26 June 2026
Not a Return, Rather an Abduction
On 17 June 2026, the European Parliament approved the new so-called Return Regulation with the backing of conservative and far-right groups. Only the Council's final approval is now pending. Under the Regulation, people may be forcibly transferred to a country they have never known or even set foot in. By any ordinary understanding of the term, this has nothing to do with a "return." It bears a much closer resemblance to what most people would call abduction. Continue reading >>
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23 June 2026
Open Letter to the Hungarian Parliament on the Replacement of Certain Public Office-Holders
We, public law scholars, have come, after careful consideration, to the difficult conclusion that we support the replacement of those high-ranking public office-holders who have remained in office from the previous autocratic regime. At the same time, we consider it justified for Parliament to exercise self-restraint in the election of new public office-holders. Continue reading >>
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09 May 2026
Constitutional Repair!
In this post I shall attempt to map some of the most important points where constitutional repair is necessary as well as the limits of such repair that follow from common European standards. This text is emphatically not a summary of a comprehensive constitutional reform, nor is it a proposal at the level of legislative text. Rather, it outlines fundamental issues which, following discussions and the taking of fundamental political decisions, could lead to a proposal for a correction that needs to be adopted within a short timeframe. Continue reading >>
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24 April 2026
Making Abuse More Costly
What happens when executive power in a German federal state falls into the hands of authoritarian populists? Everyone knows by now that this can happen – and will, perhaps rather soon. Elections are scheduled in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in September; within six months, the AfD could control two of Germany's 16 state justice ministries. We are taking a close look: with additional editorial capacity, we will follow both states before, during, and after the elections – in a dedicated Spotlight section on Verfassungsblog. Continue reading >>
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20 April 2026
Two Defeats, One Winner
In the last week, across two continents, two authoritarian governments faced significant blows, not by courts, not by international pressure, not by the slow grind of institutional resistance, but by oppositions that chose, against their fractious instincts, to act unitedly. Together, the two episodes highlight how oppositional party politics play important constitutional and democratic functions, and must find crucial space in the study of comparative constitutional law. Continue reading >>
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17 April 2026
Cheers, Dear Friends!
Viktor Orbán, as it turns out, can indeed be voted out. And to that I raise my glass of champagne. Cheers, dear friends! The haunting is over – this particular haunting, at any rate. And yet: how much we learned from it and through it and about it. How many concepts were coined in its study. What is populism? That, right there, what they were doing in Hungary. Continue reading >>
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28 March 2026
The Playbook of Repression
India is the world’s largest democracy. It is also increasingly a democracy that is eating itself from within. Under the Bharatiya Janata Party governments of Narendra Modi, now in their third consecutive term, the formal architecture of democratic governance remains intact: elections are held, courts sit, and newspapers continue to be published. This post is an attempt to make sense of what is happening. Continue reading >>
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18 March 2026
Losing Liberal Democracy
On March 17th, the Swedish-based Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute released its 2026 annual Democracy Report. “The speed with which American democracy is currently dismantled is unprecedented in modern history,” the report writes. What is happening within our institutions now must be viewed in tandem with V-Dem’s assessment to understand how we have lost our liberal democracy and are presently at risk of capitulating further. Continue reading >>
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13 February 2026
Drawing Red Lines
Lately, there has been much talk of “red lines” in German politics. Take, for instance, the recent recommendations of the conservative think tank Republik21 on how to deal with the so-called “New Right”, according to which the “Brandmauer” policy of strict exclusion of the AfD should be replaced with differentiated red lines. CDU and CSU should in future determine their course on the basis of what is “constitutionally permissible” and what is “politically capable of commanding consent”. In other words: the question of what counts as a red line when forming majorities with the AfD, where it runs and what it separates from what, is, according to R21, something conservatives should answer by looking into the Basic Law – or into the mirror. Can that work? Continue reading >>
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23 January 2026
Capital Punishment Revivalism
Israel has long been considered abolitionist, having executed only one individual in its history. While past attempts to reinstate the death penalty have proven unsuccessful, the horrendous scale of the October 7 attack and the ensuing traumatic war have been used to generate political momentum. A new bill, which passed its first reading in the Knesset in November 2025, would impose the death penalty for terrorism-related offenses. The bill should be understood as part of a broader capital punishment revivalism trend in populist regimes, with Israel potentially setting a dangerous precedent for attempts to reinstate the death penalty in Europe and beyond. Continue reading >>
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