Unpacking the Politics of Constitutional Law Advice-Giving: The Venice Commission and Legal Change in Central and Eastern Europe
What has the influence of the Venice Commission’s legal advice been on the quality of democratic governance and legal change in Central and Eastern Europe? Constitutional law scholars argue the crucial role of the Commission’s advice in fostering democratic reforms and legal change in the region with thorough legal advice - it being a ‘guardian of democracy’ and ‘transnational legal order’-maker that ensures the quality of democratic governance in the region (Khan et al., 2023; Miklasová and Nußberger, 2023). Surprisingly and unlike with the reception of ECtHR case law, there is a lack of empirical scholarship examining cross-country variations in the reception of Venice Commission decision-making or tracing the socio-legal impacts of the politics of legal advice-giving. This project fills the lacuna and offers empirical analysis framework for operationalizing and measuring the politics of legal advice-giving in Eastern Europe in 2010s-2020s. The project is a purview of a wider research agenda about the varieties of legal governance of democracies in the region.
