Constitutional degradation – Gender populism – Democratic decay – Rule of law – Right-wing populism – Anti-gender rhetoric – ‘Gender ideology’ – Women’s rights – LGBTQI+ rights

The growing trend of depoliticisation of constitutional court appointments across Europe – Shortcomings of depoliticised appointment models in constituting an optimal constitutional court – Strategic politicisation of appointment procedures as a solution for a more optimal constitutional court – Proposal of a baseline template drawing from different European practices – Implications for constitutional court reform in Europe

Constitutional degradation – Gender populism – Democratic decay – Gender equality – Right-wing populism – Constitutional nationalism – Legal exclusion – Majoritarianism – Rule of law corrosion – Anti-Europeanism – Women’s rights – LGBTQI+ rights – Reproductive rights – Surrogacy – Face-veil ban – Female genital cutting – EU Gender Equality Strategy 2020-25

Increased concerns about misuse of citizens’ initiatives and referendums to undermine liberal democracy – Efforts to balance popular sovereignty with the rule of law – Inadmissibility of certain types of direct-democratic requests in virtually all European states – Compliance of restrictions on what citizens may propose with the right to participate in public affairs guaranteed by Article 25(a) ICCPR – First systematic analysis of admissibility requirements and procedures for citizens’ initiatives in Europe

EU’s political mediation in internal constitutional matters as part of its evolving vision of the rule of law – Dimensions of the EU’s dialogic rule of law: ontological, organic, and legitimising – The idea of the rule of law as embedded in intrincate political and social processes – The rule of law as the core driving force in creating spaces and boundaries for dialogue, interaction, and definition of the EU’s multilevel constitutional system – Balancing inherent dialogue with decisive and strong action against member states breaching the rule of law – Multiple forms of the ideal of the rule of law within the EU’s composite constitutional framework – No one-size-fits-all response: context-sensitive approaches to rule of law deviations – Institutionalising and legally integrating mediation as an instrument in the EU’s Rule of Law Framework.

Regressive constitutional erosion: the gradual rescue of the traditional gender order through constitutional interpretation – Regressive constitutional reform: rendering explicit the traditional gender order – Preemption: constitutional supremacy and the traditional gender order as a matter of sovereignty and national identity – Constitutional backsliding or problematic constitutional origins to start with

The democratic justification of academic freedom – Academic freedom and Article 2 TEU values (democracy, the rule of law) – Potential implications for the application of the EU rule of law toolbox – Complementary protection of academic freedom – Preliminary remarks on future proposals

The rule of law crisis in Europe seen as a gendered phenomenon – The rule of law as a concept is itself gendered – The gendered dimension of democratic backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe is a central, not peripheral feature – Responses to authoritarian populist attacks on the rule of law should also address its gendered elements – Opposition to the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence – The rise of a war against so-called ‘gender ideology’ – Increasingly restrictive reproductive rights regimes – The retrenchment of the ‘traditional’ family and traditional gender roles – EU response weak and ambivalent – European Court of Human Rights’ gender equality case law a work in progress

Populism, gender-related rights and science – The use of medical and scientific concepts and data vis-à-vis populist agendas – Science-related and science-based populism – Science as constitutional bulwark – The role of constitutional review and constitutional interpretation – Science as tool or object of constitutional review – The idea of scientific reasonableness of laws and policies

Anti-immigrant claims as key to the success of populist radical right parties in Europe – Increasing barriers to immigration and integration, and growing uncertainty as migration governance strategy – Misuse of gender equality and women’s rights by populist radical right parties to legitimise the restriction of the access to Europe as legal paradox – Comparative analysis (Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden)