Through selective activism towards greater resilience: the Czech Constitutional Court's interventions into high politics in the age of populism

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216224%3A14220%2F21%3A00119388" target="_blank" >RIV/00216224:14220/21:00119388 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13642987.2021.2003337" target="_blank" >https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13642987.2021.2003337</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2021.2003337" target="_blank" >10.1080/13642987.2021.2003337</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Through selective activism towards greater resilience: the Czech Constitutional Court's interventions into high politics in the age of populism

Original language description

With technocratic populist Andrej Babiš leading the Czech government coalition, the country has experienced some democratic backsliding. In contrast to its Hungarian and Polish counterparts, however, the Czech Constitutional Court has been spared from executive capture. This article argues that resilient constitutional courts may act as one of the key safeguards against illiberal populism. We demonstrate that resilient constitutional courts are products of an institutional framework, which prevents court-packing by loyal allies of populist leaders, and of courts’ activities that increase their reputation with the public, thus making political attacks against them overly costly. We argue that the Czech Constitutional Court has exercised an approach of selective judicial activism that focuses on keeping political competition fair while avoiding involvement in controversial socially transformative judicial decision-making which would outrage large parts of the population. Moreover, by acting as a guardian of fair political competition, the Court contributed to the further fragmentation of the political landscape, which in turn prevented the accumulation of political power, and hence the Court shielded itself from political attacks.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

50501 - Law

Project

<a href="/en/project/GA17-10100S" target="_blank" >GA17-10100S: Extralegal Influences on the Czech Constitutional Court’s Decision-making</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2021

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

International Journal of Human Rights

ISSN

1364-2987

e-ISSN

1744-053X

Volume of the periodical

26

Issue of the periodical within the volume

1

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

23

Pages from-to

1-22

UT code for WoS article

000722756200001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85119967739