Professor at the European University Institute of Florence and at the University of Sydney, Prof. Wojciech Sadurski is specialised in the fields of legal theory, legal philosophy and comparative constitutionalism, especially in post-communist constitutional law and constitutional theory. He is leading several research projects on political legitimacy, on constitutional justice and democracy, and in particular on the constitutional aspects of EU enlargement. In this conference, Prof. Sadurski will draw our attention to some of the consequences of the EU enlargement for constitutionalism, the rule of law and human rights in Central and Eastern Europe. Soon after the accession of eight post-communist states from Central and Eastern Europe to the EU, the constitutional courts of some of those countries questioned the principle of supremacy of EU law over national constitutional systems. In doing so, they followed the famous «Solange» pattern favoured in the past by a number of constitutional courts in «older Europe». Prof. Sadurski will present his view of how this «resistance» is ridden with paradoxes and will argue that the sources of these constitutional courts’ use of the «Solange» pattern reside primarily in their will to strengthen their position vis-à-vis other national politi cal actors, especially at a time when the role and independence of those constitutional courts face serious domestic challenges.

Thursday 27 november 2008, 13.15 – 15.00, Miséricorde 3118, University of Fribourg, Av. de l’Europe 20, 1700 Fribourg

Contact: Thierry Leibzig, tel. 026 300 81 13, email: thierry.leibzig@unifr.ch