Is the Judge the Guardian of the Democratic Promise? Militant Democracy and the Democratic Function of Courts in the European Union (2026 - 2030)

The JUDEMO project examines the role of courts in protecting liberal democracy in Europe through the lens of “militant democracy”. Combining comparative political and legal analysis, it investigates the legal instruments designed to defend democratic regimes against internal threats.

The project explores these mechanisms at three levels:
  • the national level, by analysing legal and institutional frameworks in selected EU Member States;
  • the supranational level, by examining the instruments developed by the Council of Europe and the European Union;
  • and the judicial practice level, by analysing the political and social conditions under which judges intervene to safeguard democratic processes.
JUDEMO ultimately seeks to advance theoretical and empirical reflections on the democratic function of courts in a context of increasing challenges to liberal democracy.

JUDEMO is a research project funded by the F.R.S.-FNRS (Welchange) and coordinated by Professors Ramona Coman (IEE, CEVIPOL, ULB) and Cecilia Rizcallah (IEE Saint-Louis, UCLouvain). The project is based at the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences (CEVIPOL and the Institute for European Studies) of the Université libre de Bruxelles and at the Institute for European Studies Saint-Louis – UCLouvain (Belgium).