Abstract:

This year’s annual conference, organised jointly with the Romanian Association of Constitutional Law (ARDC), addresses the connection between central models of the rule of law and specific preconditions and contexts. In the EU, the topic is particularly apposite 20 years after the so-called ‘Big Bang Enlargement’. Andrei Pleșu, the honorary Rector of the project’s host institution (Minister of Foreign Affairs during the pre-accession, 1997-1999), beautifully proposed that “[v]iewed historically, Europe looks less like a schematic apricot and more like a pomegranate, with multiple cores.” Centrality is however important as the condition for the possibility of gauging conformity with, rapprochement towards, deviation from an ideal model. In nation-state constitutionalism, from the 19^thcentury onwards, the road towards centrality has always implied a mise à niveau of the periphery by incorporation of a prestigious Western constitutional model. The latter was usually itself IKEA-patented on other, even more central practices: Romania (whose elites dubbed it “Belgium of the Orient” at the time) copied the Belgian model in 1866, whereas Belgium, in 1831, looked up to and emulated France, the Netherlands, and England.

Such hierarchies and orders have been anything but self-evident recently. Many core models receded in terms of their power to command peripheral/global respect. The United States, for example, undoubtedly a hugely influential central model in constitutional law, has seen its status downgraded to that of a flawed democracy. Its place was severely docked in various law and development rankings; in the EIU Democracy Index (2022), for example, the US fell to position 30 (below Portugal and Israel, slightly above Slovenia and Botswana). In Western Europe also, parties which used to be on the quarantined fringe are on the steady rise and question unabashedly institutions and norms, both national and international. What used to be peripheral is no longer quarantined at the periphery. Why this is so and what can the (rule of) law do about it (if anything) are central questions in this event.

PROGRAM

Photo: Europa Regina, Sebastian Münster, 1588

Thursday, 26 September 2024, at CEREFREA , Villa Noël (Émile Zola 6, Bucharest)

9.30 Welcome note/ Opening remarks by the conveners

10.00-11.30
Panel I: Chair Martin LOUGHLIN

Raluca BERCEA (Professor, West University of Timișoara/Senior Researcher, ROLPERIPHERAL)
Oana ȘTEFAN (Chair of European Law, King‘s College London)
On the Quest for a Paradigm Shift: The ‘Rule of Law’ Litigation at the ECJ 

Dimitry V. KOCHENOV (Director, Rule of Law CEU Democracy Institute/Professor, CEU-Vienna)
Restoring Dialogical Rule of Law in the European Union: Janus in the Mirror

Marieta SAFTA (Professor, “Titu Maiorescu” University)
Andrei IACUBA (PhD student, ASE Bucharest)
Are there “non-judgable issues” in constitutional litigation? Some considerations on the role of judicial deference in the rule of law

11.30-12.00 Coffee break

12.30-14.00
Panel II: Chair Dimitry V. KOCHENOV

Mihai BĂDESCU (Professeur agrégé, Académie d’Études Économiques de Bucarest, Membre à part entière de l’Académie des Scientifiques Roumains, AOSR)
Des possibles « attaques » contre l’État de droit contemporain

Av. dr. Iosif  FRIEDMANN – NICOLESCU (Dr. iur., Bucharest Bar)
L’état de droit et la Constitution

Veaceslav ZAPOROJAN (Associate Professor & Law Department Dean, Academy of Economic Studies from Moldova, Republic of Moldova)
Centralization of the Peripheral National Constitutional Rule of Law Within the European Union

14.00-15.00 Lunch Break

15.00-16.30
Panel III: Chair Raluca BERCEA

Bianca GUȚAN (Professor, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu/ROLPERIPHERAL)
Simina Elena TĂNĂSESCU (Professor, University of Bucharest/Judge, Constitutional Court of Romania)
Failed experiment or successful treatment? The Cooperation and Verification Mechanism through the Looking Glass

Andrei-Răzvan LUPU (Assistant Dr. iur., University of Bucharest)
Building the European Rechtsstaat

Ștefan DEACONU (Professor, University of Bucharest/Director, CDCIP)
Bogdan IANCU (Associate Professor, University of Bucharest/ROLPERIPHERAL)
False Analogies: Rule of Law Backsliding and Identitarian Claims in Hungary, Poland, and Romania

16.30-17.00 Coffee Break

17.00-19.00
Panel IV: Chair Mariana MOTA PRADO

Sarah GANTY (Postdoctoral Scholar, U. Ghent/JSD Candidate Yale Law School/Research Affiliate CEU Democracy Institute)
Democracy and Merit: A Toxic Relationship

András JAKAB (Professor, University of Salzburg; Judge, European Court of Human Rights, (from the 1st of Nov. 2024))
Rule of Law Culture: On why and how the quality of the rule of law depends on ordinary citizens

Dan Claudiu DĂNIȘOR (Professor, University of Craiova)
Democracy and the General Interest Against the Rule of Law and Human Rights?

Ionuț-Bogdan DIMA (Associate Professor, University of Bucharest)
Ramona Delia POPESCU (Associate Professor, University of Bucharest)
More with Less. The Impact of the Self-Inflated Competence of the Romanian Constitutional Court on the Rule of Law

***

Photo: Opicinus de Canistris, World Map (Vatican Lat. 6435 folio 79v.)

Friday, 27 September 2024, at New Europe College (Plantelor 21, Bucharest)

9.30 Opening

10.00-11.30
Panel V: Chair Ștefan DEACONU

Martin LOUGHLIN (Professor of Public Law, London School of Economics)
The Construction of European Society by European Lawyers: A Methodological Critique

Barbara GRABOWSKA-MOROZ (Director, CEU Legal Clinic/Affiliate, CEU Democracy Institute)
Transition to the Rule of Law and Rebuilding Judicial Independence in post-2023 Poland

Adam CZARNOTA (Rector, Riga Graduate School of Law & Emeritus Associate, UNSW)
Michał PAŹDZIORA (Assistant Professor, U. Wrocław)
Legal Epistemic Authority in Poland 1986-2020 (both presenting)

11.30-12.00 Coffee break

12.00-13.30
Panel VI: Chair Maja SAHADŽIĆ

Michael A WILKINSON (Professor of Law, London School of Economics)
Some skeptical reflections on liberal anti-populism

Alexandra MERCESCU (Lecturer, West University of Timișoara
Legal and Constitutional Pluralism: A Rule of Law Matter?

Julian SCHOLTES (Lecturer, University of Glasgow)
The Venice Commission’s “New Democracies” and the Mental Map of European Constitutionalism

13.30-14.30 Lunch break

14.30-16.00
Panel VII: Chair Michael WILKINSON

Marius BALAN (Associate Professor, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Iași)
Masks of Statehood: Rechtsstaat, Freedom State, Welfare State, Security State, Cultural State

Maja SAHADŽIĆ (Assistant Professor at the School of Law and Researcher at the Montaigne Centre for Rule of Law and Administration of Justice, Utrecht University)
Between centrality and peripherality: Technology and the rule of law

Cosmin CERCEL (Professor, Ghent Legal History Institute, University of Ghent)
On Lawyers, Guns and Money: Accommodating the Exception Between Centre and Periphery

16.00-16.30 Coffee break

16.30-18.00
Panel VIII: Chair Adam CZARNOTA

Mariana Mota PRADO (Corresponding Author; William C. Graham Chair in International Law and Development, University of Toronto)
Marjorie MARONA (UFMG, Brazil)
Fabio KERCHE (UniRio, Brazil)
Institutional Dimensions of Prosecutorial Independence: The Lack of a Rule of Law Model

Attila VINCZE (PD, Dr. iur. Assistant Professor, Masaryk University, Judicial Studies Institute)
Beyond Ticking Boxes – the particularities of a constitutional system and the RoL conditionality

Bogdan IANCU (University of Bucharest/NEC ROLPERIPHERAL)
Form and Context in Rule of Law Osmosis: the Paradox of ‘Reverse Conformities’ 

*

This event is organized within the research project titled Rule of Law at the European Periphery: (Dis)incentive Structures and Conceptual Shifts (ROLPERIPHERAL) supported by UEFISCDI – Exploratory Research (PN-III-P4-PCE-2021-0319) and hosted by New Europe College.

The event merges the ROLPERIPHERAL 2024 annual conference with the traditional annual roundtable of the Romanian Association of Constitutional Law. This year’s conference was organised with the support of the Romanian Association of Constitutional Law and the University of Bucharest (the Faculty of Political Science, the Centre for the Study of Constitutional Law and Political Institutions (CDCIP) in the Law Faculty, and CEREFREA).