Chairs
Wojciech Sadurski wojciech.sadurski@sydney.edu.au
Yasmin Dawood yasmin.dawood@utoronto.ca

Constitutional scholars affect constitutionalism not only in the most obvious way: by writing books and articles, commentaries and treaties, case notes, etc., on constitutional matters but also in more “practical” manners. Often, constitutional scholars become part of constitutional (or other) courts in their countries, thus extending their scholarship into actual judicial law-making. Alternatively, they play a formative role in proposing new constitutions or constitutional provisions. They often perform various “intermediary” functions between pure scholarship and practical engagement in the constitutional judiciary: by appearing before courts and tribunals to provide expert opinions, advising and consulting politicians and judges, advocating various constitutional changes in public media, participating in public protests, etc. These types of engagement trigger complex ethical and scholarly issues, which have recently been encapsulated in a concept of “scholastivism”, often used with a pejorative, derogatory intention. Should we observe strict lines of demarcation between “scholarship” and “activism”? Where do the borderlines lie? What are the drawbacks of the so-called scholastivism, and can they be avoided without descending into a chimerical idea of “value-free” constitutional scholarship? On the other hand, in an era of democratic decline, do constitutional scholars have an ethical obligation to shed light on constitutional retrogression? To what extent do such interventions—whether purely scholarly or more practical—matter for sustainable constitutionalism? These are only some questions that panellists and those authors that submit papers for this workshop are invited to address.