Adam Ploszka

Poverty as a Crime

In June 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court in the Opinion City of Grants Pass v. Johnson held that the Constitution does not guarantee individual protection against the criminalisation of homelessness. Similarly, in May 2024, the European Court of Human Rights found the case concerning the criminalisation of begging, Dian v. Denmark, inadmissible. Both of these judicial decisions are disputed since the criminalisation of poverty cannot solve the problem of homelessness or begging. Rather, it violates the fundamental dignity of the individual. Continue reading >>

Justine Batura

A Union of Equality?

Last Thursday, Ursula von der Leyen, the new – and former – President of the EU Commission presented the ‘Political Guidelines for the next European Commission 2024-2029’, her ideas and priorities for the coming mandate. This blogpost will examine whether the Guidelines are living up to the scale of the gender-related concerns and challenges that are facing the Union, as Ursula von der Leyen promises. It identifies a shift in tone in the Commission’s pledges to promoting gender equality and outlines some proposals that the German Women Lawyers Association (djb) has advanced in order to help tackle these challenges. Continue reading >>

Gloria González Fuster

Proximity, Amicable Settlements, and how the EU Guts GDPR Enforcement

The EU legislator is working on a new Regulation to modify the GDPR. Unfortunately, the reform features deeply troubling elements. It seeks to mainstream a controversial Irish approach to dealing with data protection complaints, namely “amicable settlements” between individuals and digital corporations. Further, and rather problematically, the reform foreshadows the end of the principle of proximity. Gutting – or at least eroding – the proximity principle should ring alarm bells for anyone concerned with effective judicial remedies in the EU. Continue reading >>

Christoph Gusy

Verbotene Vereinsmedien

In der Auseinandersetzung mit den Gegnern der Verfassung beweist und bewährt sich der demokratische Rechtsstaat. Auch dort, wo der Kampf gegen die freiheitliche demokratische Grundordnung zweifelsfrei festgestellt ist, sind die Voraussetzungen und Grenzen des Grundgesetzes selbst und der Gesetze zum Schutz der Verfassung einzuhalten. Wenig kann den Verfassungsschutz stärker delegitimieren als administrative Maßnahmen, welche rechtswidrig ergehen und später von den Gerichten beanstandet werden. Continue reading >>

Nikolas Guggenberger

Deutschlands Filibuster

Filibuster und Schuldenbremse tragen auf beiden Seiten des Atlantiks zu gesetzgeberischem Versagen bei. Dieses Versagen ist eine der Ursachen für die antidemokratischen Tendenzen. Die Entwicklungen der vergangenen Jahre in den USA sollten dem demokratischen Spektrum in Deutschland Warnung sein. Wer in Ansehung dieser Eindrücke eine symbolische schwarze Null über die realen Herausforderungen des 21. Jahrhunderts priorisiert, macht sich zum Steigbügelhalter deutscher Trumpisten. Die Europawahl war nur ein Warnschuss. Continue reading >>

Alberto Alemanno

Why and How the Hungarian Presidency Must Be Stopped

It took less than a week for Viktor Orbán to make the worst predictions about the Hungarian Presidency of the Council become true. Yet with a twist. If many had warned about the danger that such a Presidency would have paralysed the internal operation of the EU, nobody expected this could also cause confusion and damage to the Union’s foreign policy. How the EU Member States will react to it may define the overall credibility of the Union on the international stage, particularly at a time when it increasingly faces significant challenges both from within and the outside. Continue reading >>

Natalia Ángel-Cabo, Agenda Estado de Derecho

“Displacement due to environmental factors is one of the great tragedies of our time”

In a recent judgment, the Colombian Constitutional Court has ruled that displacement due to environmental factors can be legally considered as forced displacement triggering specific obligations of the State. The judgment (T-123 of 2024) highlights the deficit of constitutional protection for victims of environmental displacement, urging the state to develop specific strategies to address this issue. In this interview, Natalia Ángel-Cabo, a Judge at the Colombian Constitutional Court, explains the implications of the ruling and the concept of displacement due to environmental factors. Continue reading >>

Daniel Rietiker

Hate Speech on and off the Field

During the EURO 2024 in Germany, the UEFA has imposed a series of sanctions on fans and two players for inappropriate comments and gestures. Albania's player Mirlind Daku was suspended by UEFA's Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body (CEDB) for two UEFA representative team competition matches after chanting nationalist slogans. Turkey's Merih Demiral was suspended for two matches for celebrating his second goal against Austria with a "wolf salute". These sanctions can be considered justified under the standards of the European Convention on Human Rights ("ECHR"). However, in order to have an effective preventive effect, they should be accompanied by criminal investigations under national law. Continue reading >>

Natalie Alkiviadou

Prison for Fake News

In Cyprus, a new legislative proposal introduces a prison sentence of up to one year and/or a fine of up to EUR 3,000. I argue that criminally punishing fake news is absolutely horrifying for free speech, for media pluralism, and for democracy. Criminalizing fake news has a “chilling effect” and it causes a self-censorship by media, civil society organizations, and average citizens. Moreover, the concept of fake news is highly ambiguous and its criminalization is counterproductive as it is not reducing the problematic content but “often draws more attention to it.” Continue reading >>

Elettra Bietti

Online Speech at the US Supreme Court in Moody v. Netchoice

The First Amendment of the US Constitution raises some of the most difficult legal hurdles for regulating the global digital public sphere today. In Moody v. Netchoice, the US Supreme Court heard appeals from two judgments, an appeal from a decision of the Fifth Circuit declaring that Texas’ social media law H.B. 20 did not violate the First Amendment, and an appeal from a decision of the Eleventh Circuit finding Florida’s social media law S.B. 7072, instead, unconstitutional. These laws are similar in that they both attempt to impose must-carry and non-discrimination obligations on social media platforms, which in practice amounts to requiring them not to discriminate against conservative users’ posts. The compatibility of these two laws with the First Amendment cuts across a plethora of crucial issues on the future of social media regulation which the court could, but didn’t fully, address. Continue reading >>

Alexander Hobusch

Talkshow für alle?

Das Oberverwaltungsgericht NRW hat in einem vor der Europawahl ergangenen Eilbeschluss den WDR dazu verpflichtet, die Partei Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht („BSW“) zu der WDR-Sendung „Wahlarena 2024 Europa“ mit verschiedenen Spitzenkandidaten einzuladen. Das OVG änderte damit die Entscheidung des Verwaltungsgerichts Köln ab, welches den Eilantrag des BSW zuvor noch abgelehnt hatte. Die Entscheidungen bieten Anlass, die verfassungsrechtliche Struktur und die Kriterien des Zugangs von Parteien zu öffentlich-rechtlichen Wahlkampfsendungen näher zu beleuchten. Continue reading >>

Peter van Elsuwege

How Viktor Orbán Challenges the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy

Since the start of the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU), the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán pursued an active foreign policy. He went to Kyiv for a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, made a surprise visit to Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, attended an informal summit of the Organisation of Turkic States hosted by Ilham Aliyev, President of Azerbaijan, and then flew to Beijing for a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Orbán’s self-declared ‘peace diplomacy’ illustrates – once more – the challenges surrounding the EU’s external representation. His visits are nothing else than an expression of Hungarian national foreign policy. Also in that capacity, however, his actions are problematic in view of Hungary’s obligations under the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy. Continue reading >>