Citizenship deprivation on security grounds – Difference in state practices – Underlying citizenship regimes and states’ constitutional structures – Constitutional roles attributed to the citizen – Judicial decisions on citizenship deprivation – Comparison with a focus on France and the United Kingdom

Introduction to the Special Section – relationship between memory laws and the rule of law – exploiting law in the service of historical policy and undermining democracy – rule of law backsliding – democratic backsliding – risk of abuse of memory laws

Focus of the literature on the European West, overlooking the marginalised European Central-East – Assumption of all illiberal states equally resisting international courts – Hungary’s unique subtle push-back against the European Court of Human Rights compared to overt resistance against the European Court of Justice – Empirical analysis of original data – Three strategies to control the narrative of compliance – Status signalling to avoid international and domestic political repercussions – Friendly settlements and unilateral declarations as means of avoidance – Disguised non-compliance to convey bona fides – Negative narrative to subvert public opinion – Explaining state behaviour through rationalism and constructivism – Complementing constructivism with the identitarian counterwave in recently-emerged illiberal states – EU membership as a constraint – Illiberalism as fuel for Hungary’s resistance against the Strasbourg Court

2021–2027 Recovery Plan for Europe and its Recovery and Resilience Facility have altered elements of the EU institutional equilibrium – constitutional consistency of the ensuing design – implications for the constitutional evolution of the EU – analysis of the expenditure of the Recovery and Resilience Facility – new fiscal economic stabilisation function – conditionality attached to the funds – strengthened role of the Council – nuanced multi-level financial governance – the fiscal stabilisation function enshrines a potential form of constitutional mutation – the new institutional framework for the expenditure of the EU funds seems to lean towards an intergovernmental preeminence

A discernible rift between the rhetoric of political constitutionalism and the real policy of authoritarian populists – The rhetoric focused on political constitutionalism and popular sovereignty as a façade and a utilitarian argument justifying the introduction of counter-constitutional changes through statute laws – Captured apex courts turned into useful devices of power consolidation – The analysis of the Constitutional Tribunal and the Supreme Court – The Constitutional Tribunal as an ‘inverted court’ used increasingly often to actively shape the government’s Eurosceptic policy – A double face of the Supreme Court – The new Chambers of the Supreme Court introduced to be politically abused by authoritarian populists – Systemic interactions between two captured apex courts have a synergy effect with regard to the process of the denormativisation of the constitution – The deepening politicisation of the apex courts creates a favourable environment for further rule of law deterioration.

Introduction of the institutional framework of constitutional democracy and transitional justice in Hungary – Liberal constitutionalism as a victim of the authoritarian efforts of Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party after the 2010 parliamentary elections – The legal governance of history contributing to the backsliding of democracy and the rule of law – Use of memory politics for the newly established authoritarian regime’s own political purposes – Transitional justice measures to help reconcile society and consolidate democracy – The current Hungarian government’s attitude towards public discussion of history

The European Court of Human Rights holds that the Bosphorus presumption of equivalent protection cannot apply to the European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement – Its reasons focus on EEA Agreement’s lack of primacy, direct effect and adequate enforcement mechanisms – Not applying Bosphorus presumption to EEA Agreement results in the indirect review of EU law by the Strasbourg Court, given that EEA and EU law are substantially identical – Court’s arguments are open to strong criticism – However, its conclusions are correct – They are substantiated by two considerations, which were overlooked by the Court – First, EEA law is to be considered ‘freely entered into’ international law under the Matthews case law – Second, the EFTA Court lacks the power to strike down EEA law breaching upon fundamental rights – Both these consideration are the corollary of the fundamental premises of the EEA Agreement: the retention by EFTA states of sovereign decision-making powers – Refusal to apply Bosphorus presumption to EEA Agreement will likely determine a growing inconsistency between the Convention, EU and EEA law – This entails serious systemic problems

Constitutional design – Constitutional degradation – Power sharing – The rule of law – Constitutionalism – Constitution making – Constitutional transition – Divided societies – Role of internal diversity – Bosnia-Herzegovina – Inherent degradation – Dynamic degradation – European Court of Human Rights – Sejdić and Finci – Constitutional Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina – Compliance issues with court judgments – Repression of the public sphere – Electoral discrimination of national minorities – High Representative – Lack of local ownership

Freedom of expression of judges – ‘Chilling effect’ of measures taken against judges (and prosecutors) – Silence or modification of speech – Rule of law crisis – ‘Chilling effect’ as one of the circumstances determining the proportionality of an interference with freedom of expression – Flexible approach in determining the sources of the ‘chilling effect’ – Little attention devoted by the Court to the quality of legislative enactment – Measures may not have imminent repercussions for a given judge, may be light, and may take the form of a threat – ‘Chilling effect’ may extend from one legal profession to another – ‘Chilling effect’ explains why the Court affords greater protection of freedom of expression to prominent judges – Greater consistency in the Court’s application of the ‘chilling effect’ argument would be welcome – First step of an ambitious research quest to determine whether judges feel free to express their opinions, or live in a state of feardom.

Memory laws – Protecting the good name of the nation – de facto memory laws – Prohibiting statements about the past – Article 301 of the Turkish Criminal Code – Protecting the good name of Poland and the Polish nation – Protecting the good name of the nation as de facto memory laws – Role of organisations in implementing the laws – Rule of law – Independence of the judiciary – European Court of Human Rights – Chilling effect – European memory politics

Constitutionalising private law – Horizontal effect of fundamental rights –New legislative techniques in the EU in platform governance – References to the Charter of Fundamental Rights in secondary union law – Article 14(4) of the Digital Services Act – Article 5(1) subparagraph 2 of the Terrorist Content Online Regulation – Compatibility of secondary union law references to the Charter with primary union law – Interpretative methodology of secondary union law references

Enforcement and conceptualisation of Article 2 TEU values – Rule of law – A non-regression principle for EU values faces significant pitfalls – Limits of the ‘backsliding’ paradigm informing doctrinal developments under Article 2 TEU – Inadequacy of a progress/regression trajectory as a lens for constitutional developments – Complexity of Article 2 values threatens to render regression assessments simplistic – Non-regression and the equality of member states – Potential conflicts between non-regression and minimum standards as tests for Article 2 compliance

Judicial independence as a European constitutional principle – Freedom of expression of judges in connection with judicial independence – Rule of law backsliding – Catalan secession crisis – Spanish Constitutional Court disqualification doctrine of magistrates – Freedom of expression of judges in favour of the Catalan secessionist movement – Spanish soft law on judicial independence

Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation (SLAPPs) – the rule of law backsliding – governance of historical memory – academic freedom – EU Draft Directive on protecting persons who engage in public participation from manifestly unfounded or abusive court proceedings

Protection of personal data as a fundamental right – GDPR’s enforcement dilemma in cross-border cases – “One-stop-shop” model’s inadequacies highlighted – Distinction: regular cross-border enforcement versus cases of common European concern – Proposal: centralised enforcement mechanism for cases of common European concern – Union supervisory authority as a solution – Insufficiencies of the harmonisation proposal of the European Commission – Centralisation’s advantages: uniform enforcement, better coordination, and curbing forum shopping – Implications: fundamental rights protection and EU’s constitutional obligations – Constructive critique of the one-stop-shop model, not a dismissal – European constitutional law mandates effective data protection enforcement.

The United Kingdom Human Rights Act 1998 – Constitutional migration – Impacts of legislative design and process on the internalisation of international standards – A taxonomy of migratory patterns under the Human Rights Act – Constitutional migration as a source of constitutional instability – Proposals for a British Bill of Rights

German Federal Constitutional Court’s review of memory laws – Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal review of memory laws – politicisation of the judicial review of memory laws – gouvernement des juges – abusive judicial review

From ‘strategic autonomy’ to ‘open strategic autonomy’ in the 2021 EU Trade Policy Review – questioning the added value of the qualifier ‘open’ – legal exploration of ‘openness’ in EU external trade – identification of constitutional norms of ‘openness’ in the Treaties – strong constitutional preference for openness – discretion for trade liberalisation and multilateralism and international cooperation but strict obligation for compliance with international law – reviewing recent EU trade instruments in light of these norms – rise in unilateral trade policy instruments adopted since 2021 in pursuit of open strategic autonomy – instruments seeking to restore reciprocity in international trade relations – instruments using access to the internal market as a lever for achieving global sustainability goals – instruments preserving EU security through trade – problematic tensions with international law – very limited ‘openness’ in ‘open strategic autonomy’.

The German Federal Constitutional Court’s recent case law in context – A systematic account of the Federal Constitutional Court’s changing constitutional imagination – The constitutional footprint of the grand coalitions during Angela Merkel’s 16-year term as German Chancellor – The changing architecture of parliamentary government in the Federal Republic and the role of the Court – The supermajoritarian structure of the German political system – Majority rule and veto players – Legislation and parliamentary oversight – Executive autonomy and parliamentary control – Political representation and counter-representation by the Court – The constitutional nature of cabinet and ministerial responsibility – constitutional limits of political speech in government office – The normative model of administrative constitutionalism – The pouvoir neutre in the German constitution – The constitutionalisation of distributive justice