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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260608T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260608T171500
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SUMMARY:Courts Under Stress
DESCRIPTION:Registration link: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_GWXrF6OuRM-HVH5WGeAh5Q \n  \nParticipants: \nGoodwin Liu: Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court and a visiting professor at Harvard\, Columbia and Stanford law schools\n \nKate O’Regan: Emeritus Professor of Human Rights Law\, University of Oxford\, and a former judge of the South African Constitutional Court \nRobert Sharpe: Distinguished Jurist in Residence\, Faculty of Law\, University of Toronto\, and a former judge of the Ontario Court of Appeal \nJoshua Rozenberg (moderator): Legal commentator and an honorary Master of the Bench of Gray’s Inn \n  \nDescription: \nAll around the world\, courts are under stress.  \nIn the US\, an energetic and forceful executive is testing the courts’ ability to deliver justice. Unwritten norms which safeguard the separation of powers and the rule of law are being systematically violated or ignored\, disrupting the courts’ ability to serve their institutional purpose. \nIn Canada\, the justice system is not sufficiently resourced\, and courts are increasingly being asked to pronounce upon matters that formerly did not fall within the judicial function and can even put the neutrality of courts at risk. \nIn parts of the UK\, the government is seeking to tackle unacceptable delays in the criminal courts by removing\, in some cases\, the right to jury trial. Ministers also want to get renewable energy projects off the ground more quickly by limiting the availability of judicial review. \nHow should judges respond to executive overreach\, lack of resources\, external pressure\, and other attempts at undermining their authority? How can the judiciary retain its credibility in the face of polarising social and political controversies which find their way into the courtroom? How can we distinguish legitimate amendments to the functioning of courts from illegitimate ones? Courts Under Stress will explore these and other pressure points on today’s courts from an international perspective. \n  \nParticipant profiles: \nGoodwin Liu is an Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court\, being sworn into office in 2011 and retained by the electorate in 2014 and 2022. Before joining the state’s highest court\, Goodwin was Professor of Law and Associate Dean at the UC Berkeley School of Law. He continues to teach constitutional law as a visiting professor at Harvard\, Columbia\, and Stanford law schools. Goodwin is an elected member and Chair of the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He is also an elected member of the American Philosophical Society\, the American Academy of Political and Social Science\, and the American Law Institute\, serving on its governing Council. \n  \nKate O’Regan is Emeritus Professor of Human Rights Law at the University of Oxford and a former judge of the South African Constitutional Court (1994–2009). She was the inaugural director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights\, University of Oxford (2016–2025) and is now an Emeritus Fellow. Since her 15-year term at the South African Constitutional Court ended in 2009\, Kate has amongst other things served as an ad hoc judge of the Supreme Court of Namibia (2010–2016)\, Chairperson of the Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry (2012–2014)\, and as a member of the boards or advisory bodies of many NGOs working in the fields of democracy\, the rule of law\, human rights\, and equality. \n  \n \nRobert Sharpe is currently Distinguished Jurist in Residence\, Faculty of Law\, University of Toronto. He was a judge of the Court of Appeal for Ontario from 1999 to 2020 and a trial judge from 1995 to 1999. He taught at the Faculty of Law\, University of Toronto\, from 1976 to 1988 and served under Chief Justice Brian Dickson as Executive Legal Officer at the Supreme Court Canada from 1988 to 1990. Robert was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Law\, University of Toronto in 1990. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. His publications include Good Judgment: Making Judicial Decisions (University of Toronto Press\, 2018) and My Life in the Law: Lawyer\, Scholar\, Judge (University of Toronto Press\, 2025). \n  \nJoshua Rozenberg is Britain’s most experienced full-time legal commentator. He is the recipient of several honorary doctorates and is an honorary Master of the Bench of Gray’s Inn. Joshua served as the BBC’s legal correspondent for 15 years (1985–2000) and was a regular contributor to the Guardian online (2010–2016)\, The Critic (2019–2022) and the Daily Telegraph (2000–2008). Since 2008\, he has been a columnist for the Law Society Gazette\, and he launched his Substack\, A Lawyer Writes\, in 2020. Joshua is the author of several books\, the most recent being Enemies of the People? How Judges Shape Society (Bristol University Press\, 2020).
URL:https://cdga.org.uk/event/courts-under-stress/
LOCATION:Zoom
CATEGORIES:Justice & Governance
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ORGANIZER;CN="Oxford%20Global%20Society":MAILTO:info@cdga.org.uk
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260507T130000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260507T140000
DTSTAMP:20260618T235205
CREATED:20260424T160818Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260429T063312Z
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SUMMARY:Courts Under Scrutiny: Judges and Democracy
DESCRIPTION:Registration link: \nhttps://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/lxBC11VpS9yYx1t6fUsNQA \nParticipants: \nLisa Hilbink: Professor of Political Science\, Aix-Marseille University\, Faculté de\ndroit et de science politique\, specialising in law\, justice and democracy in polities\,\nwith particular focus on Latin America and Iberia \nKatarína Šipulová: Associate Professor\, Judicial Studies Institute\, Masaryk\nUniversity\, expert on judicial resistance and democratisation in the CEE region; Fellow of the Oxford Global Society\n \nAgnieszka Kubal: Associate Professor at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies (CSLS)\, Law Faculty and a Research Fellow at Green Templeton College\, Oxford University. \nTom Daly: Professor at Melbourne Law School and Director of the digital research platform Demoptimism.  \nRichard W. Clary (moderator): Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School\, specialising in complex litigation\, class action\, and evidence; Fellow of the Oxford Global Society. \nDescription: \nShould judges be indifferent to the pressures of time? The past decade has been one of moral\nand professional reckoning for many judiciaries. Once expected to embody neutrality and\nrestraint\, many judges have been thrust into roles they never envisioned—public speakers\,\nguardians of democracy\, and dissidents mobilising (in) the streets. This shift has raised\nfundamental questions: Should judges remain silent in the face of political encroachment and\ntrust in institutional safeguards? Or must they step outside the courtroom\, resisting through\nactivism\, media engagement\, and transnational alliances? If they do\, how can they resist\nunprecedented interferences\, political and public\, in the independence of their decision-\nmaking? \nThese dilemmas are not merely theoretical—recently\, judges who stood up to unconstitutional\nacts implemented across democratic countries faced unprecedented pressures\, defiance\,\nverbal attacks\, smear campaigns sponsored by governing parties\, and interferences in their\ncareer or personal life. Their reactions and resistance shape the fate of judicial institutions\nand\, by extension\, the nature and resilience of democratic political systems. \nParticipant bios: \nLisa Hilbink is Professor of Political Science at Aix-Marseille University\, Faculté de droit et de science politique. She has expertise in a wide range of issues related to law\, justice\, and democracy in polities around the world\, with a particular focus on Latin America and Iberia. Her publications include peer-reviewed journal articles in outlets such as Comparative Political Studies\, Comparative Politics\, Law and Social Inquiry\, Law and Society Review\, Political Research Quarterly\, and World Politics\, numerous chapters in edited volumes\, and an award-winning book\, Judges beyond Politics in Democracy and Dictatorship: Lessons from Chile (Cambridge University Press\, 2007). Her current work focuses on two themes: (1) the causes\, nature\, and consequences of judicial behaviour for democracy\, and (2) the origins of public perceptions of justice institutions and their consequences for access to justice in the Americas. Most recently\, she co-edited a symposium on judicial populism in Law & Social Inquiry. \n  \nKatarína Šipulová is an Associate Professor in Political Science at the Judicial Studies Institute\, Masaryk University\, a 2024/2025 ReConstitution Fellow\, and a Fellow of the Oxford Global Society. She earned her PhD in European Studies at Masaryk University\, and an MSt in Socio-Legal Research at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on judicial resistance and democracy\, particularly in the context of Central and Eastern Europe. She was a ReConstitution 2024/2025 Fellow and actively participates in the ERC-funded INFINITY (Informal Judicial Institutions and Democratic Decay) project\, as well as NET-ROL (Networks and the Rule of Law: Uncovering Socio-Economic Outcomes)\, where she leads a work package on Judicial and Prosecutorial Autonomy. She has recently published in Law & Policy\, Regulation and Governance\, HJRL\, I-CON\, and EuConst. She has recently co-edited a special issue on Informal Judicial Institutions: Determinants of Democratic Decay? in the German Law Journal. \n  \n \nAgnieszka Kubal is Associate Professor at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies (CSLS)\, Law Faculty and a Research Fellow at Green Templeton College\, Oxford University. She completed her DPhil at University of Oxford (2011). Upon post-doctoral spells at International Migration Institute (Oxford)\, CSLS (Oxford) and Davis Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies (Harvard)\, she was based at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) at UCL\, where she held an Associate Professorship in Sociology. Agnieszka is an interdisciplinary socio-legal scholar with area studies interest in Central Eastern Europe and Russia. She is currently a Principal Investigator on an UKRI/ERC Starter Grant (2022-2027) ‘Who are the humans behind Human Rights in Eastern Europe and Russia?’ (HuRiEE). This five-year research (GBP 1.2 m) breaks new ground in studying human rights mobilisation as a window into the societies of Eastern Europe and Russia. \n  \nRichard W. Clary is a Lecturer on Law at the Harvard Law School and a Fellow of the Oxford Global Society. He earned his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and his B.A. magna cum laude from Amherst College\, and began his legal career as a law clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall on the US Supreme Court. Mr Clary practised law for 40 years at Cravath\, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York City\, where he was a Partner for 35 years and served as a Managing Partner and as the Head of Litigation\, retiring at the end of 2020. He served as a Vice President of the New York City Bar Association and a Vice Chair of the New York City Legal Aid Society. A regular contributor to the Putney Debates organised by OXGS\, Mr Clary has authored several chapters across two related publications and co-edited Democracy in Crisis? The Putney Debates 2023 (Bloomsbury\, 2025). \nTom Daly is a Professor at Melbourne Law School and Director of the digital research platform Demoptimism. His comparative research draws on public law and political science\, focusing on: democratic crisis and renewal; the diverse roles of state and non-state constitutional guardians; and constitutional design and democratic resilience. Recent work addresses: (i) the challenge of repairing the damage caused by anti-democratic governments worldwide\, including an article on ‘Constitutional Repair: A Comparative Theory’ in the American Journal of Comparative Law; and (ii) analysis of ‘new wave’ constitutional design as a response to democratic backsliding\, including a Working Paper published in January 2026. His extensive policy experience includes a landmark 2025 report for International IDEA on Designing Resilient Institutions: Countering Democratic Backsliding in Asia\, as well as projects in and on Georgia\, Kyrgyzstan\, Lebanon\, Maldives\, Palestine\, Sri Lanka\, Turkey\, Uzbekistan\, and the Pacific.
URL:https://cdga.org.uk/event/courts-under-scrutiny-judges-and-democracy/
LOCATION:Zoom
CATEGORIES:Justice & Governance
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ORGANIZER;CN="Oxford%20Global%20Society":MAILTO:info@cdga.org.uk
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