Enshrining a right to abortion in the constitution – functions and effects of constitutionalisation – the fundamental nature of abortion and its link to core principles of constitutionalism – the instrumental-procedural function of constitutionalisation – limits to protection of abortion rights at the level of the European Court of Human Rights – unpredictability of judicial interpretation of fundamental rights – constitutional design pathways to specify the content and scope of a right to abortion – the potential of the standstill principle

European constitutional identity as an implicit limit to amending EU treaties – General trend towards acknowledging implicit constraints to constitutional amendments as well as empowering supreme courts and constitutional courts to monitor ‘unconstitutional constitutional amendments’ – Substantive limits to revising EU treaties essentially based on Article 2 TEU – Conditionality mechanism rulings as a point of departure for speculating on the emergence of a European constitutional identity – ECJ’s competence to review EU treaty amendments with a self-restrained approach as a last resort mechanism.

The challenge of distinguishing between abusive and non-abusive constitutional practices – Main ways of detecting abuse: analyses of intent and effects – Obstacles to detecting bad faith intent in constitutional law – Structured and focused analysis of the effects of abusive constitutionalism: introducing the foreseeable effects test – Normative benchmark: substantial diminishment of accountability – Step 1: probability of harm, analysing the tested constitutional measure’s foreseeable effects on operability and autonomy of an accountability mechanism – Step 2: seriousness of potential harm, analysing the constitutional measure’s effects in the broader constitutional context (including interaction effects) – Step 3: harm mitigation, analysing the existence and adequacy of harm-mitigating safeguards accompanying the constitutional measure – Strengths and limits of the foreseeable effects test

References to the European Convention on Human Rights by Israeli courts – the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights as sources of comparative law – comparative law as technique of legitimation – content analysis of use by domestic courts of European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence – European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence and deference to state

Bosphorus doctrine of equivalent protection activated when states implement strict international organisations’ obligations – EU principle of mutual trust requires executing member states to presume issuing member states’ human rights compliance – Presumption influences the Bosphorus doctrine’s application – The European Court of Human Rights drew four relevant scenarios (full discretion; strict obligations; qualified discretion; EU law breach) – Case law consistent with Bosphorus logic but unfair to applicants – Court’s subsequent recalibration of ‘strict obligations’ requirement renders it moot, empties Bosphorus doctrine of its substance and equally undermines mutual trust regimes – Absence of equivalence of mutual trust regimes or EU accession to the ECHR as sole remedies

Constitutionalisation of the decent standard of living in Greece – Euro-crisis and constitutional change – Financial assistance conditionality and minimum income policy – Decent standard of living in crisis jurisprudence

The delegation theory of unconstitutional constitutional amendments, a limited theory of unamendability – Applying a doctrinal approach to justify unconstitutional constitutional amendments – Introducing a typology of unconstitutionality – The practical deficiencies and internal inconsistencies of the delegation theory – The limited role of the doctrine of unconstitutional constitutional amendments in the Swedish context – The redundancy of constituent power as a legal concept

Introduction: the Scruton-Fidesz connection – Literature: Hungary’s rule of law backsliding and the Hungarian constitution – Methods: analysing ideological justifications and contemporary conservatism – Findings: the traditional family as the base for the existence of the nation – Individual rights’ dependency on communal obligations – Constitutional originalism and limitations on judicial review – History as a moral guide and historical revisionism – An exclusionary Hungarian constitutional identity – Analysis: traditionalist conservative values in the Hungarian Constitution and their manipulation – The radicalisation of conservatism – The struggle over the centre-right, and its implications on the future of democracy

The need for a standard of review even during times of crisis – proportionality analysis as the ideal and universally applicable standard of review – the problem of excessive stringency of proportionality analysis during an emergency – the principle of in dubio pro libertate as the cause of the problem – adjusting each component of proportionality analysis to the precautionary principle as the solution – the precautionary application of proportionality analysis strikes a more appropriate balance between excessive stringency and insufficient protection of fundamental rights

Intrinsic relation between form and substance in law and between the institutional law of the EU and its substantive goals – idea and criteria for a ‘substantive core’ to the legal order – the internal market as early EU law’s substantive core – the EU’s changing policy substance and the subsequent ‘de-coring’ of the legal order – the consequences of de-coring and its impact on EU law’s relevance and legitimacy – early attempts to reconcile EU law with the changing substance of EU policy.

Constitutional referrals by ordinary courts – Judicial dialogue between constitutional courts and ordinary courts – Toolkit for judicial resistance – Novel taxonomy of features and functions of constitutional referrals – Separation of powers approach – Democratic decay – Self-defence mechanism – Mix of methodological approaches – Case study on Czechia

The ‘rights revolution’ and ‘displacement doctrine’ of the European Court of Justice – EU Charter as a yardstick for constitutional review – Constitutional Courts of Austria and Germany: Charter judgment and Right to Be Forgotten II order – Rhetoric, persuasion and eloquence in judicial reasoning

Judicial councils – separation of powers – fourth-branch institutions – judicial independence – four ideal types of judicial councils – a judge-controlled, politician-controlled, inter-branch and fourth-branch judicial council – danger of politicisation and corporativism of the judiciary