Deterrence or Deference? The Constitutional Court under the Rise of Populism in Serbia

Since the populist administration took power in 2012, emerging constitutional democracy in Serbia has been gradually changed for Schmitt’s identity and plebiscitary conception of democracy. A shift towards ‘the political guardian of the constitution’ was justified by the claim that the consent of the majority was the crucial ground of legitimation in politics, while the state of emergency – by Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence, financial crisis, and the portray of the whole previous government as criminal and corrupt. The aim of this presentation is to show that the Serbian Constitutional Court cannot be ‘counter-populist difficulty’ equally as it has never been ‘counter-majoritarian difficulty.’ To prove this claim, the Constitutional Court’s rulings regarding Brussels Agreement, the government’s austerity measures and constitutionality of detention ordered against persons accused of corruption in privatization cases will be assessed.