Politics and Courts in the Storm – Political Questions at the Border Between Government and Judiciary

In the area of constitutional law and political science, courts occupy a double-edged position in contemporary political regimes. They are designed to stand apart from day-to-day politics, yet they inevitably shape—and are shaped by—the political struggles around them. Few concepts capture this tension as vividly as the “political question doctrine”. Across diverse constitutional systems, the political question doctrine has long served as a jurisprudential mechanism for delineating the boundary between judicial authority and political decision-making. On the other hand, courts are also subjects and targets of politics. This is because courts apply the products of lawmaking, which is a political activity, and these products define the framework for the courts’ adjudicative activities. Therefore, the phenomenon of the branches of political power influencing the organisation, management and staffing of the courts seems to be even more important over the last few years. This creates an institutional power struggle that can be described in terms of judicial independence or in terms of 'court packing'. When democracies are under pressure, courts and monocratic governments increasingly clash over who holds ultimate authority to interpret the constitution and determine national policy, thus challenging the pillars of constitutionalism.The goal of this Research Topic is, according to courts' dual role in the political system—as both its creators and subjects—on the one hand, to answer the question of how judicial bodies determine the scope of political decision-making (see political question doctrine), and, on the other hand, to assess the state of judicial independence (cf. issue of court packing). These two aspects provide a more accurate understanding of how the balanced division of power between the judiciary, the government, and the legislature is (or was) implemented in practice.The scope of this Research Topic is to present the latest developments in the relationship between the courts and the government in different countries and even in supranational judicial bodies. This includes analysis• in the context of one or more nation states,• in supranational relations (ECtHR, CJEU and member states),• in territorial and temporal comparison.To gather further insights in these areas, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:• The political question doctrine in national and supranational courts• Recent trends in judicial independence and court packing• Case studies in comparative constitutional law• The impact of government interventions on judicial structure and staffing• Theoretical and practical insights into institutional power strugglesThis Research Topic is open to original research, review articles, conceptual analyses, hypotheses and theory papers, as well as policy and practice reviews. Topic editors: Fanni Tanács-Mandák, Csaba Erdős, Luigi Rullo Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/76943/politics-and-courts-in-the-storm---political-questions-at-the-border-between-government-and-judiciary