Dan Kelemen on "Poland's Constitutional Crisis: How the Law and Justice Party is Threatening Democracy"

Network member R. Daniel Kelemen (Rutgers) has alerted to his new piece in Foreign Affairs, entitled "Poland's Constitutional Crisis: How the Law and Justice Party is Threatening Democracy," which may be of interest to readers. The first paragraph is below and the remainder can be read here.

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After simmering for nine months, the tension between Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party and the country’s highest court, the Constitutional Tribunal, is coming to a boil. The PiS government is attempting an unconstitutional takeover of the tribunal—ignoring its rulings, trying to pack it with new judges, and, most recently, threatening the head judge with prosecution. At stake are the survival of constitutional democracy and the rule of law in Poland. [continue reading here]

Antoine Vauchez on the State of Emergency in France and the Dual Role of the Conseil d'Etat as Advisor to and Judge of Administrative Action

Network member Antoine Vauchez (CNRS) has alerted us to a post on his blog Do You Law? at the Paris daily Libération.  Entitled "Le Conseil d'Etat ou le verrou du Palais royal" ("verrou" meaning "deadbolt" or "safety lock" and the "Palais royal" being the location of the CE in Paris), in this piece Antoine poses the perennial question: "Can the French administrative judge pronounce on the law and also advise those who exercise power?  The question presents itself with acuity as the government prepares to seek a new extension of the state of emergency."  A translation of the opening lines is below and the remainder may be read (in French) here.

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The state of emergency has placed the Conseil d'Etat at the forefront of the antiterrorist response. With the unprecedented expansion of administrative powers and the marginalization of the ordinary courts, the administrative judge has the delicate mission of giving voice to the demand for rights and freedoms at the heart of a counter-terrorism policy whose excesses have already been noted in many respects. With its position at the heart of the administrative machinery, however, the Conseil d'Etat seems poorly misplaced to fully accomplish this essential task.

In the current phase of the antiterrorist struggle, the members of the Conseil d'Etat occupy a pivotal position.  Placed all along the chain of state action, from its policy conception to its legal control, these members form both the state's infrastructure and its safety lock (verrou) ... 

[continue reading here]

European Integration Through Law: Judicial Review of the Eurozone Crisis in European National, Regional and Supranational Courts (Symposium, Michigan Journal of International Law)

New network member Elaine Fahey (Amsterdam) passed on the news that the Michigan Journal of International Law has published a new symposium issue entitled "European Integration Through Law: Judicial Review of the Eurozone Crisis in European National, Regional and Supranational Courts".  The symposium is the inaugural entry in the MJIL's "Emerging Scholarship Project".  Although the papers are drawn primarily from younger scholars, the organizers were honored to have the participation of Advocate-General Julianne Kokott (see here), discussing the CJEU's disposition of the reference in Pringle v. Ireland.  The full list of articles can be found here and the opening paragraphs of the symposium's Forward are below.

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Recent measures designed to tackle the European financial crisis are multi-faceted, but most of all, they have a strong legal dimension. This accentuated and multifarious legal feature reverses the “law-lite” component of the European Union’s euro currency. It is significant that these “anti-crisis” legal measures have survived broad judicial review. The arguments and procedures involved in this judicial review challenged our previous understanding of the role of law in European integration and the capacity of judicial review to provide checks and balances.

Because of the financial crisis, the EU Member States have had to assume significant responsibilities, both for their own troubles and for each other. As a result of these changes, the EU has had to quickly evolve into more than what it was in terms of its legal purview. Attempts to resolve the Eurozone crisis through law have generated a flurry of postnational rule-making. However, its character is extraordinarily complex and manipulates the state of integration within the Eurozone. Moreover, it has already generated significant challenges for a wide variety of judicial bodies, parliaments and tribunals. [Continue reading the Forward here]