02 December 2020
A Momentous Day for the Rule of Law
Five Member States led by example by following the Commission’s lead in defending Union law. That is how the EU system was designed to function. Add a simultaneous important ruling of the Strasbourg Court and an unprecedented Dutch parliamentary motion, and this was an important day for rule of law protection in the EU. Continue reading >>
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30 November 2020
Time Is of the Essence
The announced veto of the Hungarian and Polish governments on the EU multi-annual budget and the European recovery fund has caused a major stir in recent days in Europe. The conditionality mechanism is designed to safeguard the Union’s financial interests and complements the existing political and judicial mechanisms. It is expedient to review the state of play of the procedures in place and, if necessary, to pose questions, whether they stand up to the challenges posed by developments in the respective countries, if they are carried out in a timely manner and focus on genuine effectiveness. Continue reading >>
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26 November 2020
Dissimilar Similarities
In the EU, most attention is paid to the judicial reforms underway in Hungary and Poland, which threaten judicial independence and the rule of law. The concurrent judicial reforms in Norway and Slovakia have received almost no attention. Although quite dissimilar to the former set, the latter underscore that institutional reforms cannot be viewed apart from their social and political settings. Continue reading >>12 November 2020
An Irish Tale of Judicial Misconduct
On the evening of Monday, November 9th, Mr. Frank Clarke, Chief Justice of the Irish Supreme Court, published three letters, recounting correspondence between himself and Mr. Seamus Woulfe, another Supreme Court judge – of recent appointment – and former Attorney General of Ireland. That the Chief Justice should have seen fit to publish any correspondence between himself and another judge is singular. The content of the letters, however, is altogether peculiar. Continue reading >>
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26 October 2020
The Time to Speak Up
The European Commission’s Rule of Law Report 2020, in its Spanish chapter, highlights in particular the situation of the Judicial Council as a challenge: The mandate of its members has expired in December 2018, but its new members have not yet been appointed. To unblock this situation a proposal was introduced in Parliament, but the envisaged reform does not comply with EU standards and endangers judicial independence, as the European Commission and GRECO have warned. Continue reading >>
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23 October 2020
Prophezeiungen, die sich selbst erfüllen
Über rechte und linke Justizpolitik und die liberale Versuchung der Äquidistanz Continue reading >>
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23 October 2020
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
On left-wing and right-wing judicial policies and the seductive liberal illusion of equidistance Continue reading >>
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20 October 2020
Recognizing Turkey’s Anti-Rule of Law System
On October 13, a criminal court of first instance defied the authority of the Turkish Constitutional Court (TCC). A similar challenge to the TCC’s authority by a first instance court had occurred over two years ago. In present-day Turkey, however, it is wrong to see such fundamental violations of the rule of law as an unfortunate exception to an abstractly conceived system of rules. Rather, they should be considered as the manifestation of a well-functioning anti-rule of law system. Continue reading >>
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16 October 2020
The Epochal Failure of the EU Commission
On Judge Beata Morawiec, the rampant sowjetization of the Polish judicial policy, and how it could come to all that. Continue reading >>
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