Articles for author: Sabine Frerichs

Violation of Freedoms and Judges in Turkey

Sometimes the voice of the president, who cannot be silenced, is one of the few that resound freely to recall the principles and values that are assumed to be typical of Europe. Holding a lecture at one of the Istanbul universities that offered him an honorary degree, the President of the European Court Robert Spano began by saying that he accepted that honour not only because it was a protocol moment, never refused in any member state of the Council of Europe, but also because the ceremony gave him the opportunity to underline the importance of academic freedom and freedom of expression in a democracy governed by the rule of law.

The Choice of Paradigms in Political Economy: A Primer for Lawyers

What comes after neoliberalism? And why does this matter to lawyers? The backdrop for these questions is Duncan Kennedy’s portrayal of three paradigms of legal thinking, which successively gained influence across the globe. The first was classical legal thought, which rose to prominence in the second half of the 19th century and matched ideas of economic liberalism and laissez-faire. The second was socially oriented legal thought, which developed from the beginning of the 20th century and conceived of law as a regulatory instrument to advance social reforms. The third paradigm, which emerged in the second half of the 20th century, is referred to as neoformalism and could be termed neoliberalism as well, reflecting the related turn in economic thinking, law and policy-making.