Wenn Demokratie blockiert wird
Im November 2025 soll in Gießen die neue AfD-Jugendorganisation gegründet werden. Das Netzwerk „Widersetzen“ mobilisiert zu Blockaden, um genau das zu verhindern. Solche Verhinderungsaktionen sind längst Teil einer neuen Protestpraxis, die nicht mehr nur widerspricht, sondern politische Betätigung gezielt unterbindet. Damit rückt eine heikle Frage in den Mittelpunkt: Wann kippt Protest in eine Gefahr für die Demokratie selbst?
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Not All Mandates Are Equal
The European Parliament, following the recommendations of its Committee on Legal Affairs, voted against waiving the immunity of two of its Members elected in Hungary, Péter Magyar and Klára Dobrev on the requests of the Hungarian authorities in early October 2025. In determining the fate of representatives elected in a Member State that is no longer democratic, the European Parliament reached the right decision, based on the wrong premises. Undemocratically elected MEPs should enjoy immunity only if they belong to the undemocratic regime’s opposition and have no record of dismantling democratic institutions.
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The Omnibus Road to Constitutional Drift
The European Union is undergoing a fundamental transformation in the way it makes law. Responding to calls for simplification and competitiveness, echoed and amplified by demands of the US Administration, the Commission has embraced omnibus legislation – single acts that amend multiple legal instruments across disparate regulatory domains – as the principal mechanism for systematic deregulatory reform. Once limited to technical consolidation, the omnibus has become a vehicle for substantive policy change. This shift fundamentally alters the procedural architecture through which regulatory change occurs.
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One Step Back and Two Steps Forward
In May, after years of litigation, the Higher Regional Court of Hamm rendered its final decision in Lliuya v. RWE AG – a landmark case in which a Peruvian farmer sought to hold the German energy giant RWE financially responsible for measures protecting his property from a potential glacier flood. Although the Court rejected the claim in the end, the judgment has been celebrated as a “success without victory” due to the potential precedent effect in terms of corporate liability. The true significance of the Lliuya v. RWE decision lies not in its dismissal of the plaintiff’s claim, but in the court’s reasoning on extraterritoriality, causality, and preventive protection.
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Doxing Judges
More than a decade after the Baka judgment, Hungary’s judges remain exposed. A massive data leak has revealed personal details of nearly 200,000 citizens — including judges — allegedly linked to an opposition app. Pro-government media swiftly published their names, questioning their impartiality and even calling for dismissals. Instead of protecting those targeted, judicial leaders hinted at disciplinary action.
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A “One-Way Ratchet”?
On Wednesday, November 5, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court heard one of the most anticipated oral arguments in recent times. In Learning Resources v. Trump and Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc., the Court is examining the legality of President Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose sweeping tariffs. The case lies at the intersection of two powerful, and potentially conflicting, trends in the Court’s recent jurisprudence: on the one hand, efforts to constrain delegations of power to the executive; on the other, a recurring embrace of expansive presidential authority. Each path carries significant risks for the broader balance of powers in the U.S. constitutional system.
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Reden und reden lassen
In Plenardebatten werden Themen gesetzt und aufgegriffen, die Mehrheit präsentiert und begründet ihre Politik, die Opposition präsentiert ihre Kritik und Gegenentwürfe. Der Bundestag hat nun mit der Reform seiner Geschäftsordnung die Regeln für die Plenardebatte nachgeschärft. Vor allem wurde das Ermessen der sitzungsleitenden Bundestagspräsidentin normativ gestärkt und das parlamentarische Ordnungsrecht verschärft – was beides nachvollziehbar und stimmig ist. Eine konzise Sitzungsleitung und der abschreckende Effekt hoher Ordnungsgelder können die Wahrscheinlichkeit erhöhen, dass allzu grobe Ausfälle parlamentarischer Rede seltener werden.
Continue reading >>What is the ECHR For and What Not
In a statement to the British daily The Sunday Times on 26 October 2025, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk welcomed the radical idea that, if the 46 signatories cannot agree on changes to the European Convention on Human Rights, it would be “quite reasonable” to consider leaving it. We urge the Prime Minister to publicly renounce these considerations, as the Convention forms a constitutional element of Poland’s commitment to external human rights oversight and to protection of shared human rights within a united and peaceful Europe.
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Stadtbilder
Bundeskanzler Friedrich Merz hat Mitte Oktober mit seiner sogenannten „Stadtbild“-Äußerung polarisiert: Er lobte die sinkende Zahl von Migranten und stellte fest, dass es trotzdem „im Stadtbild noch dieses Problem“ gebe. Neben der Vagheit seiner Aussage ist daran vor allem problematisch, dass Merz dadurch Exklusionspraktiken legitimiert und ein gesellschaftliches Klima schafft, in dem sich Menschen mit (familiärer) Migrationsgeschichte fragen müssen, ob sie noch dazugehören. Aus soziologischer Perspektive wird deutlich: Die Rhetorik des Kanzlers produziert jene Unsicherheit, die sie vorgibt, lediglich zu artikulieren.
Continue reading >>„Wir dürfen niemals die Hoffnung auf die Zukunft verlieren“
Fünf Fragen an Michael O’Flaherty
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CURRENT DEBATES
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 symposium proposes ways out of the copyright conundrum by rethinking copyright as an access right. It is the outcome of a conference held in the European Parliament on 10 July 2025.
Read all articles >>Mapping Article 13: Academic and Scientific Freedom under the EU Charter
Academic freedom is under pressure. Though protected by Article 13 of the EU Charter, this article received practically no or very little attention in both scholarship and EU institutional and jurisprudential practice. As legal and political developments accelerate, the meaning of this right is taking shape in real time. This symposium puts Article 13 in the spotlight and reflects its potential in light of past and present threats to academic freedom. Co-edited by Vasiliki Kosta and Marie Müller-Elmau.
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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
Friedrich Zillessen (Hrsg.)
Die vorbereitete Demokratie:
Resilienz durch Antizipation im Thüringen-Projekt
Was wäre, wenn autoritär-populistische Akteure in Thüringen Zugang zu staatlichen Machtmitteln erhielten? Wie würden sie vorgehen, um ihr eigenes Abgewähltwerden zu erschweren? Welche rechtlichen und institutionellen Spielräume stünden ihnen offen?
Für diesen Sammelband haben wir 35 Blogposts aus dem Thüringen-Projekt ausgewählt, die diesen Fragen nachgehen und über tagespolitische Ereignisse hinaus Relevanz entfalten. Die Beiträge testen Schwachstellen, entwickeln Szenarien und führen die Debatte über Resilienz weiter – und tragen so dazu bei, dass die Demokratie besonders dann wehrhaft ist, wenn sie vorbereitet ist.
PROJECTS
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.
Das Justiz-Projekt
Weltweit gerät die unabhängige und unparteiische Justiz unter den Druck des autoritären Populismus.
Wie verwundbar ist die rechtsprechende Gewalt in Deutschland – im Bund und in den Ländern?
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.
EDITORIAL
„Wir dürfen niemals die Hoffnung auf die Zukunft verlieren“
Fünf Fragen an Michael O’Flaherty
Continue reading >>We Must Never Cease to Hope in the Possibility of a Future
Five Questions to Michael O’Flaherty
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