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Democratic backsliding and penal policy in Europe

Hammer

Location:

Teaching Room 6

Old College

Date/time

Tue 13 June 2023
10:00-17:00

The workshop explores the effects of democratic backsliding in select European countries on their penal policies.

The workshop will bring together academics (experts in criminal law, criminology, criminal justice, and political science) from Central and East-European countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Serbia, and Slovenia) that have in the past decade experienced – to various degrees – a reversal of achievements that were accomplished in the process of democratisation after the fall of Communism.

The main aim of the workshop is to study how the social, economic, and political changes that are constitutive of the process of ‘backsliding’ impact on and manifest themselves in diverse components of the penal sphere (penal polices, practices, values, behaviour of penal actors and so on). In addition, the workshop focuses on specific issues such as, for example, the effects of populism and punitiveness on the penal sector, and seeks to assess whether ongoing social issues in the region – such as migration, security and COVID – have complemented or substituted the focus on crime as a social concern.

Admission is free but registration is required.

Register to attend in person.

Register to attend online.

Democratic backsliding and penal policy in Europe

Workshop, 13 June 2023

10.00-10.30 Coffee

10.30-10.45 Welcome and introduction to the workshop

10.45-11.30 Zsolt Boda, Research Professor/Director General, Centre for Social Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

Penal populism and democratic backsliding in Hungary – Is there a link?

11.30-12.15 Milena Tripkovic, Lecturer, Edinburgh Law School, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Crime that ‘withered away’? Democratic backsliding and governance of crime

12.15-13.30 Lunch

13.30-14.15 Krzysztof Krajewski, Professor, Faculty of Law and Administration, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

Between liberal optimism and penal populism – Penal law and penal policies in Poland since 1990

14.15-15.00 Mojca Plesničar, Research Associate, Institute of Criminology in Ljubljana, Slovenia/Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Lora Briški, Researcher, Institute of Criminology in Ljubljana, Slovenia

Politics and criminal justice in Slovenia: (In)competent attempts and resistance by inertia

15.00-15.15 Coffee break

15.15-16.00 Jakub Drápal, Researcher, Institute of State and Law, Czech Academy of Sciences; Post-doc, Leiden University; Assistant professor, Faculty of Law, Charles University, Prague, Czechia

Expansive judiciary as a (temporary) solution against penal populism: Case study of Czechia

16.00-16.30 Roundtable discussion

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