12 Apr 2018
The workshop season has just begun at the Institute, with the opening, today (12 April, Thursday) of the first workshop, called The Rule of Law, Populism and Militant Democracy in Europe. It is being coordinated by Jernej Letnar Černič and Matej Avbelj (Graduate School of Government and European Studies, Slovenia).
As usual, the workshop will last for two days, during which the experts that have come to Oñati will give presentations and discuss their findings. They will debate on topics such as populism, sovereignity and the rule of law; the rule of law and the European Union; militant democracy, rule of law and non-state actors, and others; and they will attempt to answer questions such as: Are European states justified to prohibit the exercise of freedom of assembly and of association, expression and religion, all with the aim of protecting the democratic and liberal order, or would be such measures disproportionate and excessive? Some argue that measures of militant democracy, as they have been known, themselves undermine the rule of law and democracy as they directly interfere with the values of pluralism, human dignity, freedom and equality. On the other hand, others argue that it is indispensable to counter the populist movements with constitutional individual actions arising from civilizational heritage of European liberal democracies.
This is the first of the 16 workshops that will be held in Oñati this year. Forthcoming workshops will have topics such as Digital family justice, Regulating lawyers, Judging and emotion, Memorialization and reconstruction after large-scale human rights violations, and others at the center.
