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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.

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Laurent Pech 🇺🇦@profpech.bsky.social · 3w ago

"most visible threat to the ICC comes from the Trump administration’s sanctions against its judges and prosecutors ... The EU has condemned them loudly. But it has stopped well short of activating its own Blocking Statute ... leaving individual judges & staff to manage the consequences on their own"

euobserver — EU news that matters@euobserver.com · 3w ago

The ICC is in its worst crisis yet — and Europe’s double standards are a big part of the problem

Daniel Ziblatt@dziblatt.bsky.social · 3w ago

Brings to mind this idea this sharp idea: "Power manifests itself in the regime's ability to impose its fictions upon the world. No one is deceived by the charade, but everyone is forced to participate in it" From Lisa Wedeen's brilliant book Ambiguities of Domination on Assad's Syria

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Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3w ago

OSSOFF: Who won the 2020 election? CLAYTON: Uhm, you know, I'm not going to do this with you O: This is a job interview. You have an obligation to be honest with the committee. Who won the 2020 election? C: I'm not gonna get into that with you O: You're not being honest or forthright C: ...

Laurent Pech 🇺🇦@profpech.bsky.social · 3w ago

Maybe that was exactly the point as the typically panglossian EU Comm rule of law report doesn’t survive close scrutiny and does more harm than good at this point

Jakub Jaraczewski@jakubjaraczewski.bsky.social · 3w ago

🇪🇺⚖️ Really 'great' move by the European Commission to launch this year's edition of the annual EU rule of law report on the same day as the draft revamped ETS and the electrification policy. It's not like these two will eat up 90% of media and Bxl Bubble attention.

Jakub Jaraczewski@jakubjaraczewski.bsky.social · last mo.

🇭🇺⚖️🗳️The proposals to amend the Constitution of Hungary by TISZA have been tabled, and they go much beyond a rule of law restoration process, in places being more of a rule of law decapitation process. Translation by Deepl, so usual caveats apply (no, we Slavs don't understand Hungarian). Thread! 1/

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Jan-Werner Mueller@jwmueller-pu.bsky.social · 4w ago

"US hosting of FIFA tournaments has coincided with a significant reduction in FIFA’s dissemination of anti-racism messaging during tournaments."

FIFA has enabled US authorities’ racial profiling and racist propaganda at ‘the MAGA World Cup’

FIFA’s inaction in response to repeated warnings about racist US immigration policies and rhetoric has enabled the US authorities to subject multiple players and officials at the 2026 men’s World Cup ...

fairsq.org

Laurent Pech 🇺🇦@profpech.bsky.social · 4w ago

VDL @ec.europa.eu : Let’s reward him… euobserver.com/226583/meps-...

MEPs call for tougher line on Serbia as rule-of-law problems stall membership talks

Serbia's wavering between Western and Eastern ties is spilling over into a deadlock on EU accession reforms, and some MEPs want to cut its funding.

euobserver.com

Szabolcs Panyi@szabolcspanyi.bsky.social · 4w ago

"I do not believe Vučić will concede power peacefully, the way Viktor Orbán did after losing the election in Hungary." As Serbia heads toward elections, attacks on civil society reveal a darker pattern: Moscow and Belgrade often chase the same enemies.

David Noll@david.noll.org · 4w ago

Hey, is it a good sign when your firm has to deny being involved in drafting executive orders that punish law firms for taking positions the president doesn't like? www.wsj.com/us-news/law/...

Work on Trump’s E. Jean Carroll Defamation Case Divides Sullivan & Cromwell

The law firm’s co-chairman assured partners it would stay out of the president’s appeal of sex-abuse and defamation cases. It reversed course after being asked by Trump’s personal lawyer.

wsj.com

Mark Joseph Stern@mjsdc.bsky.social · last mo.

John Roberts will want you to forget everything that happened this week at SCOTUS after he confirms that the first sentence of the 14th Amendment means what it says, please do not fall for it

Larry Glickman@larryglickman.bsky.social · last mo.

A remarkable set of decisions. The Supreme Court has become the most potent political institution in support of Trump's extremist agenda. The six conservative Justices are far more efficacious than the GOP Congress in making Trump's political wishes a reality.

Supreme Court Expands Trump's Power Over Immigration Justices Let President End Protection from Deportation for Haitians and Syrians Supreme Court Allows Trump to Block Asylum Seeks at Border Justices Reject Lawsuit Alleging Roundup Weedkiller Caused Cancer Supreme Court Overturns Hawaii Gun Law
Jameel Jaffer@jameeljaffer.bsky.social · last mo.

Compare Alito's description of Trump's racist statements (on the left) to Justice Kagan's anthology of Trump's racist statements (on the right). These are passages from this morning's opinions in Mullin v. Doe.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · last mo.

Trump once again benefits from a Supreme Court that is too cowardly to call the president a racist. Alito won't even print a single one of his statements (because he knows how bad they are) and instead tries to frame them as not "overtly racial," which, to be blunt, is BS.

None of the cited statements by either the President or the Secretary was overtly racial, and in substance all expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications. For example, one may oppose TPS and favor tighter restrictions on immigration for economic or other reasons that have nothing to do with race. And a person without racial bias can provide a harshly unfavorable description of living conditions in some of the countries with TPS designations. The criteria for TPS designations guarantee that many, if not most, designated countries have such characteristics.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · last mo.

Justice Kagan, in dissent, emphasizes that Alito and the majority are too cowardly to even print Donald Trump's bigoted statements in their opinion, only giving them summaries which drastically downplay their severity. She is right. The majority is endorsing racism.

It is more than plausible: Even putting the clear-error standard aside, the Haiti plaintiffs have carried their burden. The evidence they have offered includes statements by the President so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print. (Indeed, one measure of the President’s way of speaking about Haitians is to compare it with the majority’s, which is unfailinglyrespectful.4) So here are some of those statements. Haitians are “eating the dogs . . . . They’re eating the cats. They’re eating—they’re eating the pets of the people that live [in Springfield, Ohio].” 2 App. 802; see id., at 644. And: Haitians are also eating “other things too that they’re not supposed to be.” Id., at 698–699. And: Haitians in the United States “probably have AIDS.” Id., at 698. And: Haiti is a “shithole country,” which is “filthy, dirty, [and] disgusting.” Id., at 698–699. And: Haitian immigration is “like a death wish for our country.” Id., at 698. And: Haitians, along with some others, are “poisoning the blood” of our country. Id., at 698. And: “Why is it we only take people from shithole countries” like “Haiti [and] Somalia”? “Why cannot we have some people from Norway [and] Sweden?” Id., at 699. The majority briefly replies that those remarks are not “overtly racial,” ante, at 21, but it is hard to know what that means. Haitians are Black. (Norwegians and Swedes not so much.) The references—of filth, disease, and primitiveness—are shot through with racial stereotypes and tropes. It is hard to imagine the statements being made today of any White community. No very “sensitive inquiry,” of the kind Arlington Heights compels, is needed to see them for what they are, 429 U. S., at 266; judges, as we often say, are “not required to exhibit a naiveté from which ordinary citizens are free,” Department of Commerce, 588 U. S., at 785. The statements fairly shout, in their racial undertones and overtones alike, that race entered into the President’s resolve to remove Haitians from this country
Prof Christina Pagel@chrischirp.bsky.social · last mo.

Written a quick substack summarising the paper as well (although there's only so much you can do in 800 words compared to the length of the full paper!) open.substack.com/pub/christin...

Institutions are only as brave as the people running them

Resisting Trump has been the more successful choice for institutions

open.substack.com

Martin McKee@martinmckee.bsky.social · last mo.

🧵1/ In our new paper, @chrischirp.bsky.social & I argue that while institutions can resist authoritarian pressure, some enable it. Looking at the current US regime, we examine why universities, law firms, and corporations often chose accommodation over resistance.

Judges for Judges@j4j.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Judges4Judges is concerned about the ongoing media campaign to discredit Georgian judge Vladimir Khutchua. There are strong indications that Judge Khutchua has become the target of a smear campaign due to decisions he made in a politically sensitive case. tinyurl.com/skxe2jfy

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Laurent Pech 🇺🇦@profpech.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The “rules” cannot be the same as fake courts/persons unlawfully appointed to judicial positions are not proper courts/judges. Eg principle of of irremovability cannot apply to “illegal judges” verfassungsblog.de/polands-ille...

Poland’s “Illegal Judges”

verfassungsblog.de

Verfassungsblog@verfassungsblog.de · 2mo ago

Will the same red lines on the rule of law apply also to Orbán’s successors? MICHAL BOBEK argues that the rules must stay the same for the “bad guys” and the “good guys”. verfassungsblog.de/the-role-in-...

Mandates must run to their end; the political power cannot interfere with ongoing judicial business.
Paolo Sandro@paolosandro.bsky.social · 2mo ago

An outstanding critical analysis of the CoA's decision to uphold the ban on PA. It also rightly indicates that, far from restoring 'constitutional balance', the UKSC under Lord Reed's presidency has carried out a reactionary judicial project that turns the constitutional role of courts on its head

Verfassungsblog@verfassungsblog.de · 2mo ago

The Court of Appeal upholds the UK's ban on Palestine Action. ALAN GREENE, DANIELLA LOCK & COLIN MURRAY argue that the margin of appreciation granted to the Home Secretary leaves judicial oversight with little more than nominal force. verfassungsblog.de/palestine-ac...

Quote: “The Court creates an impression of judicial scrutiny, but one so lacking in substance as to embolden even more far reaching uses of executive powers in the future.”