Slovakia voted on the final day of September 2023. The electoral rhetoric, results and subsequent coalition-building give grounds to expect illiberal constitutional changes. More attention is needed towards the Constitutional Court’s capacity to resist such illiberalization, as Slovakia may join Hungary in a revamped illiberal Visegrad alliance.
In a historical march, tens of thousands of judicial staff, lawyers, and judges – including at least one justice of the Supreme Court – took to the streets of Mexico City on 22 October 2023. Chanting slogans such as ‘¡El Poder Judicial de la Federación no se toca!’ and ‘¡Somos los garantes de la Constitución!’ protesters rallied against the Mexican government’s plans to slash the federal judiciary’s (Poder Judicial de la Federación, PJF) funding. In this contribution, we analyse what this dispute is all about and explain why the government’s plans jeopardise the independence of the Mexican judiciary. In particular, we argue that the recent, seemingly innocent financial measures come at the cusp of an alarming authoritarian turn. Finally, we offer some tentative thoughts on what the endgame in this quickly escalating dispute might look like.
Over the last ten years, PiS has not only systematically dismantled Poland’s rule of law, but also strategically corroded the country’s media freedom. It has successfully politicized Poland’s media regulators, abused public service media for propaganda purposes, captured private media outlets and supported friendly private media, and created regulatory, legal and political obstacles for private media which criticized it. In this blogpost, I will detail three core steps that must be taken to restore media freedom in Poland in conformity with European standards. In particular, I argue for the restoration of the National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT), the constitutional media regulator, as an independent body; the dissolution of the „bonus” media regulator introduced by PiS, the National Media Council; and for reforming the status of Poland’s private media and the government’s approach to the media in general.
Good news for democracy from Poland? It appears that in the recent general elections, the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS), won most seats but not enough to allow it to form a coalition. Donald Tusk's Civic Coalition has a better chance of forming a coalition, which might put an end to PiS' eight years of rule. This, prima facie, seems like a victory of democracy over populism. While this is certainly true, in this post we wish to flag certain warning signs that this possible democratic rotation is not the end of the struggle for democracy but merely the beginning of this process. This is because even when populists are voted out of office, their legacy - at least partially - persists.
Yesterday, on September 12th, the Israeli Supreme Court, sitting en banc, heard eight petitions challenging a hotly contested constitutional amendment. The Court has rarely sat en banc in the past, and this is the first time that it sits in a composition of fifteen justices, attesting to the importance that the Court attributes to this decision. The amendment modifies Basic Law: the Judiciary, which protects judicial independence, lays out the process of judicial selection for all the state courts and grants the Supreme Court the authority to supervise state action when the Court convenes in its capacity as a High Court of Justice. In this blog, I will explain each side’s arguments and the strategic considerations behind the Attorney General’s unprecedented move to push the Court to explicitly invalidate a constitutional amendment. I will show how both sides ultimately found themselves dragged into a game of chicken from which they could not back down.
The Israel Supreme has become a major mobilizing source for the weekly mass protests against the reform that have been taking place in the last six months in many Israeli towns. Tens of thousands of liberals and conservatives rally around this institution, if not around anything else, confident that the Court is capable of preventing the government from irreversibly breaching the democratic walls. Unfortunately, this confidence is both unfounded and likely to sabotage the anti-reform movement. Given its past rulings and when keeping in mind the conservative nature of the institution of the Israeli judiciary, it is safe to say that the Israel Supreme Court will not be able to salvage the country from a democratic backsliding driven by a determined executive.
On August 11, the last day of the ongoing session of Parliament, the Indian Government tabled a notice that it wished to introduce three new bills on the Floor of the House for consideration. These were proposed statutes to replace the holy trinity of Indian criminal law: The Indian Penal Code of 1860, the Criminal Procedure Code of 1973, and the Indian Evidence Act of 1872, were to be replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam respectively. Even though the reform was marketed as an attempt to break from the colonial origins of criminal law, it actually represents a resurgence of the colonial-style authoritarian approach, rather than an effort to build upon the relatively modest progress made half a century ago in advancing individual freedom and civil rights.
In a last-minute attempt to grow voter presence at the booths on the 15th of October, Poland’s ruling party announced it would be combining the upcoming parliamentary elections with a referendum vote on not one, but four issues. This provides the governing powers with an additional electoral campaign just for them – misnamed as the referendum – to draw public attention to the questions asked. After all, they were drafted by those seeking reelection and focus on matters most used in their political agenda.
The Economics Department at India’s Ashoka University received an unexpected visit from the Federal Intelligence Bureau. The reason for this visit was a paper titled ‘Democratic Backsliding in the World’s Largest Democracy’ by Sabyasachi Das, an economist. In his research, Das meticulously examined 11 contested seats during India’s 2019 general elections and uncovered imbalanced outcomes that favored the ruling party, BJP. Das noted that ‘the results point to strategic and targeted electoral discrimination against Muslims, in the form of deletion of names from voter lists and suppression of their votes during election, in part facilitated by weak monitoring by election observers.’ The subsequent visit by the Federal Intelligence Bureau is just one among several incidents that highlight the precarious state of academic freedom in India.
Last week, the Indian government introduced a bill in Parliament providing for, inter alia, the mechanism for appointing Election Commissioners in India. The bill proposes the creation of a three-member Selection Committee composed of the Prime Minister, a Union Minister nominated by the Prime Minister, and the Leader of the Opposition to make recommendations to the President in this regard. The proposed Executive-dominated Selection Committee raises several questions about the conduct of free and fair elections in India. In the paragraphs to follow, I first discuss a recent Supreme Court decision that preceded the introduction of this bill and how this bill, as a response to the Court decision, is instructive to constitutional drafters. I then discuss the possible approaches the Supreme Court of India could adopt when the new legislation is challenged to push back against the Executive’s undemocratic maneuvers.
13. September 2025
Giovanni Capoccia
12. September 2025
Anne Peters
12. September 2025
Anne Peters