The Rise of Constitutional Identity Review in Europe: A Critical Assessment

This event is co-organised by UCL Laws and LUISS Rome. It is generously sponsored by UCL’s Rome Cities Partnership Programme. Launched in 2018, this cross-UCL initiative supports, funds and promotes the work that UCL academics carry out with partners in global cities, with the aim of investing in sustainable, multidisciplinary research and teaching partnerships.

Co-organisers: Dr Silvia Suteu (UCL) and Dr Cristina Fasone (LUISS Rome)

About the Conference

This two-day research conference will bring together legal scholars, practitioners and constitutional court judges to discuss the rise of constitutional identity review in Europe. This development, most visible in the aftermath of the 2008 Euro-crisis and of the rise of populism in Europe, has thus far not received systematic, cross-country attention. The conference seeks to remedy this by including panels exploring the theoretical roots of the concept and critically assessing doctrines of judicial interpretation invoking constitutional identity, whether in response to domestic or supranational forces.

The conference will bring together judges, practitioners and scholars based in the UK, Italy and elsewhere in Europe to debate questions such as: What, if any, is the added explanatory value of the concept of constitutional identity? Was the rise of constitutional identity review a doctrinal necessity in the face of supranational forces or a doctrinal misstep? Is constitutional identity review constitutional nationalism by another name? Does the simultaneous rise in unconstitutional constitutional amendment doctrines, whereby courts invalidate constitutional amendments on substantive grounds, necessitate constitutional identity review? How much is the rise of constitutional identity review about protecting democracy and how much about enhancing judicial power? Is constitutional identity review especially prone to abuse?

By engaging with scholars and practitioners well-versed in the European jurisdictions where constitutional identity review has been developed, as well as with judges having themselves embraced or rejected the doctrine, the event aims to shed much-needed light on the workings of this novel jurisprudential tool.

Conference Programme (subject to change)

Thursday 12 September 2019
UCL Laws, Bentham House

17:30-17:45 Registration

17:45-18:00 Welcome address

18:00-19:00 Practitioners’ panel: Constitutional identity review before the courts

Prof David Feldman, Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of English Law, Cambridge University and former international judge, Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Sir Jeffrey Jowell QC KCMG, Blackstone Chambers, inaugural Director of the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, UK’s member of the Council of Europe’s Commission for Democracy through Law (“The Venice Commission”) (2000-2011) and Professor Emeritus of Public Law, UCL

Judge Francesco Viganò, Judge, Italian Constitutional Court and Professor of Criminal Law, Bocconi University in Milan

Moderators: Dr Cristina Fasone (LUISS Rome) and Dr Silvia Suteu (UCL)

19:00-19:45 Reception

Friday 13 September 2019
UCL Laws, Bentham House

09:00-09:15 Registration

09:15-11:00 Panel 2: The theoretical underpinnings of constitutional identity

Bosko Tripkovic (Birmingham), ‘Constitutional Identity and Constitutional Value’

Monika Polzin (Augsburg), ‘The Concept of Constitutional Identity: Still Useful or Prone to Abuse?’

Helen Irving (Sydney), ‘Constitutional Identity Theory and Gender: The Missing Referent’

Silvia Suteu (UCL), ‘Constitutional Identity as Defence against Populism: The Failings of an Incompletely Theorised Concept’

11:00-11:30 Coffee break

11:30-13:15 Panel 3: Comparative approaches to constitutional identity review

Gabor Halmai (EUI), ‘From Human Dignity as “Mother Right” Till the Misuse of Constitutional Identity. The Hungarian Constitutional Court’s Road to Anti-liberal Constitutional Interpretation’

Myriam Hunter-Henin (UCL), ‘Invoking French Constitutional Laïque Identity before the CJEU and ECtHR’

Nicola Lupo (LUISS Rome), ‘The Italian Constitutional Court and the Dialogic Construction of Constitutional Identities and Traditions’

Anna Śledzińska-Simon (Wrocław), ‘Constitutional Identity in Poland: Is the Emperor Putting on the Old Clothes of Sovereignty?’

13:15-14:30 Lunch break

14:30-16:00 Panel 4: Constitutional identity review in between the EU and the Member States

Theodore Konstadinides (Essex), ‘Article 4(2) TEU: Origins and Implementation’

Pietro Faraguna (Trieste), ‘The Constitutionalization of the European Identity Clause’

Cristina Fasone (LUISS Rome), ‘Constitutional Identity Review in the Framework of the New European Economic Governance’

16:00 Event Close

About the speakers

Prof. Pietro Faraguna, Assistant Professor in Constitutional Law, University of Trieste

Dr Cristina Fasone, Assistant Professor in Comparative Public Law, LUISS Guido Carli Rome

Prof. David Feldman, Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of English Law, Cambridge University and former international judge, Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Prof. Gábor Halmai, Director of Graduate Studies, Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law, European University Institute

Dr Myriam Hunter-Henin, reader in Law and Religion and Comparative Law, University College London

Prof. Helen Irving, Professor or Constitutional Law, The University of Sydney)

Sir Jeffrey Jowell QC (Hon) KCMG, Blackstone Chambers, inaugural Director of the Bingham Centre on the Rule of Law, UK’s member of the Council of Europe’s Commission for Democracy through Law (“The Venice Commission”) (2000-2011) and Professor Emeritus of Public Law, UCL

Prof. Theodore Konstadinides, Professor of Law, University of Essex

Prof. Nicola Lupo, Professor of Constitutional and Public Law, LUISS Rome

Prof. Dr Monika Polzin, Professor or Public Law with a focus on International Law, Augsburg University

Dr Anna Śledzińska-Simon, Assistant Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Wrocław

Dr Silvia Suteu, Lecturer in Public Law, University College London

Dr Bosko Tripkovic, Senior Lecturer in Law, Director Postgraduate Research, Birmingham Law School

Judge Francesco Viganò, Judge, Italian Constitutional Court and Professor of Law, Bocconi University in Milan

Queries

For more information or queries in relation to the programme and/or topics please contact either Dr Silvia Suteu at s.suteu@ucl.ac.uk and/or Dr Cristina Fasone at cfasone@luiss.it.

For logistical queries please contact the UCL Laws Events Team at laws-events@ucl.ac.uk.

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