The Judicial Resilience Project

Across the globe, independent courts are facing increasing pressure from authoritarian populism.

How vulnerable is the judiciary in Germany? Since the beginning of 2025, Verfassungsblog’s Judicial Resilience Project has been investigating this critical question in a dedicated research project. 

The results are available now as a book (in German):
The Judicial Resilience Project. Vulnerability and Resilience of the Third Branch.


Open Access, here on Verfassungsblog.

Available now: The results of the Judicial Resilience Project.

The 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 broadened our perspective to the Federal Republic as a whole. Based on our findings from the Thuringia Project, we are investigating 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

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?

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.

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

News

Interview with BRAK-Magazin (German Federal Bar’s magazine)

In an interview with the BRAK-Magazin (DE), co-project lead Lennart Laude talks with Peggy Fiebig about our research work. Among other things, he discusses how the Judicial Resilience Project builds on the previous Thuringia Project, which international examples exist of authoritarian-populist attacks on the judiciary, and how we conduct our research (from p. 16).

Interview with Deutschlandfunk

In an interview with Deutschlandfunk (DE), project lead Friedrich Zillessen reported on the work of the Judicial Resilience Project. He explained that the aim of the project is to conduct a stress test of judicial systems in order to shed light on how authoritarian-populist actors could and would attempt to exert influence over the judiciary.

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 the German Press Agency (dpa)

In an interview with the German Press Agency (dpa), Anna-Mira Brandau, a researcher in the Judicial Resilience Project, discusses the delegitimization of (constitutional) courts by the AfD as part of the authoritarian-populist strategy. She says: “The judiciary has greater significance for authoritarian populists because, in a functioning democracy, it serves as a counterbalance to the executive.”

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!

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Blogposts

18 December 2025

The Sanctioning of Law

Imagine a Western head of government sanctioning the attorney general and judges of the supreme court because they have brought criminal proceedings against his party colleagues. He has their assets seized, their bank accounts frozen, and their freedom of movement restricted. Unimaginable? Unfortunately, no. This is precisely what the Trump administration has now done with the leadership of the Office of the Prosecutor and six judges of the International Criminal Court.
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12 December 2025

“Danger becomes less scary when it is better understood”

,
Five Questions to Kim L. Scheppele
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05 December 2025

Anticipation Starts Now!

Concluding the Judicial Resilience Project
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03 December 2025

Taiwan’s Constitutional Grey Hole

Since late 2024, the Taiwan Constitutional Court has been unable to issue merits-based decisions. The Court is neither resolving separation-of-powers disputes between the executive and legislature nor providing fundamental rights protection for individuals. This institutional deadlock constitutes a constitutional “grey hole”, where only the form of the legal order exists, without any substantive protections. All proposed solutions carry limitations, and some may even exacerbate rather than alleviate the problem.
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11 November 2025

Doxing Judges

More than a decade after the Baka judgment, Hungary’s judges remain exposed. A massive data leak has revealed personal details of nearly 200,000 citizens — including judges — allegedly linked to an opposition app. Pro-government media swiftly published their names, questioning their impartiality and even calling for dismissals. Instead of protecting those targeted, judicial leaders hinted at disciplinary action.
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14 October 2025

Autocratic Legalism vs. Lawfare

Ekrem İmamoğlu, the Mayor of Istanbul, has been imprisoned for 200 days without indictment as the Turkish government weaponizes the judiciary to eliminate political opposition. This case exemplifies a shift from autocratic legalism to "lawfare," where legal tools are used strategically to suppress democratic competition. İmamoğlu’s situation reveals the deepening authoritarianism in Turkey as the ruling regime abandons fair elections in favor of coercive control.
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07 October 2025

Unwavering Loyalty

On 5 August 2025, the Cameroonian Constitutional Council upheld a Resolution made by Cameroon’s elections management body to exclude opposition leader Maurice Kamto from the presidential election scheduled for 12 October 2025. The decision effectively eliminates the strongest opposition contender from the race and was misguided by its narrow formalism. While judicial formalism may, in some cases, be defensible for the sake of certainty and predictability, the Constitutional Council’s selective adherence to it makes its motivation questionable.
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01 October 2025

Systemic Pathologies

Bulgaria has been marked by worrisome developments pointing to its democratic decline. After the Sofia Court of Appeal upheld the pre-trial detention of the city of Varna’s mayor Blagomir Kotsev, the Supreme Judicial Council refused to apply the six-month limit on Borislav Sarafov’s tenure as acting Prosecutor General. Taken together, these episodes point to a systemic pathology: institutions formally invoke the law, yet interpret it in ways that deprive it of its normative sense. Legality is reduced to form without substance, and no longer protects rights but instead serves as an instrument of institutional self-preservation and control.
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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

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

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.