Internal judicial independence as a new element of the case law of the Strasbourg Court on Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights – The Court has only found violations of internal judicial independence in cases against former communist countries – Relevance of the case law for other member states of the Council of Europe – Internal judicial independence as part of the requirement of an impartial tribunal? – Importance of the independence of the individual judge

Triple majority for changing the status quo in Treaty of Nice (2001): qualified majority of weighted votes, majority of countries, qualified majority of the population. Convention proposal (2003): requirements from three to two by dropping the qualified majority of weighted votes and reducing the qualified majority threshold of the population from 62% to 60%. Important consequences for the political institutions of the Union: 1) facilitates political decision-making; 2) reduces relative weight of governments participating in the Council and increases the importance of the European Parliament; 3) reduces the role of the judiciary and bureaucracies in the Union in favor of the political process. Consequences of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe signed in Rome 29 October 2004. Exactly in the middle between Nice and the European Convention.

Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance – Economic governance – Stability Pact – The European Council – National constitutional law.

The position of human rights within the European Union legal order has been an issue since the early years of the original European Economic Community. For many years, the development of human rights as general principles of Community law was characterized by dialogue and debate between the Communities' Court of Justice on the one hand, and certain national constitutional courts on the other, as regards the protection of human rights recognized in national constitutions by the Community legal order. But in recent years, there has been a parallel dialogue between the Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, as regards the Community legal order's protection of the rights guaranteed by the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR).

Criticism of the Court – Sources of legitimacy – Interpretation, too wide? – Sharing responsibility – Tensions between court and other authorities: legislatures and courts

Lisbon decisions of the constitutional courts in Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Latvia and Poland from a comparative perspective – Democracy, sovereignty and identity – Permeability of national and supranational law – Ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and its constitutional foundations – Procedural background and legal outcome of the Lisbon decisions – Differences of institutional self-conception – Parliamentary responsibility for integration – Prior parliamentary assent to the future application of ‘dynamic treaty provisions’ – Different conceptions of national and multi-levelled democracy – Popular vote – Constitutional limits to European integration – Limits indicating the necessity of an amendment and limits protecting the inalienable substantial core of a constitutional order – German Bundesverfassungsgericht only court in Europe spelling out an eternity clause in a detailed, catalogue style manner – Judicial restraint – Ultra vires and identity review – Article 4.2 TEU as an integration clause of EU law and not a derogation clause – Comparative dialectics

German Constitutional Court decision of 30 June 2009 on the compatibility of the Lisbon Treaty with the German Constitution – Analysis of inconsistencies – Differences between the EU and a state – Sovereignty of the member states and Kompetenz-Kompetenz – Argument for a relative concept of sovereignty – Sovereignty and the right to withdraw – Critical analysis of BVerfG's assessment of the EU's democratic deficit and denial of the importance of the European Parliament

Essence of fundamental rights – Article 52(1) of the Charter – Multi-level protection of fundamental rights in Europe – Sources of essence – European Court of Justice case law on ‘very substance’ of fundamental rights – Constitutional traditions common to the Member States – European Court of Human Rights – Court of Justice of the EU – Schrems – Principle of proportionality – Absolute theory – Relative theory – Classification of interferences with essence – Objective interference – Subjective interference – Absolute rights – EU methodology for determination of interference with essence

History of the Turkish Presidency – Powers and status of presidents under the Constitutions of 1961 and 1982 – Parlementarisme attenué – A veto players system – Performance of individual presidents: guardian and partisan presidencies – Introduction of the principle of direct election of the president in 2007: not part of a well-thought out constitutional engineering scheme – Seeds of instability

History of the Czech presidency – Constitutional status of the President – Personal powers and powers subject to countersignature by the Premier – Presidency of V. Havel and V. Klaus – Emerging constitutional conventions – Appointment of judges – Resignation of Ministers and Appointment of Premier – Legislative veto – Moderation of the constitutional system rather than implementation of a political programme – Importance of the political context – Parliamentarianism with a relatively influential President.

Principle of non-refoulement protected by EU law – National practices – Deterrence – Pushbacks – Border police deterrence – Reaction of EU institutions – Legal uncertainties – ‘Safe country of origin’ – ‘First country of asylum’ – ‘Safe third country’ – EU values – New Pact on Migration and Asylum

Constitutionalism – Kadi ruling of EU Court of First Instance – Erosion of ‘total’ constitutional order by reallocation of public power – Constitutional vision challenge of networks approach – Emerging human rights hierarchy – Rudimentary international value system – Ius cogens and erga omnes – Barcelona Traction – Core human rights elements – Enforcement through regional and domestic courts – Review of Security Council resolutions

Listening carefully, one might have heard the sigh of relief breathed in Brussels and other EU capitals on 3 May 2007, when the Court of Justice of the European Communities (ECJ or Court) eventually delivered its first judgment on the European arrest warrant (EAW), giving the green light to this flagship instrument of EU judicial co-operation in criminal matters. However, what came as a relief for executive-branch officials, quite likely disappointed some of Europe's judges and legislators, as well as many academics and independent observers. For them, it must have seemed as if a long, tension-filled story had come to a bitter end.

European Court of Human Rights – Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms – ‘Hate speech’ – Féret – Le Pen – Keegstra – Commonalities between Canadian and ECtHR jurisprudence –Development of uniform test of incitement – Sharp distinction from US Supreme Court jurisprudence on freedom of expression

European Citizens' Initiative – Direct democracy: power to the people? – Legal framework of the Citizen's Initiative – Review and critical analysis of Commission Registration decisions for European Citizens' Initiative proposals – Admissibility criteria – Inconsistency in registration decisions – Increased legal burden on European citizens' initiative organisers – Institutional mediation or direct democracy?

European Commission – Monopoly on legislative initiative – Power to withdraw legislative proposals, as recognised and limited by the Court of Justice – Interinstitutional Agreement on Better Law-Making – European Parliament Rules of Procedure – Interinstitutional programming procedures – Technical and political usages of the withdrawal – Question of confidence in national parliamentary systems – National Parliaments and Early Warning System – Parliamentarisation of the decision to withdraw – Principle of institutional balance

The position of EU law in the national legal order – Precedence of EU law – Relationship between legal orders – Foundation of precedence – Autonomous precedence v. precedence based on national constitutional law – The concept of an integrated or composed legal order as a false paradigm – The value of constitutional pluralism to explain the relationship between EU law and national law

Tension between ‘rights’ and ‘democracy’ principle in highly political cases – ECtHR’s wide margin of appreciation on elections put into question by recent cases – Sejdic-Finci v Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH): ethnic criteria for standing in election violate Convention – Zornic v BiH: candidate’s exclusion from standing in election on account of her self-chosen identity violates P-12 – Mathieu-Mohin and Clerfayt v Belgium overruled? – ‘Integrative democratic tolerance’ approach: five legal and political principles to reconcile ‘rights’ and ‘democracy’ principle in highly political cases.