Liberal and democratic constitutionalism is usually taken for granted. Nevertheless, the “constitutional mold” can be kept untouched while “liberal constitutional content” is drained out to make room for authoritarian rule. This process is known as democratic backsliding. But how can a constitutional court respond to an undemocratic agenda? The answer may rely upon one of the functions of judicial deferral: to avoid a head-on collision between the court and other political actors while the judiciary entrenches itself as an institution. Because constitutional retrogression presents itself as a steady corrosion of the main pillars of liberal democracy, courts must fine-tune their judicial responses to the pace of events that can lead to democratic backsliding. When it comes to the Brazilian Supreme Court two obstacles emerge: the Court lacks an institutional identity and still needs to learn how to embrace its political duties through a pragmatic approach to constitutional law

Our 2020 Annual Conference was scheduled to be held at the University of Wrocław in Poland on July 9-11, 2020.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our next Annual Conference will take place from July 8-10, 2021. The conference, "ICON•S Mundo", will be held online. Details regarding the organization of the 2021 Conference will follow soon.
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