The Weimers Report and the Politicisation of Judicial Independence in the EU
On 29 June 2026, the European Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs rapporteur Charlie Weimers published a draft report, to be presented at a public hearing on July 15, on “The Institutional Framework of the European Union and its Interaction with National Authorities in the Application of Union Law, with Particular Reference to Article 19 TEU”. The CJEU's historic reluctance to open up its own governance, notwithstanding what the post-Lisbon constitutional arrangement requires of it, has left it exposed to an unprecedented political critique of how it delivers justice within the EU.
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Das Ende der herrschaftsfreien Vergesellschaftungsdebatte
Es gehört zu den Eigenheiten des Grundgesetzes, dass eine Norm, die seit 1949 niemals angewandt worden ist, die verfassungsrechtliche Diskussion in den vergangenen Jahren stärker beschäftigt hat als zahlreiche Vorschriften, die tagtäglich diskutiert, vollzogen und gerichtlich überprüft werden. Art. 15 GG war über Jahrzehnte ein Verfassungstext ohne Verfassungswirklichkeit. Gerade deshalb konnte sich um die Vorschrift in jüngster Zeit ein ungewöhnlich vielfältiger rechtswissenschaftlicher Diskurs entwickeln.
Continue reading >>Press-Release Governance
On 10 July 2026, the European Commission announced that it had preliminarily found Meta in breach of the Digital Services Act for the “addictive design” of Instagram and Facebook. The Commission considers that Meta should disable autoplay and infinite scroll by default, build in real screen-time breaks, and make the recommender system “less engagement-oriented”. The decision is better understood from its strategic and symbolic dimensions in view of its contestable legal basis.
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Ohne Frist – ohne Druck?
Im September wählen Sachsen-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern und Berlin einen neuen Landtag. Die Regierungsbildung im Anschluss an den Wahltag wird voraussichtlich nicht einfach. Sofern nicht die AfD eine absolute Mehrheit erreichen sollte, wird eine Zusammenarbeit von Parteien nötig, die ideologisch weit voneinander entfernt sind. Die verfassungsrechtlichen Vorgaben zur Regierungsbildung in den drei Ländern haben unterschiedliche Folgen, die auch weiter in die Regierungszeit hineinwirken können. Denn starre Fristen können zu einer instabilen und schwach legitimierten Regierung führen. Daher gilt: Schneller ist nicht besser!
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Le Pen’s Gambit
Marine Le Pen’s presidential campaign began not with a rally but with a court judgment. By announcing her candidacy in a prime-time television interview within hours of the Paris Court of Appeal largely upholding her criminal conviction, the leader of the Rassemblement National has placed one of Europe's oldest constitutional democracies on a path toward a direct confrontation between electoral politics and judicial authority.
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Wehrdienst unter einem verfassungsfeindlichen Verteidigungsminister
Welche Handlungsmöglichkeiten haben Soldatinnen und Soldaten, wenn ihr oberster Dienstherr nicht mehr auf dem Boden der freiheitlich demokratischen Grundordnung steht? Für die meisten kommt weder in Betracht, unter einem verfassungsfeindlichen Verteidigungsminister zu dienen, noch zu desertieren und sich damit strafbar zu machen. Beides kann ihnen ebenso wenig zugemutet werden. Das Soldatengesetz bietet bislang keine Möglichkeit, in so einem Fall das Dienstverhältnis ohne große Hürden zu beenden. Daher ist es geboten, verfassungstreuen Soldat:innen einen rechtssicheren und unbürokratischen „legalen Exit“ aus der Bundeswehr zu ermöglichen.
Continue reading >>Heatwaves and Legal Remedies
Europe suffered an unprecedented heatwave this June, with debilitating effects felt across various walks of life: thousands of deaths, particularly among the elderly, individuals and families suffering in “heat-trap” apartments, hospitals full and caught unprepared, school closures, and productivity losses. Adaptation measures are indispensable for coping with these soaring temperatures, which have cost lives and severely affected people’s well-being. However, rights-based litigation involving adaptation in Europe has until recently been notable by its absence.
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Schädlicher Schutz?
Nachdem das Europäische Parlament bereits am 19.05.2026 abgelehnt hatte, die Immunität der Abgeordneten Angelika Niebler aufzuheben, stimmte es am 07.07.2026 gegen die Aufhebung der Immunität des Abgeordneten Ilhan Kyuchyuk. In beiden Verfahren kamen die Anträge auf Aufhebung der Immunität von der Europäischen Staatsanwaltschaft. Die beiden Fälle weisen neben Gemeinsamkeiten auch Unterschiede auf. Deutlich wird dabei, dass das Verhältnis zwischen Europäischer Staatsanwaltschaft und Europaparlamentariern immer mehr zur Zerreißprobe wird und Reformen bedarf.
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Dignity Without Autonomy
In Prajwala v. Union of India, the Supreme Court held that victims of trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation have a right to rehabilitation under Article 23 read with the right to dignity under Article 21. While the judgment has been celebrated for its three-dimensional dignity framework, it is a missed opportunity to articulate a constitutional basis for protecting the rights of sex workers. The Court's dignity framework – calibrated against objectification in trafficking – is insufficient alone to address persons who assert agency over their work. I argue that reading it alongside decisional autonomy fills the gap.
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Erfurt Shines
Last weekend I was in Erfurt, the place where the authoritarian-populist AfD party held its annual federal convention. On Saturday I got up at the crack of dawn to help block the AfD delegates from reaching the assembly hall. Was I supposed to do that? As managing director of a legal-scholarly discourse platform should I not have remained neutral? The demand to forbid oneself from discriminating between non-banned parties loyal to the constitution and non-banned parties hostile to it is questionable not only insofar as it is addressed to democratic civil society, but also and especially insofar as it is addressed to scholarship.
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CURRENT DEBATES
European Society After Commission v Hungary
The landmark judgment in Commission v Hungary has opened a new chapter in the history of EU law. In this decision, the CJEU not only held that Article 2 TEU can be invoked as a self-standing provision in infringement proceedings but also acknowledged the existence of a European society, in which certain values prevail – a historic first. In this symposium, we aim at showing the diverse ways in which scholars from law, philosophy, and the social sciences reflect on European society, in and beyond Commission v Hungary.
Read all articles >>Inter-Judicial Dialogue on Climate Change and Human Rights
This symposium brings together judges, practitioners, and scholars from the European, Inter-American, and African regional human rights systems to examine climate change as a human rights challenge, tracing shared legal questions, divergent doctrinal responses, and the growing importance of inter-judicial dialogue in shaping transnational climate justice.
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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
Erfurt Shines
Last weekend I was in Erfurt, the place where the authoritarian-populist AfD party held its annual federal convention. On Saturday I got up at the crack of dawn to help block the AfD delegates from reaching the assembly hall. Was I supposed to do that? As managing director of a legal-scholarly discourse platform should I not have remained neutral? The demand to forbid oneself from discriminating between non-banned parties loyal to the constitution and non-banned parties hostile to it is questionable not only insofar as it is addressed to democratic civil society, but also and especially insofar as it is addressed to scholarship.
VB SECURITY AND CRIME
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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.