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POSTS BY Mattias Kumm
22 July 2024
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“Never Again”

“Never again” is, first and foremost, a story. It’s a story about our collective fears, anxieties, and aspirations, those moments and events that we have promised ourselves that will never be repeated. The Jewish story is interwoven with the Holocaust—the killing of six million Jews in Europe and the urgency of the re-establishment of a Jewish state to solve the problem of Jewish homelessness. Yet the constitutional and international meaning of “never again” depends on one’s position and point of view, and it changes over time. The chain reaction that began with the horrors of WWII continues to drive constitutional and international agendas. It is clear that “history talks,” but in which direction? Continue reading >>
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13 January 2022
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Open Call: Der Auftrag der Bundesbeauftragten

Regierungsamtliche Diskursteilnahme in Zeiten der Ampel und ihre verfassungsrechtlichen Grenzen: ein Online-Symposium des Verfassungsblogs und des Exzellenzclusters SCRIPTS. Continue reading >>
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12 January 2021
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Closing Roundtable

In closing, we aim to take stock of the two-day conference and our attempt to bring into conversation scholars from different backgrounds to understand the implications of multiplicity for the theory and practice of law beyond the state. Continue reading >>
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20 April 2020

Gegen obrigkeits­staatliche Tendenzen in der Krise

Als Korrelat zur krisenbedingten Rechtfertigung von Grundrechtseingriffen ergibt sich aus dem Prinzipiencharakter der Grundrechte eine Schutzpflicht des Staates, im Rahmen des Möglichen und nach Maßgabe dessen, was erforderlich und verhältnismäßig ist, eine Situation herbeizuführen, in der die Beschränkungen wieder aufgehoben werden können. Wenn das richtig sein sollte, hat das auch wichtige Konsequenzen für die Art und Weise, in der Diskussionen über die Lockerung der Coronamaßnahmen geführt werden sollten und nach welchen Maßstäben die Arbeit der Regierung/en sinnvollerweise beurteilt wird. Continue reading >>
09 February 2020
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„Trump ist nicht das Problem, sondern nur ein Symptom“

Das Impeachment-Verfahren gegen Donald Trump, warum es scheitern musste und welche Schäden es hinterlässt: ein Interview mit Mattias Kumm. Continue reading >>
06 December 2018

How populist authoritarian nationalism threatens constitutionalism or: Why constitutional resilience is a key issue of our time

The problem with movements and parties spearheaded by “populist” leaders such as Putin, Erdoğan, Orbán, Kaczyński or Trump is not that they happen to embrace more nationally focused policies that metropolitan elites widely condemn as unjust, ineffective or otherwise misguided. Nor is the problem that they embrace a confrontational political style and uncouth rhetoric at odds with the mores of reflexively enlightened society in political capitals across liberal constitutional democracies. Neither of those features would constitute a constitutional threat justifying sustained reflections on constitutional resilience. The problem with electoral successes of populist authoritarian nationalists is that they pose a fundamental threat to liberal constitutional democracy. Continue reading >>
06 December 2018
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Introduction: Constitutional Resilience and the German Grundgesetz

What lessons does the plight of the Polish and the Hungarian democracy hold for a seemingly stable constitutional state like Germany? How resilient would the German constitutional setup turn out to be in the case of an authoritarian majority taking and successfully holding on to power? What kind of legal or institutional changes may be helpful to make that event less likely and/or less hard to prevent? These were the questions we aimed to address in a debate jointly organized by Verfassungsblog and WZB Center for Global Constitutionalism, generously supported by Stiftung Mercator. Continue reading >>
06 September 2017

Demokratie als verfassungs­feindlicher Topos

Demokratie wird im Diskurs der Gegenwart von populistisch-autoritären Nationalisten gegen die Errungenschaften des offenen freiheitlich demokratischen Verfassungsstaats in Stellung gebracht. Im Zentrum steht dabei die pluralismusfeindliche Idee eines einheitlichen Volkswillens, der alleinige Grundlage politischer Legitimität sein soll. Diese Idee erklärt vier problematische anti-konstitutionelle Merkmale national-autoritärer Ideologien. Continue reading >>
04 April 2017

“A Roguish and Unpopular President is potentially an Occasion for the Judiciary to Shine”

Will Democrats be able to block Neil Gorsuch's confirmation as Supreme Court Justice, and how will it affect the Court if they won't? Mattias Kumm on the latest developments in the nomination process and the judiciary's role in holding the Trump administration in check. Continue reading >>
14 March 2017
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Impeaching Remnants of the Authoritarian Past: A Constitutional Moment in South Korea

Last Friday, effective March 10 at exactly 11:21 a.m., the sitting President Park Geun-hye was removed from her office by a unanimous decision of the South Korean Constitutional Court. With public life coming to a standstill as eyes focused on TV and internet live broadcasting, the acting Chief Justice delivered the court decision. The conclusion of the constitutional impeachment procedure marked the climax of a transformative ongoing constitutional moment in South Korea. Continue reading >>