Sidney Seminar - Romania's Presidential Elections in a Militant Democracy Key?

Romania’s Presidential Election in a Militant Democracy Key?

Speaker: Professor Silvia Suteu (European University Institute)

Chair: Dr Oliver Gerstenberg (UCL Laws)

About the talk

The Romanian Constitutional Court made global headlines when it invalidated the first round of presidential elections in December 2024. Invoking electoral law breaches by the far-right candidate who had come first, the Court’s unanimous judgment was welcomed by many as a form of militant democracy in action. Others, however, were more sceptical. The US Vice-President infamously questioned the country’s democratic values at the February 2025 Munich security conference. Constitutional scholars, too, have grappled with the judgment’s doctrinal soundness and textual basis. This seminar will take stock of these debates, while also offering a broader, comparatively informed perspective on Romanian constitutional jurisprudence on the law of democracy.

This seminar is part of the Sidney Seminar Series.

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About the Speaker

Professor Silvia Suteu joined the EUI as a Chair in Law in September 2024. Her research interests are in comparative constitutional law, constitutional theory, and gender and law. She is especially interested in the theory and practice of deliberative constitutional change, constitutional entrenchment and democratic theory (in particular eternity clauses), transitional constitutionalism, and gender-sensitive constitution-making. She has also done work in international humanitarian and human rights law. Her work has appeared in major journals and edited collections, and her monograph, Eternity Clauses in Democratic Constitutionalism (OUP 2021), was awarded the ICON-S Best Book prize in 2023. Her co-authored handbooks, ABC for a Gender-sensitive Constitution and ABC for Gender-sensitive Legislation, are regularly used in legal education and by activists, particularly in the MENA region. Prior to joining the EUI, Professor Suteu was Associate Professor at the Faculty of Laws, University College London (UCL). She has held visiting professor positions at the University of Zurich (2022) and LUISS Guido Carli in Rome (2023). She sits on the editorial board of the European Constitutional Law Review, is a member of the Executive Board of the UK Constitutional Law Association, and is Co-Chair of the Central and Eastern European Chapter of ICON-S. Professor Suteu is committed to supporting constitutional reform processes worldwide and has provided legal expertise on constitution building to a number of international and non-governmental organisations.

About the Chair

Dr Oliver Gerstenberg teaches EU law and Legal Theory at UCL Laws since 2016. Prior to this, he held a JF Kennedy Memorial Fellowship at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University; a Law and Public Affairs Fellowship at Princeton University; and a Jean Monnet Fellowship at the EUI. He holds a doctorate in law from the Goethe University Frankfurt.  

Oliver’s research combines an interest in EU multilevel constitutionalism with an interest in constitutional theory more broadly. He was part of the Project Team on the Charter of Fundamental Constitutional Principles for a European Democracy, convened by Takis Tridimas and Eloise Muir under the auspices of the European Law Institute and published by the ELI in 2024. 

About the GCDC

The Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism, based at the UCL Faculty of Laws, seeks to advance scholarly understanding of the relationship between democratic government and the rule of law in domestic, comparative, and transnational perspective, with a particular focus on identifying the supporting conditions for constitutional resilience in electorally competitive political systems. Read more about the group and its work.

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