Constitutional Markers of Authoritarianism

Tóth, Gábor

doi:10.1007/s40803-018-0081-6

Cited by 14 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…The constitution formally remained -and still remains -in force, unamended; yet it lost its effectiveness in eliminating from the legal system norms that are incompatible with it. Nominally, the country is still a liberal democracy, but its often targeted ordinary laws extend the scope of power of the executive and the legislative, thereby marking an authoritarian drift (Tóth 2019, 50-52, Sadurski 2020 often addressed through the category of "backsliding" (Daly 2019b, 758-759). Crucial constitutional norms are thus both valid and suspended, since their applicability is shattered by sovereign decisions of lawapplying institutions that prefer ordinary laws instead of constitutional ones.…”

Section: Bifurcation Of the Legal System And The Role Of The Judgementioning

confidence: 99%

Subject, sovereign, Antigone: Judicial subjectivity and determination of the law

Tacik

2024

Oñati Socio-Legal Series

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In this paper I develop a theory of judicial subjectivity based on Lacan’s psychoanalysis. This theory is enriched with a theoretical confrontation with the abyssal laboratory of populist governance which has been created by the far-right majority in Poland since 2015. By adding this empirical context, I enquire how agency of judges is being created by the split legal system. The subjectivity of the judicial function implies speaking modestly in the name of the law, but at the same time involves being addressed by the demands of the Big Other. Yet at the same time the judge holds in her hands the jouissance of the law: it is the judge that can ultimately – with the effect of recognition within the Symbolic – acknowledge or refused validity of the law. It is in the judge’s subjectivity that the law can be recreated or can collapse. The peculiar link between the judge and her master is located in judicial conscience: the place where the subject’s structural emptiness corresponds to the lack within the law. As I argue in the paper, this role comes to the fore in case of split legal systems – such as the Polish one – which address judges with contradictory norms. In such moment the judge becomes ‘a judicial Antigone’ in Lacanian interpretation: a person on whose personal self-identification the legal system itself depends. Such a judicial Antigone – with empirical examples of Polish judges – is both the utmost hero and the utmost victim of the law. En este artículo desarrollo una teoría de la subjetividad judicial basada en el psicoanálisis de Lacan. Dicha teoría se enriquece con una confrontación teórica con el laboratorio abisal de la gobernanza populista que ha creado la mayoría de extrema derecha en Polonia desde 2015. Añadiendo este contexto empírico, investigo cómo un sistema legal dividido está creando la agencia de los jueces. La subjetividad de la función judicial implica hablar modestamente en nombre de la ley, pero al mismo tiempo implica ser abordado por las demandas del Gran Otro. Sin embargo, al mismo tiempo, el juez tiene en sus manos el goce de la ley: es el juez el que puede, en última instancia -con el efecto del reconocimiento dentro de lo Simbólico–, reconocer o rechazar la validez de la ley. Es en la subjetividad del juez donde la ley puede recrearse o derrumbarse. El vínculo peculiar entre el juez y su amo se localiza en la conciencia judicial: el lugar donde el vacío estructural del sujeto se corresponde con la ausencia dentro de la ley. Como sostengo en el artículo, este papel pasa a un primer plano en el caso de los sistemas jurídicos divididos –como el polaco– que dirigen a los jueces normas contradictorias. En ese momento, el juez se convierte en “una Antígona judicial”, según la interpretación lacaniana: una persona de cuya autoidentificación personal depende el propio sistema jurídico. Tal Antígona judicial –con ejemplos empíricos de jueces polacos– es a la vez el máximo héroe y la máxima víctima de la ley.

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Section: Bifurcation Of the Legal System And The Role Of The Judgementioning

confidence: 99%

Subject, sovereign, Antigone: Judicial subjectivity and determination of the law

Tacik

2024

Oñati Socio-Legal Series

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“…45 A characteristic of modern autocracy is that institutions of the constitutional judiciary are not abolished, as autocrats in the old times would have done, but neutralized in a seemingly democratic way. 46 An autocratic transformation of the constitutional judiciary, supported by much new scholarship, is hijacking the theoretical conceptions of Richard Bellamy, 47 Ran Hirschl, 48 Mark Tushnet, 49 and Jeremy Waldron, 50 suggesting that parliament as an elected, representative body-and, tentatively, some direct participatory forms of democracy-provide a superior kind of democratic deliberation than constitutional review by unelected judges. The new system reportedly introduces "political constitutionalism" instead of "legal constitutionalism" and ostensibly replaces "juristocracy" with "parliamentary sovereignty".…”

Section: Public Access To Constitutional Court: the Case Of Hungarymentioning

confidence: 99%

Constitutional Review as a Democratic Instrument

Kovács,

Tóth

2023

Rev. Cent. East Eur. Law

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The article situates Rosalind Dixon’s Responsive Judicial Review in constitutional legal literature and engages with its central message by introducing the idea of constitutional courts as accessible democratic institutions. It compares constitutional review in a well-functioning and a declining democracy. After considering the relationship between democratic self-government and constitutional review, the article argues that a lawfully established, accessible, yet reasonably self-restraining constitutional court with the power of procedural and substantive review can be understood as a democratic institution. To support this claim, the article offers the example of Hungary, where democratization coincided with the birth of accessible constitutional review and where the decay of democracy has been accompanied by the decline of constitutional review. It concludes that constitutional justices can always have a choice. They can contribute to an autocratic transformation or resist the autocratic government by performing a Herculean task.

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What Would Populism Be? Understanding Some Semantic Dimensions

Gouvêa¹,

Branco²

2021

Societies and Political Orders in Transition

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Constitutional Markers of Authoritarianism

Cited by 14 publications

References 33 publications

Subject, sovereign, Antigone: Judicial subjectivity and determination of the law

Subject, sovereign, Antigone: Judicial subjectivity and determination of the law

Constitutional Review as a Democratic Instrument

What Would Populism Be? Understanding Some Semantic Dimensions

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