The Judicial

Resilience Project

The Judicial Resilience Project

Across the globe, independent courts are facing increasing pressure from authoritarian populism. How vulnerable is the judiciary in Germany – both at the federal and state level?

Across the globe, independent courts are facing increasing pressure from authoritarian populism. How vulnerable is the judiciary in Germany – both at the federal and state levels?

We aim to dissect this question in our new research project.

The Project

On Verfassungsblog, we have long been analysing the strategies of authoritarian-populist forces. Their goal is to undermine democratic institutions in order to seize power — gradually, from within, often without openly breaking the law. Once in power, they do everything they can to hold onto it.

Following the conclusion of our Thuringia Project, we now want to broaden our perspective to the Federal Republic as a whole. Based on our findings from the Thuringia Project, we have decided to investigate a particularly urgent issue: the vulnerability of an independent and impartial judiciary at both the federal and state level.

Many international examples show that courts can be both an obstacle and a tool for authoritarian populists in pursuing their strategy. How can they disrupt the judicial system? Where are the weaknesses in court organization and judicial appointments? And how resilient are constitutional courts?

FAQ

What is the Judicial Resilience Project?

The Judicial Resilience Project is a research initiative launched by Verfassungsblog to examine the vulnerability of the judiciary in Germany. Around the world, authoritarian populism is increasingly exerting pressure on independent and impartial courts. Israel, Taiwan, Mexico — weakening the judiciary has long ceased to be limited to Hungary and the U.S. Verfassungsblog has been closely monitoring many of these developments for years. We don’t want to wait until it’s too late — and have thus decided to launch an investigation into the resilience of the German judiciary with the Judicial Resilience Project:

How vulnerable is the German judiciary — at both the federal and state level?

What is the aim of the project?

The aim of the project is:

a) to analyse, through a comprehensive risk assessment, how vulnerable the judiciary is to the strategies of authoritarian populists and to identify key weaknesses and entry points for judicial backsliding.

b) to generate and disseminate legal and political science research on issues in this area that has so far been insufficiently explored.

c) to raise awareness of the judiciary’s vulnerability at both the federal and state level.

Where can I find the 'Projekt Bundesrepublik'?

Here. The Judicial Resilience Project gives concrete form to the ‘Projekt Bundesrepublik’. We are concentrating our efforts on what we see as the most pressing issue in the years ahead: the vulnerability of the judiciary at both federal and state level.

News

Interview with Deutschlandfunk Nova

In an interview with Deutschlandfunk Nova (DE), project lead Friedrich Zillessen spoke about the delayed election of constitutional judges in Germany. He voices the concern that the delay, caused by coalition turmoil and the CDU’s blockade of the SPD candidate, could set a precedent for the increasing politicization of Germany’s highest court.

Interview with ZEIT ONLINE

The project lead Friedrich Zillessen was interviewed by ZEIT ONLINE (DE) about the Judicial Resilience Project. USA, Poland, Hungary — the judiciary is often the first target of authoritarian politicians. The discussion focused on how well German courts are prepared to withstand authoritarian-populist strategies.

Interview with beck-online

In an Interview with beck-online (DE), the project lead Friedrich Zillessen explains what is being examined as part of the Justidicial Resilience Project, how the team will approach the research, and why the public plays a crucial role in protecting the judiciary from authoritarian populists.

Conference on Resilience of the Judiciary at the State Level

In cooperation with Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (GFF), we hosted a conference on judicial resilience in Erfurt last November. The event focused on how the resilience of courts — particularly at the state level — could be safeguarded and strengthened. We greatly appreciated the engaging discussions in the workshop sessions and the subsequent panel discussion!

Support

Many people ask what they can do to protect the Constitution. Our answer is: create knowledge. For that, we need your support.

You can find all the information on our donation website.

Join us in protecting the Constitution!

Support

Blogposts

30 July 2025

The Legal Profession in the Executive Branch

Felipe Luciano Pires

The Trump administration is reshaping the roles of the U.S. legal profession and the civil service to use them as a tool to support the President’s political interests. This impacts an understudied and politically significant group of bureaucrats: government lawyers. They play a critical gatekeeper role in establishing legal principles that can both enable and hinder the systematic weakening of democratic institutions. The case of Brazil has a lot of important lessons to offer.

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25 July 2025

When It Happens

Anna-Mira Brandau, Maximilian Steinbeis

Halfway through the Judicial Resilience Project

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24 July 2025

The Great Recall Movement

You-Hao Lai

Confronted with lawmakers they themselves elected just eighteen months ago, Taiwanese citizens have creatively repurposed the antiquated mechanism of "recall" as a last-resort check on a runaway legislature. Sparked by a year of legislative overreach and erosion of constitutional checks, this unprecedented campaign reflects Taiwan's spirit of civic constitutionalism, and its determination to defend its democratic institutions.

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21 July 2025

Stopping the Davids, Shielding the Goliaths

Suzette Malveaux

In Barbara v. Trump, an individual federal district court judge stopped the Administration’s birthright citizenship executive order nationwide. Just when the Supreme Court said this was not allowed in Trump v. CASA, a New Hampshire judge ordered universal relief, this time through a class action. There is a big difference between a nationwide injunction that benefits non-parties and a class action that benefits class members. But what they have in common is that they both empower the “little guy” to enforce the rule of law. The Supreme Court has eliminated the former and is now trying to kneecap the latter.

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13 July 2025

Petro’s Schmittian Turn

Vicente F. Benítez-R., Fabio Enrique Pulido Ortiz

On 11 June 2025, Colombian President Gustavo Petro issued a decree calling a national popular consultation on a package of long-stalled social reforms. The decree came after the Senate had explicitly rejected his formal request to hold such a vote – approval that is constitutionally required under Article 104 of the Constitution. This reveals something deeper and more dangerous: an increasingly Schmittian conception of democratic power, in which the president, claiming to represent a unified people, overrides institutional checks in the name of higher constitutional fidelity.

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20 June 2025

Democracy Washing

Or Bassok

The Israeli Supreme Court has recently adopted a highly activist approach in rulings that claim to strengthen the structural foundations of democracy, while neglecting its role in protecting the basic human rights of Palestinians. The stark contrast between the Court’s handling of cases involving Palestinians detained incommunicado and its swift intervention in the dismissal of the Shin Bet Director reflects a deeper pattern in the Court’s recent jurisprudence, one that can be described as “democracy washing”.

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18 June 2025

Legalising Authoritarianism through Pakistan’s Supreme Court

Muhammad Asif Khan

On 7 May 2025, Pakistan’s Supreme Court overturned its own previous judgment from October 2023 that had declared military trials of civilians unconstitutional. The newly constituted Constitutional Bench reinstated clauses of the Pakistan Army Act that allow for the prosecution of civilians in military courts. The ruling was justified on national security grounds, citing the need to prosecute attacks by civilians on military installations, a rationale that conflates dissent with terrorism and bypasses the safeguards of civilian legal processes. This decision not only reverses prior precedent but also marks a troubling endorsement of military jurisdiction over civilian matters, raising fundamental concerns about the erosion of judicial independence and the rule of law.

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02 June 2025

A Tarnished Institution from Its Start

Jorge Gaxiola Lappe

June 1st was a historical day for Mexico. The Mexican people – or, more precisely, around 13% of the electorate – went to the ballots to democratically elect their judges for the first time. The newly elected 2681 public officials, which will be announced in the following weeks, will serve in the local and federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court, and solve all types of disputes. While MORENA promises that the amendment will grant Mexico a reinvigorated judicial branch, it is instead getting a newly elected judiciary whose legitimacy has been tarnished from its very start.

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Team

Friedrich Zillessen

Project lead

✉

Emma Bruhn

Communications manager

and researcher

✉

Anna-Mira Brandau

Researcher

Juliana Talg

Researcher

Etienne Hanelt

Researcher

Lennart Laude

Researcher

Janos Richter

Researcher

Jakob Weickert

Research Assistant

Sophie Sendrowski

Research Assistant

Annika Perlebach

Volunteer Researcher

Jonathan Schramm

Volunteer Researcher

Team

Friedrich Zillessen

Project lead

✉

Emma Bruhn

Communications manager

and researcher

✉

Anna-Mira Brandau

Researcher

Juliana Talg

Researcher

Etienne Hanelt

Researcher

Lennart Laude

Researcher

Janos Richter

Researcher

Jakob Weickert

Research Assistant

Sophie Sendrowski

Research Assistant

Annika Perlebach

Volunteer Researcher

Jonathan Schramm

Volunteer Researcher

Looking Back: The Thuringia Project

Between 2023 and 2024, we examined the vulnerabilities in Thuringia’s legal system that could be exploited by authoritarian populists. In the Thuringia Project, we conducted in-depth research to explore the question: What if authoritarian forces gained access to state power? How resilient is democracy in Thuringia?

We are proud that our work in the Thuringia Project has received multiple awards — including the Arnold-Freymuth Prize for Research and the Theodor Heuss Medal for outstanding commitment to democracy and civil rights.

Copyright: Alwin Maigler

In the summer of 2024, we published a book presenting the results of the Thuringia Project. We released a podcast in which we discuss our findings, and we wrote a policy paper with concrete recommendations for action addressed to the Thuringian state parliament.

Together with the NGOs FragDenStaat and GFF (Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte/Society for Civil Rights), we were also able to incorporate our research into a project named Gegenrechtsschutz, aimed at helping those affected by authoritarian abuse of the law to defend themselves.

The Verfassungsblog-Team

Since the beginning of 2024, we have additionally been sharing the project’s findings publicly through lectures and panel discussions. They have also served as the basis for targeted training sessions for specific professional groups, including judges, prosecutors, school principals, teachers and journalists.

You can find all the key information about the Thuringia Project at one glance here.