Mi. 29 Apr. 2026

The twilight of resilience? Reflections on the limits of judicial activism in the face of democratic decline

People demonstrating.
"This is our court” by Grzegorz Żukowski, https://www.flickr.com/photos/gregor_zukowski/35590803220)

Katarina Šipulová’s (Fellow 2024-25) Fellowship project “Ring the Bell. Judiciaries as Anti-Autocratization Radar Systems” examines whether the widespread image of courts as guardians of democracy aligns with how judges themselves understand their role, showing that judges in different political and cultural settings internalize concepts such as democracy, the rule of law, and judicial independence in distinct ways that shape how they see and exercise their function within the political system. 

In addition to her book chapter presented below, her Fellowship also resulted in an online roundtable co-organised with the Oxford Global Society exploring what judicial independence means in practice when courts face unprecedented political pressure. Watch the full discussion here.

In her contribution, “The Twilight of Resilience? Reflections on the Limits of Judicial Activism in the Face of Democratic Decline,” published in Dissensus over Liberal Democracy (Bloomsbury, 2025), Katarina Šipulová investigates how judges navigate their roles under conditions of sustained pressure on judicial independence and democratic governance in Central and Eastern Europe. Drawing on interviews with judges who have engaged - often at personal and professional risk - in various forms of resistance to political encroachment, she argues that prevailing accounts centred on institutional safeguards are insufficient and that greater attention must be paid to judicial culture, understood as the internalised norms, values and beliefs that shape judicial agency. The analysis conceptualises judges not merely as neutral arbiters, but as potential political actors whose capacity to resist democratic backsliding depends on culturally embedded understandings of their role. At the same time, the chapter highlights the limits, ambivalences and ethical tensions inherent in judicial resistance. It ultimately poses a broader question: to what extent can courts safeguard democracy without compromising their own legitimacy?

Find her analysis here.

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