20 October 2025
No Skyfall
On 26 September 2025, the Slovak parliament adopted the 23rd amendment to the Constitution, introducing an explicit “national identity” clause and a series of provisions presented as measures to “protect the family”. The Venice Commission issued an Opinion two days earlier highlighting both procedural irregularities and substantive concerns. Yet, despite the alarm it has caused, the amendment’s immediate impact is likely to be limited: most of its provisions remain largely symbolic without accompanying legislation or supportive judicial interpretation. Instead, the real battleground will unfold in legal disputes over the amendment’s meaning and reach – with the Constitutional Court expected to play a decisive role. Continue reading >>
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24 September 2025
Untying Ulysses From The Mast
The first months of the new President of the Republic of Poland’s term leave little room for doubt. Karol Nawrocki is not only planning to initiate the adoption of a new constitution by 2030 – he is already changing the current one, adopted in 1997. In light of this political declaration, one might ask: Why does Poland need a new constitution? But the question doesn’t end there. Regarding President Nawrocki’s proposed constitutional changes we must also ask: What kind of constitution does he have in mind, and what does he seek to achieve through the adoption of a new one? Continue reading >>
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23 June 2025
Haunted by Text
Slovak PM Fico renewed his attempts to amend Slovakia’s Constitution. The most controversial provisions are a “national identity safeguard” limiting the effect of international and supranational law, and a definition of sex as strictly binary. After securing backing from some opposition members, his cabinet has submitted the amendment to parliament for debate and a vote. While public mobilisation against the proposed amendment proposal is important, legal scholars and NGOs should avoid using language that might reinforce the perception that the formally powerful Constitutional Court lacks the authority to strike down or reinterpret such changes in line with constitutional values. Continue reading >>
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02 June 2025
A Tarnished Institution from Its Start
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. Continue reading >>23 May 2025
We the Bugs
On April 14, 2025, the Hungarian parliament passed the 15th Amendment to the Fundamental Law, triggering mass protest across Budapest. Amongst its most far-reaching provisions is the constitutional entrenchment of binary sex. Read alongside a reworded Article XVI, which affirms that “every child has the right to the protection and care necessary for his or her proper physical, mental, and moral development”, these provisions establish a new hierarchy of fundamental rights, placing child protection above all others, including the right to peaceful assembly. These changes may now lend formal constitutional legitimacy to discriminatory legislation seeking to ban Pride Parades. Continue reading >>
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21 October 2024
Fractured Foundations and Pakistan’s Kafkaesque Constitutional Amendment
Pakistan is in the throes of yet another constitutional crisis. The ruling coalition government, which is heavily criticized for coming to power through blatantly rigged elections in February 2024, launched a campaign to amend the 1973 Constitution in significant ways. After weeks of speculation, the federal cabinet approved a draft on Sunday afternoon, which was approved by the Senate later the same evening. The National Assembly approved the draft today around 5 a.m., with the President assenting shortly thereafter. Continue reading >>
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06 September 2024
Why Institutional Reputation Matters
Mexico is about to adopt a constitutional amendment to reform the judicial branch. While framed as an attempt to restore the legitimacy and independence of the judiciary, it is, in reality, aimed at capturing the judiciary. In this blogpost, I discuss a key strategy that enabled this judicial overhaul: the President’s persistent and systematic defamatory attacks on the judiciary. I argue that to facing the threat of institutional defamation, we must recognize the importance of the right to reputation. Continue reading >>01 August 2024
Liberty of the Press Forever?
Constitutions are linked both to the past and to the future. A central constitutional mechanism in the attempt to mark a dividing line between the past and the future, to represent a new era are unamendable provisions. Unamendable provisions, in this sense, play a “negative” role, serving as a lasting reminder of recent past devastations and as a constitutional/institutional attempt to transform and never return to past injustices. It is within this framework of ‘never again constitutionalism’ I wish to examine one of the most unique and interesting unamendable provisions in the world: the protection of ‘Liberty of the press’ in the Mexican Constitution of 1824. Continue reading >>
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16 November 2023
Is France Desacralizing its Constitution?
From 2002 to the present day, hundreds of constitutional bills have been proposed by delegates in Parliament, with forty of them being introduced within a year following the renewal of the Assemblée Nationale after the 2022 legislative elections. Each bill contains unique and far-reaching provisions. The proposals illustrate a shift within secondary constituent power, which no longer perceives the Constitution as a sacred text, the supreme standard of the French legal order, but as a wish list, and as an object of political communication subject to trivial media considerations. Continue reading >>
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18 October 2023