UK constitution after Brexit – Status of referendums – Use and reception of referendums in the UK – Absence of definitive constitutional framework – Complex legal nature of ‘advisory’ and ‘binding’ referendums – Deeper constitutional impact on concepts in the political constitution – Regular and irregular authority – Parliamentary and popular sovereignty – Representative and direct democracy – Possibility of reform – A potential UK Referendums Act – Difficulties with an overarching statutory framework – Limitations of continued constitutional accommodation of referendums

Composite administrative procedures – Exclusive jurisdiction of Union courts to review non-binding national preparatory acts – No jurisdiction of Union courts to enforce national law – Autonomy and uniformity of EU law – No judicial control possible of violation of domestic law by national authorities – National rule of law gap – Judicial review, effective judicial protection, and principle of administrative legality

EU law – Mutual recognition as a justification for EU competence – EU competence in domestic criminal procedure – Test and intensity of judicial review of EU criminal law legislation – Relationship between mutual trust and mutual recognition – Federalism and division of powers between the member states and the EU – Mutual recognition as a constraint to EU action – Presumption of Innocence Directive – Victims’ Rights Directive – Exercise of EU competence in domestic criminal procedure – Justifications for EU action in criminal procedure – Evidence-based legislation in the field of criminal procedure – Mutual trust as a legal and sociological concept – National courts’ compliance with EU law – European arrest warrant

The Swedish supreme courts as part of the public administration, rather than as independent actors – Political, legal, and administrative reasons behind this positioning – A recent trend shifts the position of the supreme courts – Endogenous forces (e.g. a more ‘conflictual’ political climate) and exogenous reasons (e.g. the increasing importance of the judicial-made EU law) – Swedish supreme courts nearer to being a body with the primary duty of safeguarding the law against the executive and legislative powers – ‘Full’ positioning of supreme courts within the judicial core not an essential institutional requirement for a democracy – Important role of the public administration’s degree of dependence on the legislative power

Separation of institutions, functions and personnel – Checks and balances – Hungary, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia – Short tradition of separation of powers in Central Europe – Fragile interwar systems of separation of powers – Communist principle of centralisation of power – Technocratic challenge to separation of powers during the EU accession – One-sided checks on the elected branches and empowering technocratic elitist institutions – Populist challenge to separation of powers in the 2010s – Re-politicising of the public sphere, removing most checks on the elected branches, and curtailing and packing the unelected institutions – Technocratic and populist challenges to separation of powers interrelated more than we thought

EU Rule of law crisis – Article 2 TEU – EU values – EU fundamental rights – Freedom of speech – Member state courts – Interpretation of national law in conformity with Article 2 TEU values – Preliminary reference – Duty of referral – Criminal liability of judges – Reverse Solange – ASJP judgment – Judicial applicability of Article 2 TEU – Value-oriented interpretation of EU law – Mutual Amplification – Essence of EU fundamental rights – L.M. judgment – Aranyosi judgment – Federal balance – Red lines – Systemic deficiencies – Solange presumption – Mutual trust

Internal judicial independence as a new element of the case law of the Strasbourg Court on Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights – The Court has only found violations of internal judicial independence in cases against former communist countries – Relevance of the case law for other member states of the Council of Europe – Internal judicial independence as part of the requirement of an impartial tribunal? – Importance of the independence of the individual judge

Judicial accountability – Court administration – Judicial politics – Judicial councils – Assessment and appointment of judges – Disciplinary responsibility – Liability of judges – Italy