Laurent Pech 🇺🇦
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profpech.bsky.social
Laurent Pech 🇺🇦
@profpech.bsky.social

Professor of Law, Dean of @ucdschooloflaw.bsky.social, Senior Research Fellow at the CEU Democracy Institute in Budapest, and co-director of @goodlobbyprofs.bsky.social. Usual disclaimers.

Political science 77%
Law 13%

Merci

For a more concise version of the paper, see 🇬🇧 and 🇮🇹 versions published by Questione Giustizia

www.questionegiustizia.it/articolo/die...
Dieci anni di strumenti a difesa dello lo Stato di diritto: valutazione e prospettive future
Dieci anni di strumenti a difesa dello lo Stato di diritto: valutazione e prospettive future Rivista Questione Giustizia di Magistratura Democratica.
www.questionegiustizia.it

Paper also relies on excellent work of orgs such as @liberties.eu @democracyreporting.bsky.social and analyses published by @verfassungsblog.de from authors such as @radosvetavassileva.bsky.social @annawojcik.bsky.social which have allowed me to keep track of crucial developments in multiple EUMS
Dieci anni di strumenti a difesa dello lo Stato di diritto: valutazione e prospettive future
Dieci anni di strumenti a difesa dello lo Stato di diritto: valutazione e prospettive future Rivista Questione Giustizia di Magistratura Democratica.
www.questionegiustizia.it

Reposted by R. Daniel Kelemen

Paper reflects years of work/engagement with toolbox, relies on multiple docs secured via access requests, and of course excellent work of colleagues such @rdanielkelemen.bsky.social @kimlanelaw.bsky.social @tommasopavone.bsky.social @petrabard.bsky.social @profkochenov.bsky.social to name but a few

Reposted by Henry Farrell

Bonus: Paper includes multiple tables contrasting Comm or Council's positive/panglossian assessments with expert assessments. One of paper's key points: increasing politicisation of toolbox comes with increasing gaslighting to hide this politicisation/gap btw EU rhetoric & reality of its (in)action
Paper now available here democracyinstitute.ceu.edu/articles/lau...
For those of you familiar with the EU's rule of law toolbox, you can go straight to the section offering concrete/multiple examples of timid use, misuse and non-use of the main EU prevention/monitoring & response/enforcement tools

"Do the US or China ever refrain from enforcing their own laws simply to please us? We should immediately apply our laws. This must be the first expression of European digital sovereignty ... We can’t let ourselves be intimidated"
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Reposted by Laurent Pech

not only is trump transforming the united states into a rogue player on accountability (unsurprisingly), but europeans are not fighting back. this is awful and it's not gonna stop. see brazil, too. vindictive & selective - all in the service of impunity.
An absolute scandal compounded in this case by failure of French government and EU institutions to forcefully react and sanction in turn those who have sanctioned ICC judges and prosecutors. Makes a total mockery of FR/EU's repeated commitment to the rule of law/ICC

www.lemonde.fr/en/internati...

At long last, some enforcement by Commission re Slovakia's backsliding with letter of formal notice sent yesterday for breach of several fundamental principles of EU law, particularly the principles of primacy, autonomy, effectiveness and uniform application of EU law
ec.europa.eu/commission/p...
November infringements package: key decisions
Overview by policy area\n\nIn its regular package of infringement decisions, the European Commission takes legal action against Member States that fail to comply with their obligations under EU law. T...
ec.europa.eu

This sentence/admission should be of interest to the European Parliament considering pending Case C-225/24 as Comm adopts opposite position to the one it has defended before CJEU:
"The Commission highlighted persistent and new concerns in several areas, including: independence of the judiciary"

""This egregious incident underscores both the community’s and the Judiciary’s concerns about how ICE is conducting its operations in Rhode Island,” R.I. Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul A. Suttell said."

Latest from Trump's armed masked secret police: "ICE agents then surrounded the judge’s car and demanded everyone to exit the vehicle, threatening to smash in the windows if they did not comply."

I would love to read article on “measures” Comm has been considering for months should you be looking for a topic to investigate. Would be interesting to assess legal avenues available to individual ICC judges in EU. No need to thank me for unsolicited ideas 😎

www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/docume...
www.europarl.europa.eu
An absolute scandal compounded in this case by failure of French government and EU institutions to forcefully react and sanction in turn those who have sanctioned ICC judges and prosecutors. Makes a total mockery of FR/EU's repeated commitment to the rule of law/ICC

www.lemonde.fr/en/internati...

Got a new (Working) Paper coming out on Monday on "the use, misuse and non-use of the EU’s #ruleoflaw toolbox". Paper will offer a comprehensive, critical and transversal overview of 10+ years of toolbox development/misuse. Overall picture is bleak with Commission & Council now part of the problem

Reposted by Laurent Pech

Can the EU enact Omnibus legislation - be it on digital, sustainability, defense or the environment - under EU law?

NEW PAPER examining the legality of this controversial legislative technique, available for free download here

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... #Omnibus
The Legality of Omnibus Legislation Under EU Law: <div> A Preliminary Analysis of Omnibus I Simplification Directive of CSRD and CSDD and its Legal Consequences on the EU Legal Order </div>
This paper provides a preliminary analysis of the legal issues arising from the European Union's use of the Omnibus as the privileged legislative technique to '
papers.ssrn.com
The party that promised "free speech on campus" has made sure there can be no free speech on campuses.
This week, I withdrew from a speaking engagement at a public university because they sent me a list of prohibited “words & concepts.” I will not humor this censorship. It does a disservice to the stories I’m discussing & the audience, who deserve unfettered access to information & conversation.
Tyler Cowen saying again that there is no threat to democracy marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevo... because Trump is facing opposition and is sensitive to public opinion, but this is how competitive authoritarianism works. Please consult @dziblatt.bsky.social or @stevelevitsky.bsky.social!
#BREAKING: A student intern at Rhode Island Superior Court was briefly taken into custody by ICE this afternoon before a judge intervened, 12 News has learned. Story by @jusolyn.bsky.social and @timwhiteri.bsky.social: ⤵️
RI judge intervenes after ICE mistakenly detains Superior Court intern
A teenager was nearly taken into federal immigration custody in Providence Thursday afternoon before a Superior Court judge intervened, according to the Rhode Island Judiciary.
www.wpri.com
This week, I withdrew from a speaking engagement at a public university because they sent me a list of prohibited “words & concepts.” I will not humor this censorship. It does a disservice to the stories I’m discussing & the audience, who deserve unfettered access to information & conversation.

Reposted by Laurent Pech

Imagine being Sotomayor & Jackson reading all these headlines, and thinking back to this exchange
That John Roberts was more concerned with nuisance lawsuits against the president than he was with whatever this is will haunt this country for a long time
Trump posts again about Democrats, saying their behavior is “punishable by DEATH!”

Is the 🇺🇸 in "constitutional crisis" territory yet?
At this stage, it may be more accurate to speak of rule of law breakdown in the 🇺🇸
We've updated our Study.

New stats (jaw-dropping imho):

1. DOJ noncompliance with court orders:

26 cases

2. Courts’ distrust of government information and representations:

Over 60 cases

3. Court findings of arbitrary and capricious government conduct:

68 cases
The “Presumption of Regularity” in Trump Administration Litigation
Comprehensive study of court cases involving Trump administration and the basis for courts no longer giving a "presumption of regularity."
www.justsecurity.org
We've updated our Study.

New stats (jaw-dropping imho):

1. DOJ noncompliance with court orders:

26 cases

2. Courts’ distrust of government information and representations:

Over 60 cases

3. Court findings of arbitrary and capricious government conduct:

68 cases
The “Presumption of Regularity” in Trump Administration Litigation
Comprehensive study of court cases involving Trump administration and the basis for courts no longer giving a "presumption of regularity."
www.justsecurity.org

Enforcement and sanctions speak louder than words.
EU Commission spokesperson on tech. The difficulty here is that the Commission sent X a provisional finding of breach of the Digital Services Act 16 months ago, and has done nothing since. So why take this expression of concern seriously?
Grok’s antisemitic output is appalling.

It goes against Europe’s fundamental rights and values.

The DSA is clear: hate speech has no place online in Europe.

We already took action on GPAI risks, including X’s chatbot in March.

We are in touch with X: the company must act on its chatbots risks.

Dr @joellegrogan.bsky.social is of course too modest to mention the written evidence we submitted to the House of Lords as part of this inquiry and which is available here: committees.parliament.uk/writtenevide...
The President of the United States just called for Democratic members of Congress to be executed. "HANG THEM", he posted.

If you're a person of influence in this country and you haven't picked a side, maybe now would be the time to pick a fucking side.
Trump posts again about Democrats, saying their behavior is “punishable by DEATH!”