Workshop Programme
Constitutional Interpretation in Emergencies in Europe
HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences, Institute for Legal Studies, Budapest
Institute for Legal Studies, ILS Council Room, November 7, 2024
The aim of the workshop is to examine how emergencies impact the methodology and practice of constitutional interpretation in Europe.
There has been a vast and growing literature over the last two decades on the legal theory of emergencies, regulatory regimes, and the scientific assessment of exceptional powers and rights-restrictions. However, less attention has been paid to the constitutional review of emergency legislation, despite the fact that the issue has been raised time and time again from Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 2 (1866) to Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944), from A v. Secretary of State for the Home Department [2004] UKHL (the Belmarsh case) to the “COVID-19 case law” of the European Court of Human Rights. The primary reason for this scholarly gap may be that (constitutional) courts have traditionally been deferential to the executive in dealing with a crisis in times of emergency, and, since judicial review usually reacts to legal challenges with some delay and after the events, it is difficult to access the relatively limited information needed for normative assessment or even for broader comparative analysis.
Organisers
The workshop is organised as part of the project on Constitutional Interpretation in Emergencies in Europe (CINEM) and is supported by the Widening Europe Programme of the European University Institute, Florence, the HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences, Institute for Legal Studies, Budapest, and the Research Group on Constitutional Interpretation of the International Association of Constitutional Law. The EUI Widening Europe Programme initiative, backed by contributions from the European Union and EUI Contracting States, is designed to strengthen internationalisation, competitiveness, and quality in research in Widening countries, and thus foster a more cohesive European Higher Education and Research area. The Principal Investigators of the framework project are Gráinne de Búrca, Professor of Law at the European University Institute, Florence; Fruzsina Gárdos-Orosz, Research Professor, Institute for Legal Studies, HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences and Professor of Law, ELTE Law School, and Zoltán Szente, Fernand Braudel Fellow, European University Institute and Research Professor, Institute for Legal Studies, HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences.
Program
7 November, Thursday
9.30 – 9.45 Registration
9.45 – 10.00 Welcome speech of Zoltán Szente
Morning session
Chair: Zoltán Szente
10.00–10.20 Anna-Bettina Kaiser: Constitutional Interpretation in Emergency in Germany
10.20–10.40 Monika Florczak-Wątor: Constitutional Interpretation in Emergency in Poland
10.40–11.00 Bianca Gutan: Constitutional Interpretation in Emergency in Romania (on-line)
11.00–11.20 Vaidotas Vaičaitis: Covid-19 case-law of the Lithuanian Constitutional Court
11.20–11.50 Discussion
11.50–12.00 Coffee break
12.00–12.20 Pavel Ondřejek: Justification of Extraordinary Measures Adopted Pursuant to the Pandemic Act in the Czech Republic (on-line)
12.20–12.40 Ðorđe Gardašević: Relevance of classical arguments in contemporary emergency interpretation
12.40–13.00 Fruzsina Gárdos-Orosz: Crisis and Law: Handling Covid-19 by emergency powers in the Central and Eastern European countries
13.00–13.30 Discussion
13.30–14.30 Lunch break
Afternoon session
Chair: Fruzsina Gárdos-Orosz
14.30–14.50 Cesare Pinelli: Constitutional Interpretation in Emergency in Italy (on-line)
14.50‒15.10 Francisco Balaguer Callejón: Constitutional Interpretation in Emergency in Spain
15.10- 15.30 Discussion
15.30–15.50 Konrad Lachmayer: Constitutional Interpretation in Emergency in Austria
15.50–16.10 Claudia Cinnirella: Emergency interpretation in European Union Law: a first attempt of systematisation
16.10–16.40 Discussion
16.40–17.30 Zoltán Szente-Fruzsina Gárdos-Orosz: Constitutional interpretation in emergency ‒ Closing remarks and discussion of further project plans
Participants:
Balaguer Callejón, Francisco, Professor of Law, University of Granada, Granada
Cinnirella, Claudia, Post-doc Researcher, University of Catania, Catania
de Búrca, Gráinne, Professor of Law, European University Institute, Florence
Florczak-Wątor, Monika, Professor of Law, Jagellonian University, Cracow
Gardašević Ðorđe, Professor of Law, University of Zagreb, Zagreb
Gárdos-Orosz, Fruzsina, Research Professor, Institute for Legal Studies, HUN-REN; Professor of Law, ELTE Law School, Budapest
Gutan, Bianca, Professor, "Lucian Blaga" University of Sibiu, Faculty of Law
Kaiser, Anna-Bettina, Professor of Law, Humboldt University, Berlin
Lachmayer, Konrad, Professor of Law, Siegmund Freud University, Vienna
Ondřejek, Pavel, Associate Professor, Charles University, Prague
Pinelli, Cesare, Professor of Law, Sapienza University, Rome
Szente, Zoltán, Research Professor, Institute for Legal Studies, HUN-REN, Budapest
Vaičaitis Vaidotas, Associate Professor, University of Vilnius, Vilnius