drohnenschwärme über Bundeswehrgelände und kritischer Infrastruktur gesichtet, die vermutlich Aufnahmen zu Aufklärungszwecken anfertigten. Teilweise wird das Grundgesetz als Hindernis für eine effektive Drohnenabwehr gesehen – die Verfassung erzeuge gerade bei Aufklärungsdrohnen eine Schutzlücke. Dieser Beitrag entwickelt mit Blick auf die Genese der Notstandsverfassung eine Mittelposition: Für die Abwehr von Aufklärungsdrohnen zur Sicherung militärischer Anlagen ist die Bundeswehr zuständig, für den Schutz ziviler Objekte die Landespolizei.
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Unfreezing EU Funds Without Melting the Rule of Law
Three years ago, we wrote Frozen, a story about how EU institutions had blocked billions of euros in EU funds on rule of law grounds for Poland and Hungary. After the recent Hungarian parliamentary elections, a much happier scenario is visible in Budapest and Brussels: unfreezing those same funds. But how can this be speedily achieved while honouring the rule of law? This is far from straightforward.
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CURRENT DEBATES
On Law and Politics in the Hungarian Transition
The Hungarian opposition’s landslide victory has raised high expectations in Hungarian and European society. Many now expect Fidesz’s hybrid regime to be swiftly undone and constitutional democracy restored. Hungarian and European institutions therefore face a momentous task. This symposium, emerging from a three-day conference at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (MPIL), offers analysis, legal imagination, and constructive critique. It brings together views by Hungarian, Polish, and other European and international experts on the constitutional transition, the judiciary, corruption, market, media, civil society, and the role of supranational actors.
Read all articles >>Reflexive Globalisation and the Law
In October 2025, a new Centre for Advanced Studies was established at the Humboldt University of Berlin’s Law Faculty. Named “Reflexive Globalisation and the Law: Colonial Legacies and their Implications in the 21st Century” (RefLex), the Centre explores the premise that the globalisation of law and legal discourse has entered a reflexive phase: one in which law and knowledge production about law are less and less one-directional exports from or within the Global North but rather dynamic, multidirectional exchanges that confront colonial legacies, epistemic hierarchies, and enduring asymmetries of power. This blog symposium, co-edited by Philipp Dann, Florian Jeßberger, and Kalika Mehta, aims to present and extend these interactions to a broader, accessible dialogue with a wider community beyond the university setting. Featuring contributions from a range of different disciplines and regions, the symposium serves as a public prelude to its official launch, which can be watched live here.
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Volume 7,Issue 2
July 2025
JUS COGENS
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Killing Hitler Word by Word: The Oath as Apocalyptic Lawmaking
GREGOR NOLL
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Adjudicating Climate Protest as a Tool of Modern Republicanism
DMITRII KUZNETSOV
OUR LATEST PUBLICATION
Christophe Geiger & Bernd Justin Jütte (eds.)
Enabling Access, Fostering Innovation: Towards a Digital Knowledge Agenda in Europe
Access to knowledge and information is essential to foster innovation. In the EU, existing copyright rules pose significant barriers to research and education. Instead of promoting access to knowledge resources, copyright creates legal uncertainty for researchers and educators and enables information intermediaries to exercise strict control over the use of protected works. This edited volume proposes ways out of the copyright conundrum by rethinking copyright as an access right.
Discover the Open Access digital edition here.
EDITORIAL
“A Perfect Constitutional Storm”
Taiwan’s situation is getting more precarious. During Trump’s China visit, he publicly described approved arms sales to Taiwan as a “bargaining chip” with Beijing, while Xi Jinping warned Trump of “clashes and even conflicts” if the Taiwan issue were not handled properly. But also internally, Taiwan is facing a deeper crisis: a protracted conflict between the executive and the legislature, a deadlocked Constitutional Court, and a polarised society. We asked Ming-Sung Kuo, a Reader in Law at Warwick Law School, how Taiwan is navigating this moment.
VB SECURITY AND CRIME
In cooperation with:
VB Security and Crime is a cooperation of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law (MPI-CSL) and the Verfassungsblog in the areas of public security law and criminal law. The MPI-CSL Institute is a member of the Max Planck Law network.