‘Who asks about the law when death is at the doorstep?’ (p. 23). The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has not only strained public health systems worldwide to their limits but has also had profound repercussions on the very foundations of constitutionalism, liberal values and modern democracy. In order to prevent and combat the spread of the infectious respiratory disease, national authorities imposed severe, unprecedented restrictions on fundamental rights of individuals, like the freedom of movement and assembly, or religious and economic liberty. The exceptional circumstances of their adoption, as well as the human rights-eroding content of these preventive measures, oft en (over) stretched the boundaries of institutional checks and balances between legal regulation, judicial oversight and executive decision-making. In light of these challenging developments, liberal democracies, in particular, have been depicted as facing ‘a big dilemma: protect public health or respect the rule of law’ (p. 181).

The highly topical compendium Democracy aft er Covid: Challenges in Europe and Beyond, edited by Kostas Chrysogonos and Anna Tsift soglou, comprehensively examines these implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the rule of law in (Western) liberal democracies across Europe, as well as in the United States. Published in mid-October 2022, by Springer Nature Switzerland AG, it represents the first study of COVID-19-associated democratic backsliding through the lens of comparative constitutional law and policy. Throughout the analysis, the contributing authors refer to concrete legislative, executive and judicial developments in the countries of interest, and critically assess their ramifications on the countries’ respective states of democracy. The main premise of the book is that liberal democracies must learn to adapt to large-scale emergencies, and to efficiently deal with them through flexible regulatory means within the scope of the rule of law, accompanied by an active judicial branch.

The collection at hand comprises 181 pages, and consists of 11 individual contributions by various renowned scholars from different regional and disciplinary backgrounds. It is worth noting that the volume partly originates from a panel discussion with the same title, which was held within the framework of the Annual Conference of the International Society of Public Law, on the overarching theme ‘The Future of Public Law’.