National Identity in the Courtroom

“The Jurisprudence of Particularism” is the title of a recently published book edited by Kriszta Kovács, Senior Fellow at the WZB Center for Global Constitutionalism. The open-access volume collects contributions on national identity claims in Central Europe.

Mattias Kumm, Research Professor at the WZB Center for Global Constitutionalism, for example, contributes a chapter on constitutional identity in a European context. Apart from writing the introduction, editor Kriszta Kovács has also co-authored a chapter on the prospects for the European constitutional community.

Other contributions include analyses of the invocation of national identity by judges in Slovakia, Czechia, Poland and Hungary. These judicial invocations give rise to a specific brand of particularism that challenges EU law, and may also be at odds with constitutional democracy. The questions raised by this development are at the core of the book.

Studying courtroom identity claims through the lens of particularism represents a new analytical approach, that requires making use of empirical and comparative methods, as well as theoretical and philosophical concepts. The resulting interdisciplinary study offers fresh insights into a growing challenge for EU governance. 

7/6/2023 MSt