scholarly journals Talking Past Each Other: On Common Misperceptions in the Rule of Law Debate

2020 ◽  
pp. 209-233
Author(s):  
Attila Vincze
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
The Other ◽  
Quality Of Democracy ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Eu Policies ◽  
The One ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Constitutional Changes

Abstract This chapter deals with shortcomings of the EU policies vis-à-vis Hungary and partially also Poland. Firstly, it depicts the argument that the EU’s diagnosis of illiberal backsliding is too narrow. When assessing the quality of democracy in Hungary and Poland, the Commission and the European Parliament almost exclusively focus on recent constitutional changes, and thereby overlook many other deficits which lead to a distorted picture. Secondly, there is a legitimate debate on the meaning of the basic values of the EU. Article 2 TEU contains many open-textured expressions, which might be understood differently. Thirdly, due to the incomplete diagnosis, the instruments currently being used to combat backsliding tendencies seem ill-suited on the one hand, and, on the other, the EU surprisingly does not seem to make best use of currently available tools. The chapter concludes by highlighting and discussing possible improvements of EU strategies towards backsliding states.

Vergaberechtsschutz im Spannungsfeld zwischen Beschleunigungsgebot und Gewährung effektiven Rechtsschutzes

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hsi-Ping Chen
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Public Procurement ◽  
German Law ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
Substantive Law ◽  
The Eu

The German Law on public procurement remedies, implementing the EU Remedies Directives into national law, has to engage in a balancing act between effective legal protection of bidders and the necessary acceleration of the award procedure. The book develops solutions for conflicts between the abovementioned opposing interests, which are consistent with the pluralistic paradigm of the European legal area, and the standards of assessment of the EU primary substantive law on public procurement. The Europeanisation of the German Law on public procurement remedies is analysed in detail. The work deals with the establishment and improvement of effective legal protection of bidders on the one hand and, on the other hand, shows that the acceleration of the award procedure within the framework of the procedural system is bounded by the rule of law. The book carves out strengths and deficits of the German Law on public procurement remedies.

scholarly journals Efforts to Disrupt the Authoritarian Equilibrium within the EU. Effects and Counter-effects

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 723-741
Author(s):  
Krisztina Juhász
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Financial Support ◽  
The Other ◽  
Resource Analysis ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Secondary Literature ◽  
The One ◽  
The Eu

Abstract The study, leaning on the concept of ‘authoritarian equilibrium’ introduced by R. Daniel Kelemen on the one hand, and new intergovernmentalism as a fresh theoretical approach of the European integration on the other hand, investigates if we can talk about the disruption of the ‘authoritarian equilibrium’ as a consequence of the split up between Fidesz and the EPP, and the adoption of the rule of law conditionality mechanism. In other words, whether we can talk about an initial authoritarian dis-equilibrium? Or can we rather talk about a converse process due to the mechanisms of new intergovernmentalism resulting in the further stabilisation of authoritarian governments and the ineffectiveness of the EU measures devoted to the protection of rule of law? Using qualitative resource analysis of the relevant secondary literature and the documents and legal acts of the EU and its institutions the paper comes to the conclusion that while we have witnessed efforts to disrupt the partisan and the financial support of the Hungarian governing party, these efforts were neutralised by the mechanisms of new intergovernmentalism and as a consequence we still cannot talk about an initial authoritarian disequilibrium in the EU.

Europe

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
The One ◽  
Two Sides ◽  
The Eu

In the years before the Covid-19 crisis confronted the world with unprecedented challenges, the EU showed two sides of itself: On the one hand, it gave cause for hope, having overcome several crises and presenting itself to the world as a defender of multilateralism and a stronghold of democracy. On the other hand, however, its weaknesses remained visible: its lack of coherence in foreign and security policy; its insufficient influence in its neighbouring regions; and its internal contradictions with regard to upholding the rule of law among its member states. The essays gathered here offer a review of two years of EU politics. With contributions by Laurent Baechler, Anna Dimitrova, Mohamed Ane, Sebastian Franzkowiak, András Inotai, Gabriel N. Toggenburg, Arnaud Leconte, Kyriakos Revelas, Hartmut Marhold, Jean-Claude Vérez, Jean-Marie Rousseau, Susann Heinecke, Florent Marciacq, Tobias Flessenkemper, Magda Stumvoll, Marta-Claudia Cliza, Laura-Cristiana Spataru-Negura, Claude Nigoul, Pinar Selek, Yvan Gastaut.

scholarly journals Democratic Backsliding in the European Union

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Sitter ◽  
Elisabeth Bakke
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Member State ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Will ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
The Eu

Democratic backsliding in European Union (EU) member states is not only a policy challenge for the EU, but also a potential existential crisis. If the EU does too little to deal with member state regimes that go back on their commitments to democracy and the rule of law, this risks undermining the EU from within. On the other hand, if the EU takes drastic action, this might split the EU. This article explores the nature and dynamics of democratic backsliding in EU member states, and analyses the EU’s capacity, policy tools and political will to address the challenge. Empirically it draws on the cases that have promoted serious criticism from the Commission and the European Parliament: Hungary, Poland, and to a lesser extent, Romania. After reviewing the literature and defining backsliding as a gradual, deliberate, but open-ended process of de-democratization, the article analyzes the dynamics of backsliding and the EU’s difficulties in dealing with this challenge to liberal democracy and the rule of law. The Hungarian and Polish populist right’s “illiberal” projects involve centralization of power in the hands of the executive and the party, and limiting the independence of the judiciary, the media and civil society. This has brought both governments into direct confrontation with the European Commission. However, the EU’s track record in managing backsliding crises is at best mixed. This comes down to a combination of limited tools and lack of political will. Ordinary infringement procedures offer a limited toolbox, and the Commission has proven reluctant to use even these tools fully. At the same time, party groups in the European Parliament and many member state governments have been reluctant to criticize one of their own, let alone go down the path of suspending aspect of a states’ EU membership. Hence the EU’s dilemma: it is caught between undermining its own values and cohesion through inaction on one hand, and relegating one or more member states it to a second tier—or even pushing them out altogether—on the other.

The Making of a President: The European Parliament and the Confirmation of Jacques Santer as President of the Commission

1996 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Hix ◽  
Christopher Lord
Keyword(s):  
European Parliament ◽  
The Other ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
European Elections ◽  
Shared Meanings ◽  
Single European Act ◽  
The One ◽  
Council Of Ministers ◽  
The Eu

THE SINGLE EUROPEAN ACT AND THE MAASTRICHT TREATY attempted to balance two principles of representation in their redesign of the institutional structures of the European Union: the one, based on the indirect representation of publics through nationally elected governments in the European Council and Council of Ministers; the other, based on the direct representation of publics through a more powerful European Parliament. There is much to be said for this balance, for neither of the two principles can, on its own, be an adequate solution at this stage in the development of the EU. The Council suffers from a non-transparent style of decision-making and is, in the view of many, closer to oligarchic than to democratic politics. On the other hand, the claims of the European Parliament to represent public sentiments on European integration are limited by low voter participation, the second-order nature of European elections and the still Protean nature of what we might call a transnational European demos. The EU lacks a single public arena of political debate, communications and shared meanings; of partisan aggregation and political entrepreneurship; and of high and even acceptance, across issues and member states, that it is European and not national majority views which should count in collective rule-making.

scholarly journals Breaking Up the Unity of the World: Peter Fitzpatrick’s Conception of Responsive Law

2020 ◽  
pp. 174387212097533
Author(s):  
Johan van der Walt
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Short Article ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
The Law ◽  
The One ◽  
The Ideal

This short article on Peter Fitzpatrick’s conception of “responsive law” analyzes the ambiguous temporality that Fitzpatrick discerned in modern law. On the one hand, law makes the claim of being fully present and therefore already and completely contained in itself. This aspect of law reflects the law’s claim to “immanence,” that is, its claim of always being able to rely strictly on its own operational terms without having to take recourse to any consideration not already contained within itself. It is this aspect of law that renders the ideal of the “rule of law” feasible. On the other hand, the law’s claim to doing justice to every unique and therefore every new case also demands that it takes leave of that which is already settled within it. This aspect of law can be called its “imminence.” The imminence of the law concerns the reality that law always finds itself on the threshold of that which has not yet been said and must still be said. The article shows how Fitzpatrick relied on Freud’s concept of the totem to explain the “wondrous” unity of its immanence and imminence.

Part III Regimes and Doctrines, Ch.38 Theories of Transitional Justice: Cashing in the Blue Chips

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nesiah Vasuki
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
The Other ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
Political Society ◽  
Political Imagination ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The One

This chapter examines the utopias called forth by the marriage of human rights accountability mechanisms on the one hand, and, on the other, arguments about the practical significance of these initiatives as preconditions for development, democracy, and political society. Transitional justice is seen to marry the ethical charge of the human rights field’s march against impunity, with an instrumental potential facilitating transition from the rule of violence into the rule of law. If the normative theories and agendas implicated by this marriage are advanced as being in the interests of justice, the accompanying instrumental theories and agendas are advanced in the interests of transition. Justice and transition operate here as allied and mutually reinforcing aspirations of and rationales for transitional justice institutions. Thus, this chapter identifies and analyses the stakes that attend this marriage of ‘ethics’ and ‘expertise’ in constituting the utopian political imagination of transitional justice.

Domestic Infringements of the Rule of Law as a European Union Problem

2018 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 552-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marek Safjan
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Communist System ◽  
Domestic Legislation ◽  
Charter Of Fundamental Rights ◽  
New Type ◽  
The One ◽  
The Eu

In some countries of central Europe the rule of law is directly threatened by a new type of legislation based on the zeal of the political majority to establish a completely different political system than the one that was built after the collapse of the communist system. From that perspective, there is little place for the principle of separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary is threatened. This contribution discusses the multilevel dimension of the rule of law principle in the EU, issues in the context of the disrespect for the rule of law as a case of systemic deficiencies, followed by a brief discussion of the Copenhagen accession criteria. The article concludes that the rule of law principle as recognised under EU law is by no means of a merely symbolic nature, and that domestic legislation abolishing key safeguards of the rule of law can be scrutinized not only under the EU Charter of fundamental rights, where applicable, but also under the TEU. Without the solidarity of all Europeans, however, the preservation of our basic values and the future of the EU are in serious danger.

scholarly journals Opinions on the Legal Significance of the Right to Health

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-120
Author(s):  
Teodora Aurelia Drăghici ◽  
Gabriel Cătălin Predescu
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Right To Health Care ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right

Abstract The legal significance of the right to health care, in particular and of other fundamental rights in general, on the one hand unknown to citizens and on the other hand known, minimized or ignored by state authorities and institutions, will certainly lead to abuses of law coming from the latter, abuses that cannot be tolerated by the rule of law.

scholarly journals Pozycja i rola Komisji Europejskiej w procedurze ochrony budżetu UE w przypadku uogólnionych braków w zakresie praworządności w państwach członkowskich

2021 ◽  
pp. 145-156
Author(s):  
Karol Piwoński
Keyword(s):  
European Commission ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The One ◽  
The Eu

The aim of this article is to analyse the position and role of the European Commission in the procedure provided in the regulation on a general regime of conditionality for the protection of the European Union’s budget. For this purpose the scheme of this procedure was analysed, by interpreting the relevant regulations using the dogmatic method and considering opinions of the EU institutions and views of the scholars. A comparative method has also been applied. The new position of the Commission in the procedure for protection of the EU budget has been compared with the position it plays in the existing instruments. The analysis made from the point of view of the position of individual institutions in the new procedure, although it does not allow predicting how they will be implemented. The conducted analysis demonstrates that the European Commission – an institution of Community character – has gained wide competences, and in applying them it has been given a wide range of discretion. On the one hand, the introduced regulations exemplify a new paradigm in creating mechanisms for protection of the rule of law. On the other hand, they raise doubts as to their compliance with EU law. However, they undoubtedly constitute a decisive step towards increasing the effectiveness of the EU's instruments for the rule of law protection.

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