Chairs:

• Tímea Drinóczi: timea@gmail.com
• Viktor Kazai: kandinszkij@gmail.com
• Victor Marcel Pinheiro: victor.marcel.pinheiro@gmail.com
• Sebastian Soto: sebastian.soto.velasco@gmail.com

The quality of law-making is a cornerstone of constitutional democracy. Yet, across the globe, abusive legislative practices have increasingly undermined democratic institutions, eroded trust in representative bodies, and weakened fundamental rights protections. These practices take many forms: from accelerated legislative procedures without genuine debate or public consultation, to executive bypassing of parliaments, the misuse of omnibus bills, or the systematic marginalisation of parliamentary opposition. Whilst formally often lawful, such procedures distort or subvert the constitutional purpose of law-making rules and corrode the democratic process itself.

This workshop seeks to explore the phenomenon of abusive law-making practices and the role that institutions—particularly courts—play in safeguarding democratic resilience. We define abusive law-making as the enactment of laws by either misusing or violating procedural rules that contradict the constitutional purposes of parliamentary law-making. By democratic resilience, we mean the dynamic capacity of a constitutional system to withstand and adapt to challenges by not only resisting democratic backsliding but also by transforming itself through new institutional practices and legal arguments that strengthen its ability to pre-empt future threats.

A key question animating this discussion is whether and how constitutional (both judicial and non-judicial) review can effectively address abusive law-making and help maintain democratic resilience. Whilst oversight may also be exercised by non-judicial actors—such as parliamentary committees, Heads of State, or independent agencies—experience shows that many disputes eventually reach courts. The comparative study of judicial responses is therefore particularly illuminating for understanding the potential and limits of institutional resilience in the face of abuse.the true specific weight of partisan organisations in our democracies? Can our political system be conceived without parties?