Democracy Under Assault in Europe

Democracy in Europe is under assault. In France, Poland, Hungary, the rule of law and fundamental freedoms are being curtailed, from the independence of constitutional courts to the right to hold a peaceful public debate.

In France, freedom of assembly has just suffered a serious blow. On October 29, the Prefect of Hauts-de-Seine, who represents the Interior Ministry, banned the international conference organized by Polémia, a French think tank, for October 31 near Paris. I [Olivier Bault] was to speak there on a legal panel, as announced in Ordo Iuris in Paris: How Can an EU State Regain Control over Migration Flows? The ban rests on the claim that the conference’s theme is xenophobic, that unlawful statements “are likely” to be made, and that counter-demonstrators threaten public order. The organizers challenged it before the Administrative Court of Cergy-Pontoise, and the Ordo Iuris Institute issued a legal opinion, which their attorney submitted to the court. It shows that the ban fails the tests of necessity and proportionality under international and European law: restrictions must be content-neutral, a total ban is a last resort, and opponents’ hostility cannot justify silencing a peaceful meeting. Today, the court nevertheless upheld the ban, a ruling that may still be appealed to the Council of State.

On October 29, thirty-two Hungarian lawyers and public figures from across the political spectrum published “Ten Points of Criminal Justice under the Rule of Law,” denouncing politicized charges, pretrial detention used to extract confessions, and the surveillance of defense lawyers. In “Creeping Authoritarianism” in Poland and Hungary: Ordo Iuris Calls for a Joint International Initiative, our president, Jerzy Kwaśniewski, explains how the same practices have spread in both countries under the auspices of European Union institutions and proposes a joint international initiative to document and counter this erosion of the rule of law.

Poland’s own constitutional crisis took an alarming turn last night. As Łukasz Bernaciński, Ph.D., director of our Department of Constitutional Studies, reports, the police have forcibly taken control of the empty Constitutional Tribunal building while President Karol Nawrocki was abroad, denying entry to the Tribunal’s security staff, Vice-President, and director. The President ordered his plane, bound for Senegal, to turn back. Bernaciński recalls that Article 128 of the Polish Penal Code punishes attempts to remove a constitutional body by force with up to 20 years in prison.

We will keep you updated on the situation in Łukasz Bernaciński’s thread on X.