Criminalizing backsliding judges? In Conversation with Armin von Bogdandy

“Reverting from illiberal regimes back to a state of the Rule of Law will be a long and difficult process. Probably the more instruments there are the better in order to advance along that path.”

In March 2022, before the Hungarian elections, our editor Oliver Garner sat down with Professor Armin von Bogdandy, director at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law in Heidelberg, Germany, and Honorary Professor for Public Law at the University in Frankfurt am Main. They discussed Professor von Bogdandy’s recent article, published with Luke Dimitrios Spieker, on restoring the rule of law through criminal responsibility. Viktor Orban’s election victory on 3 April means that such proposals are unlikely to be pursued in the near future in Hungary. However, the question of how to revert from illiberalism remains live, and more relevant than ever in the shadow of Russia’s continuing invasion of Ukraine.