Dimitry Vladimirovich Kochenov

Welcoming Russian Navy to Cyprus Should Be a Violation of EU Law

The struggle for the continued observance of Article 2 TEU values in the EU is on-going. Arguably, it is now much more acute than ever before. The news that Cyprus considers granting the Russian military access to military bases on its territory is just another urgent reminder of the mounting necessity to upgrade the Union’s role in dealing with values crises in the Member States – both internally and externally – issues which are indispensable for the Union’s survival. Continue reading >>

Adam Bodnar

CIA Torture Sites in Poland: Thirty Million Dollars for Torture Victims

According to the US Senate report into the CIA rendition programme and prisons, US authorities paid 30 million dollars to Polish secret services in return for the opportunity to establish and operate the CIA detention facility in Stare Kiejkuty. Our country clearly has a lesson to learn. This lesson is to create a comprehensive assistance programme for victims of torture. A sum of 30 million dollars should be enough to finance such a system over the few years following its establishment. Continue reading >>

Tobias Lock

Will the empire strike back? Strasbourg’s reaction to the CJEU’s accession opinion

Annual reports by international courts are rarely the stuff of controversy or harbingers of judicial conflict. Thus the strongly worded response to the European Court of Justice’s (CJEU) Opinion 2/13 in the annual report of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) presented by President Spielmann yesterday warrants a few comments. It is recalled that the CJEU considered the draft agreement on the EU’s accession to the ECHR to be incompatible with the Treaties on a number of grounds. Academic criticism followed promptly, not least on this blog. The short passage in the President’s foreword to the ECtHR’s annual report, probably squeezed in in the last minute, constitutes a first reaction by the institution most affected by the Opinion. Continue reading >>

Anna Śledzińska-Simon

Ritual Animal Slaughter and Public Morality: a Comment on the Decision of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal

A landmark case of a constitutional court can be told by its impact on consecutive judgments and our understanding of constitutional law and practice. Yet, in the jurisprudence of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal, there are a handful of cases considered as landmark decisions not because of their outcome or the way they are decided, but because the Tribunal got them wrong. In this sense, the Polish ritual animal slaughter case is a landmark decision. Continue reading >>

Remo Caponi

A Fresh Start: How to Resolve the Conflict between the ICJ and the Italian Constitutional Court

Three months ago the Italian Constitutional Court decided that it would infringe the fundamental rights of Italians to follow the International Court of Justice and uphold state immunity as a barrier for individual claims of war crime victims (decision no. 238 of 2014). First commentators have pointed out the conflict between the two courts and the regime collision between international and domestic law. Germany’s possible reaction to the Italian breach of international law has also been taken into consideration. Finally, the possible role of the Italian Constitutional Court’s reasoning in the further development of international law with regard to state immunity in cases of serious human rights violations, which amount to the breach of a jus cogens rule, has been the focus of some contributions. I would suggest making a fresh start in this debate. What we need right now are procedural mechanisms to harmonize for the future, as far as possible, the claim of sovereign immunity and access to the courts, in case a state happens to be in a better position to settle the dispute at the international level in the interests of the victims. Continue reading >>

Christoph Herrmann

OMT-Verfahren in der Kritik: Von Juristen, Ökonomen und wer wofür kompetent ist

Daran, dass Ökonomen, die über keinerlei juristische Ausbildung verfügen, über Rechtsfragen räsonieren (oder auch schwadronieren), daran hat man sich in der Eurokrise längst gewöhnt. Dass sie anfangen, Juristen umgekehrt deren freimütige Einräumung ihrer ökonomischen Unkenntnis auch noch anzukreiden, das ist neu. Nichts anderes aber hat Jürgen Stark, immerhin ehemaliger Chefvolkswirt und Mitglied im Direktorium der Europäischen Zentralbank, jedoch getan. Continue reading >>

Julian Staben

Colourful Case Law: Citation Analysis of the German Constitutional Court’s Jurisprudence

Mit wachsender Rechenkraft und allgegenwärtigem Anfallen von Daten hat auch die Netzwerkanalyse als Methode der Sozialforschung rege Verbreitung gefunden. Sie knüpft an den Verbindungen von Einheiten an und sucht hieraus Schlüsse über die Beschaffenheit des Netzwerks und seiner Kausalitäten zu ziehen. Die Netzwerkanalyse wurde beispielsweise zur Erforschung digitaler Einflusssphären ebenso verwendet wie zur Analyse von Terrorzellen. Auch den Entscheidungen des U.S. Supreme Courts und schließlich auch dem deutschen BGB wurde bereits netzwerkanalytisch zu Leibe gerückt. Das Netzwerk, welches sich aus den Verweisungen der Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts aufeinander ergibt, liegt jedoch bisher im Dunkeln. Continue reading >>

Giovanna De Minico

A Tale of Two States: Rule of Law in the Age of Terrorism

As a reaction to the recent terrorist attacks in France, several EU member states as well as the EU itself have announced significant anti-terrorism measures. To fear, which is the first result of terrorism, the state has to respond with the wisdom of a legislator, which should not act under the pressure of understandable emotional feelings. The State of Terror wants to spread chilling fear and make people feel alone and without protection by the State of Law. The State of Law should respond by educating its community to the values of legality, tolerance and solidarity. Its duty, in times of fear, is an ethical rather than a police one; it has to make the people leave their isolation and facilitate their social and political inclusion. This action requires concrete actions by political decision-makers. Continue reading >>

Dimitry Vladimirovich Kochenov, Laurent Pech

From bad to worse? On the Commission and the Council’s rule of law initiatives

The rule of law is one of the fundamental values on which the EU is founded according to Article 2 TEU. Faced with a rising number of ‘rule of law crises’ in a number of EU countries, the Commission adopted a new ‘pre-Article 7’ procedure last March in order to address any instance where there is a evidence of a systemicthreat to the rule of law. Having criticised the Commission’s initiative primarily on the (unconvincing) ground that it would breach the principle of conferral which governs the allocation of powers between the EU and its Member States, the Council proposed its own solution: a rule of law dialogue between national governments and to be held once a year in Brussels. Both initiatives, and in particular, the Council’s, appear grossly inadequate to tackle the problem of ‘rule of law backsliding post EU accession’ to quote Frans Timmermans, the First Vice-President of the Commission in charge inter alia of the Rule of Law. Continue reading >>

Thomas Hochmann

La liberté d’expression après Charlie Hebdo : le fantasme du double standard

En France, on peut se moquer des musulmans mais pas des juifs. C’est bien la preuve que ces derniers dirigent secrètement notre pays. Cette vieille thèse antisémite a récemment trouvé une nouvelle vigueur en France. Pourtant, elle constitue une description inexacte des lois françaises et de la manière dont elles sont appliquées. Continue reading >>

Ruth Rubio Marín

The Constitutional Status of Women in Turkey at a Crossroads: Reflections from Comparison

Since its foundation, the Turkish Republic took the enhanced status of women to epitomize its promise of modernity. Yet to the extent that women's equality was even articulated in Turkey, as well as anywhere else in that time, its expression was primarily sought in the public, not in the private, domain. Sex inequalities are still present in the Turkish legal order and the Turkish Constitutional Court has thus far had an erratic jurisprudence, sometimes prioritizing the need to overcome gender stereotypes and hierarchies, sometimes justifying unequal treatment and perpetuating such gender stereotypes. Continue reading >>

Fabian Amtenbrink

Outright Monetary Transactions before the ECJ: In search of the ‘golden mean’

In its preliminary ruling on the the ‘Outright Monetary Transactions’ programme of the ECB, the ECJ will have to find the ‘golden mean’. On the one hand, it is improbable that the European judges will risk a constitutional conflict with the highest German court by given their unqualified approval of the OMT. On the other hand, not only the unlikely rejection of the OMT in its entirety, but also the imposition of limits on the overall amount of purchases of government bonds could compromise the success of the mere announcement of the OMT in calming the markets and, moreover, provoke a resurgence of the Euro area financial and debt crisis. Arguably the dilemmas this involves are reflected in the opinion on this case by Advocate General Cruz Villalón. Continue reading >>

Elke Cloots

Cruz Villalón’s ,Gauweiler’ Opinion: Lost in Platitudes

On 14 January 2015, Advocate General Cruz Villalón delivered his Opinion in the Gauweiler case. The Opinion had been eagerly awaited, because it concerns the first reference ever for a preliminary ruling made by the German Constitutional Court (GCC), after decades of refusal to engage into direct dialogue with the ECJ. Nevertheless, it would be misguided to portray the GCC’s request for a preliminary ruling as a major turning point in its case law, heralding a new, gentler era in its relationship with the ECJ. For several reasons, which have been discussed extensively elsewhere, it seems that the preliminary reference procedure was not used for purposes of ‘judicial cooperation’ or ‘judicial dialogue’. One of those reasons is that the GCC claims for itself the last word on the legality of the impugned EU act. Even if the ECJ were to conclude that the Union had remained within the limits of its powers as laid down in the Treaties and, thus, that its action was valid, the GCC reserves to itself the right to review the action in light of Germany’s constitutional identity. Continue reading >>