States’ growing dissatisfaction with the performance of the European Court of Human Rights – Governments’ commitment to reform process – Threats of exit that failed to materialise – Adaptation of Hirschman’s exit–voice–loyalty framework to explain states’ non-exit from the European Court of Human Rights – Sufficiently effective voice, manifestations of loyalty, and high costs of exit as possible reasons behind non-exit – Governments’ inability to achieve change in the Court’s practice unilaterally – Divergent perceptions and expectations of governments – Court’s responsiveness to governments’ concerns – Showing the importance of cautious, incremental changes to accommodate diverse governmental expectations on the role of the European Court of Human Rights

The Court of Justice is once again clarifying the limits of the application of data retention laws – General obligation to retain data exceeds the limits of what is strictly necessary within a democratic society – The national security exception does not preclude a judicial assessment of the legitimacy of its application – The existence of a genuine and specific threat as a premise for the use of untargeted data retention measures – The possibility of searching for the gold standard of data retention based on algorithmic processing – Different perceptions of the Court of Justice position by the referring courts – The Conseil d'État’s position distorts the idea of the protection of fundamental rights that is enshrined in the EU legal order

Italian Constitutional Court, development of re-centralised case law against the displacement of national constitutional courts – Italian Constitutional Court challenges the Simmenthal doctrine – Double preliminary questions – The Italian Constitutional Court’s continuous need for legitimation – The Italian Constitutional Court’s adaptation of its case law and doctrines to the legal and political context

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

EU values – Rule of law backsliding – Rule of law and fundamental rights interrelation – Refugee protection – Common European Asylum System – Implementation gap in asylum – Lack of fair responsibility sharing in asylum – Structural deficiencies in national asylum systems – Defiance of asylum obligations and the duty of sincere cooperation – Systemic fundamental rights violations – Upholding the rule of law – European Asylum System redesign – Systemic infringement actions – Rule of law monitoring

Analysis of proportionality in the context of Article 5 TEU after the PSPP judgment – Bundesverfassungsgericht challenging Court of Justice to control European Central Bank’s motives – Doctrinal tradition of ‘smoking out’ illicit motives through proportionality – Article 5(4) TEU: proportionality of exercise of competences, primarily safeguarding member states’ autonomy – Court of Justice case law on proportionality: deferential standard of review towards measures of EU institutions – Bundesverfassungsgericht case law on federal competences and municipal autonomy: less deferential but still respectful standard of review – PSPP inconsistent with case law and with Article 5 TEU – Balancing-stage of proportionality unsuitable for motive control

Political constitutionalism understood in terms of autonomy of political judgement rather than allocation of powers – Irish case studies as example – Judicial doctrines recognise political discretion concerning rights – However, legalism or legal constitutionalism arises within the sphere of political judgement itself – Legal constitutionalism restricts political autonomy epistemically as well as institutionally

Sincerity of belief as a condition for the protection of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights – Three types of insincerity in the context of freedom of belief – Parody religions – Fraudulent religions – Conceptual linkage between insincerity and ulterior motive – Insincerity defined as demanding to practise one’s ‘belief’ while solely having an ulterior motive – Circumstances that should not be considered evidence of insincerity: implausible manifestations, inconsistency with co-believers – Circumstances that should be considered evidence of insincerity: obvious unseriousness, ignorance, personal inconsistency – Comparison to rejected and accepted forms of evidence of insincerity in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights – Burden of proof in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights.

Greece not a militant democracy – Constitution rejects party bans – Challenge posed by neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn – Preference for a procedural approach – Not as passive as previously thought – Proactive use of regular law – Golden Dawn charged for being a criminal organisation disguised as a political party – Questions about the political timing of the trial – Importance of judiciary independence – Why not a terrorist organization – Suspension of party funding and other restrictions against Golden Dawn – Actions by state institutions as opposed to local and civil society – How to distinguish between procedural- and militant-democratic initiatives – Political rights of convicted party leaders – Benefits and risks of procedural model

Northern Ireland – United Kingdom – Republic of Ireland – Divergent development of Irish and British nationality law – Citizenship of the European Union – Good Friday Agreement – Brexit – Emma DeSouza – Family unity as a source of constitutional conflict – Reverse discrimination – Cross-border equality as a means of representation reinforcement – Richard Plender

Conceptual framework for understanding the degree and scope of the political impact of the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union – Definition of ‘the political’ – Carl Schmitt’s concept of political realism – Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic theory of ‘the political’ – ‘The political’ in the light of three classical categories: (1) polity, (2) policy, and (3) politics – Framework for understanding polity as competing values, policy as conflicts over resources, politics as fights for power – Criteria of political significance and impact of the Court of Justice case law – Two illustrations: Case C-391/09 Runevič-Vardyn v Vilniaus miesto savivaldybės administracija and Case C-192/18 European Commission v Republic of Poland set against the broader context of politically significant cases from the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Foreign surveillance as a means of circumventing existing legal safeguards – Different perspectives on the problem of the extraterritorial application of fundamental rights in US and EU legal models – The limited usefulness of effective control tests for establishing the responsibility of states for action taken in cyberspace – Judgment of Bundesverfassungsgericht in the BND Act case as an interpretative guideline for the regulation of foreign surveillance in EU member states – Electronic surveillance as a threat to European integration process.

Authority of the European Central Bank (the Bank) over its operational norms in the eyes of market actors – Exogenous and endogenous authority and legitimacy – The reconciliation by the Bank and the Court of Justice of the EU (the Court) of the pre-existing norm and political-economic reality with Article 123 TFEU – Sovereign lender of last resort – Eurozone Crisis – Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) – Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) – Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP)

Essence of fundamental rights – Article 52(1) of the Charter – Court of Justice of the EU – Methodology for determination of interference with essence – EU values – Proportionality – Balancing – Absolute and relative theory – Absolute rights – Interest theory of rights – Choice theory of rights – Hohfeld’s theory of rights – ‘Newtonian’ conception of rights – Case law on Article 52(1) of the Charter.

For a number of years there has been nothing at all unusual about the United Kingdom finding itself in a state of constitutional upheaval; indeed, for some time, this has been the UK constitution’s default setting. This has sometimes been as a result of long-anticipated and carefully planned reforms, such as the enactment, in the late 1990s, of legislation to give domestic effect to the European Convention on Human Rights and to introduce devolved systems of government in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In contrast, more recent upheaval is attributable to often unexpected reactions to often unexpected events. For example, legislation making substantial changes to the devolution scheme in Scotland – providing, among other things, for the constitutional permanence of the Scottish Parliament and Government – was enacted to implement panicked promises made by UK politicians in the dying days of the Scottish independence referendum campaign, at which point a vote in favour of independence seemed a distinct possibility. And then, needless to say, there is Brexit – about which it is almost impossible to be guilty of hyperbole when describing its constitutional implications, so numerous and potentially far-reaching are they.