However, the Court drew an important distinction: the confiscation did not serve to “prevent the illicit acquisition of property through criminal” acts but to “preserve integrity in public office by ...

President Petro’s move is a repudiation of the Constitution’s core, that is, a claim that legality must yield to presidentially defined legitimacy. And it is a warning sign that an already powerful ...

This decision, aka the F-35 carve out, was based on advice from the Defence Secretary and the Foreign Secretary. According to the Defence Secretary, due to the nature of the partnership laid down in ...

On 26 June 2025, the Spanish Constitutional Court ruled that the Amnesty Act “for the Institutional, Political and Social Normalization in Catalonia” is constitutional. This controversial Act, passed ...

It appears that whenever expert civil society organizations (CSOs) release a legal analysis of draft laws that restrict fundamental rights and freedoms, authoritarian governments learn from their ...

I had the honour of being awarded an honorary doctorate in law by the Faculty of Law at the University of Münster. I was ...

The application of these rules led Caster Semenya, a dominating 800m female runner, to become ineligible to compete in international athletics competition since 2019 and to initiate a judicial ...

The GDPR serves as a “backbone of the EU’s digital rulebook”, but has also been a source of intense debate and criticism from the outset. Broadly, two main sides have emerged: some say the GDPR ...

Though judges (and prosecutors) have been on strike a number of times before in Spain, this time is different. The governing body of the Spanish judges, the “ Consejo General del Poder Judicial ”, ...

Scholars of authoritarianism discuss two “soft guardrails” of democracy: 1) “mutual toleration” — a shared understanding that people and parties with different views and values must respect one ...

Towards the end of June, as a Republican Congress ramped up efforts to pass the signature legislation of President Donald Trump’s second term and the Supreme Court completed its docket for the Spring, ...

A different kind of legal obligation, however, is emphasised by JOACHIM WIELAND (GER): the German legislature is obliged to ...