{"id":5903,"date":"2026-04-24T15:19:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T13:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iccal.lat\/?p=5903"},"modified":"2026-04-28T11:14:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T09:14:23","slug":"court-packing-democratic-restoration-hungary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iccal.lat\/en\/court-packing-democratic-restoration-hungary\/","title":{"rendered":"Transition 2.0 \u2013 Hungary: David Kosar on democratic restoration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>24 April 2026, MPIL Heidelberg<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>David Kosar, Professor of Constitutional Law at Masaryk University in Brno and principal investigator of the COFFIN project at the ICCAL LAB, participated on 24 April 2026 in the conference <em>Transition 2.0: Restoring a Constitutional Democracy in the European Union<\/em>, organized by the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (MPIL) in Heidelberg. The event was convened by Adam Bodnar, Armin von Bogdandy, P\u00e1l Sonnevend, and Luke Dimitrios Spieker and brought together legal scholars and political scientists from across Europe to examine how a future democratic government in Hungary could dismantle the illiberal legal order established under Orb\u00e1n and restore democratic structures within the framework of European law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Connection with the COFFIN project at the ICCAL LAB<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>David Kosar\u2019s intervention is closely connected to the research agenda of the COFFIN project at the ICCAL LAB, in which he serves as principal investigator together with Julio R\u00edos-Figueroa, Andrea Castagnola, and Nino Tsereteli. The project examines whether judicial tenure and judicial autonomy effectively protect democracy against processes of institutional erosion, based on a comparative analysis of developments in Hungary, Poland, Mexico, and Argentina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this context, the discussion on the legal instruments available for restoring the rule of law in Hungary engages directly with one of the project\u2019s central research questions: under what conditions judicial reforms can contribute to strengthening democratic resilience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video height=\"1080\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1920 \/ 1080;\" width=\"1920\" controls src=\"https:\/\/iccal.lat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/04251.mp4\"><\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u25b6 Video: David Kosar presents the COFFIN project<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The broader debate of the conference<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The conference addressed Hungary\u2019s constitutional restoration from multiple perspectives. P\u00e1l Sonnevend and Adam Bodnar advocated a gradual and legally rigorous strategy of institutional repair rather than a constituent rupture. Andr\u00e1s Jakab reframed transitional justice as the construction of institutional protection mechanisms against democratic erosion. Be\u00e1ta Bak\u00f3 analysed the role of Hungary\u2019s cardinal laws in consolidating political control over the legal system. Marcin Baranski and Kim Lane Scheppele discussed possible accountability pathways compatible with the rule of law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the panel on civil society, M\u00e1rta Pardavi, Edit Zgut-Przybylska, Katarzyna \u0141akomiec, Barbara Grabowska-Moroz, and Renata Uitz examined the role of organised civil society, women\u2019s rights, and academic freedom as necessary conditions for a genuine democratic transition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the principal investigators of the COFFIN project participated in the second day of the conference held at MPIL Heidelberg, where participants discussed the legal steps required to restore the rule of law in Hungary within the framework of European law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5902,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iccal-seminar"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<title>court-packing and democratic restoration<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"David Kosar discussed court-packing and democratic restoration at MPIL Heidelberg, analysing how judicial restructuring may support rule-of-law recovery in Hungary.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/iccal.lat\/en\/court-packing-democratic-restoration-hungary\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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