Subnational Bulwarks: State Parliaments, Regional Assemblies and Local Governments as Actors of Rule of Law Resilience in Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom
On the one hand, sub-national entities increasingly act as a first line of defence: state constitutional courts such as the Bavarian Constitutional Court review state-level laws implementing federal regulations against state-specific fundamental rights standards, thereby opening up an additional constitutional review mechanism within the federal order. Spain's Comunidades Autónomas have repeatedly invoked the Tribunal Constitucional to contest the central government's encroachments on their competences, with the Catalan crisis of 2017 illustrating both the resilience potential and the limits of sub-national constitutional agency. The Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Parliament (Senedd Cymru) have repeatedly challenged Westminster on fundamental rights-sensitive policy areas. On the other hand, sub-national entities can themselves become instruments or targets of erosion: the systematic dismantling of municipal self-governance rights in Hungary through fiscal and legislative measures offers the paradigmatic negative comparator. The distinction between regional and municipal levels is analytically significant, as resilience potentials and vulnerabilities may manifest differently depending on the institutional level in question. The research project engages with this tension and asks about the conditions under which sub-national entities – regardless of their particular institutional level – generate rule of law resilience, rather than merely functioning as extended arms of central authority.
