The 2014 referendum: Towards a consensual process – The Edinburgh Agreement: framing the referendum process – Process rules and key issues – After the referendum: Scotland's status under international law – Secession under international law – Membership of international organisations, especially the European Union

German Federal Constitutional Court's dialogue with the European Court of Justice – Background, trigger, contents and context of the FCC's reaction to the Åkerberg Fransson judgment – The FCC's Counter-Terrorism Database judgment – Constitutional control standards – theoretical repercussions of the judicial dispute – Underlying conceptual differences – The ‘fusion thesis’ versus the ‘separation thesis’ – Pragmatic approximation of divergent positions

Going beyond ‘judicial dialogues’ and ‘conflict-and-power’ approaches to the analysis of national constitutional courts' role in the EU – The idea of European constitutional democracy – National constitutional courts constrain individual autonomy expanded by European integration – National constitutional courts defend the scope for political autonomy – Against national constitutional courts' displacement – Simmenthal II – After the ‘Rights Revolution’ in Europe – National constitutional courts' references to the ECJ – Ordinary courts challenging national constitutional courts through the preliminar y reference procedure – Parallel references – National constitutional courts enforcing EU law – National constitutional courts challenging EU law

Economic crisis, constitutional crisis – Finnish constitutional requirements and solutions – National parliaments' European constitutional function – Finnish parliament's rights – Development of economic and monetary union – Economic and monetary union and development of it as the ‘Union matter’ in Finland – Stabilisation – European Financial Stability Facility – European Stability Mechanism – Economic governance – National, European, political, constitutional

Fiscal Compact: duty to implement balanced budget rule, automatic correction mechanism and independent budget supervisor in national law – The Netherlands: Act on sustainable government finances – Act does not bind the (budget) legislature – Conformity with the implementation duty in Article 3(2) Fiscal Compact? – The first reading of Article 3(2) – The second reading of Article 3(2) – The genesis of Article 3(2) – Recourse to (Dutch and French) monism?

The recent judgment of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (‘the ECtHR’ or ‘the Court’) in Vinter and Others reflects a very significant change in the Court's attitude to those actions of the states parties to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (‘the Convention’ or ‘the ECHR’) that consist in the imposition and further execution of whole life sentences. In this judgment, the Court concluded that Article 3 of the Convention – which prohibits torture, inhuman or degrading punishment – requires the reducibility of all whole life sentences as imposed by national courts, in the sense of a review mechanism which allows domestic authorities to conclude whether in the course of a life sentence the legitimate peno-logical grounds justifying the further incarceration of a life prisoner still exist. Moreover, such a mechanism or possibility for review of a whole life sentence must be provided for by a national law and, consequently, must be known to a life prisoner already at the moment of imposition of the whole life sentence. What is also important, a life prisoner, at the outset of his/her sentence, must know when (i.e. after how many years) and under what conditions a review of his/her sentence will take place or may be sought, and what he/she must do to be considered for release. Otherwise, the very imposition of a life sentence by a national court infringes Article 3 of the Convention.

Case C-355/10 deals with institutional questions and with the delicate issue of intercepting migrants at sea, and thus with fundamental rights. The European Parliament had sought the annulment of a decision of the Council, adopted under the regulatory procedure with scrutiny (PRAC), on the grounds that it exceeded the scope of the implementing power in Article 12(5) of the Schengen Borders Code. The decision laid down rules and guidelines for Frontex maritime operations.

The Court annulled the contested decision because it considered that the provisions on interception measures and search and rescue involved important political choices, and that these provisions contain elements that call for the use of legislation instead of an implementing act. However, the Court maintained the effects of the decision until it is replaced by new rules within a reasonable time. In response to the judgment, the Commission presented a fresh proposal for a regulation on 12 April 2013.