Guest Lecture on Backsliding of the Rule of Law, the Global South Network, University of Leicester, UK

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am deeply grateful to Dr Nauman Reayat, Founder and the Chief Convenor of the Global South Network, for creating a platform that does not simply celebrate consensus, but actively invites challenge, disagreement, and critical reflection. By bringing together judges, scholars, and practitioners from across the world, the Network confronts how differently the rule of law is understood, applied, and, at times, undermined.

I would also like to thank all the distinguished colleagues from several continents who have graciously agreed to participate in today’s judicial dialogue. Your presence, insights, and commitment to the rule of law enrich this discussion immensely. This gathering would not be possible without your dedication, and we are deeply grateful for the time and expertise you bring to this conversation.

It is a real privilege to speak at today’s event, not to rehearse familiar narratives, but to question assumptions and engage with colleagues on a global issue that is anything but settled: whether the rule of law remains a lived reality or is increasingly becoming a rhetorical promise.

I feel honoured to share these reflections with you, but I do so with a deep sense of unease. The subject that brings us together today, “the backsliding of the rule of law”, is not an abstract concern or an academic trend. It is a lived and accelerating reality, and one that should trouble judges worldwide.

My concern is firmly grounded in recent global developments. The World Justice Project Rule of Law Index 2025 reveals a stark picture: nearly 68% of countries worldwide have experienced a decline in rule of law scores, with particularly serious erosion in constraints on government power and the protection of fundamental rights. This is not a problem confined to fragile states or emerging democracies; it is increasingly visible within established legal systems, including in Europe.

Let me share some recent pieces of news from international media. From December 2025, mass protests in Bucharest called for the resignation of senior judicial officials and sweeping reforms to safeguard judicial independence, following revelations of corruption at the highest levels of the justice system. In Hungary, critics argue that a decree issued on 4 February 2026, ordering courts to drop ongoing cases against the government, including challenges to a controversial tax, has effectively overridden judicial authority and struck at the heart of judicial independence. Over the past year, several judges of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and the provincial High Courts have either resigned or formally expressed concerns to the Chief Justice regarding the rule of law and judicial independence. Across the Atlantic, judges in the United States, whose jurisprudence has long shaped the global understanding of the rule of law, have faced threats of impeachment from the executive in direct retaliation for independent judicial decisions.

These are only a few examples. Almost every country today confronts its own version of this crisis. Whether democratic or authoritarian, European or non-European, North or South, East or West, the erosion of the rule of law has become a truly global phenomenon. This compels us to ask uncomfortable but unavoidable questions. Why is defiance of the rule of law gaining political appeal across the world? Why is the rules-based international order under such sustained and coordinated attack? And, most importantly, what can we, as individual judges, realistically do to resist this tide?

The forces and issues judges confront are sometimes political, popular, and deeply polarising. These conflicts inevitably arrive in our courtrooms, and when they do, the world is watching. Yet we are expected to remain apolitical: to stand firm when institutions tremble, to speak through reason when power shouts, and to defend principles that may no longer be fashionable. The question, then, is no longer whether the rule of law is under threat, but whether we are prepared to meet that threat with courage, restraint, and resolve.

Paradoxically, it is institutions themselves that both protect judges from politics and expose them to it. Where institutions are clearly defined and robust, they shield judges from political entanglement. Where they are vague, incomplete, or unwritten, they demand a purposive judicial approach; one that may invite accusations of “judicial activism” or political interference. In either case, our judgments inevitably produce winners and losers, and criticism is unavoidable. There is no neutral refuge. It is institutions, written and unwritten, that shape shared values and determine how societies confront their most profound challenges.

Allow me to begin with the discussion of institutions in the European context, with which I am most familiar. The value foundation of the European Union is expressly articulated in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union, which affirms respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and human rights, including the rights of minorities. These values presuppose a society marked by pluralism, tolerance, justice, solidarity, and equality. They are not aspirational slogans; they are binding commitments.

The so-called Copenhagen criteria further reinforce this foundation. They require not only democratic institutions, respect for human rights, and a functioning market economy at the moment of accession, but, according to the settled case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, their continuous observance throughout membership. This means that every Member State has freely accepted the principles of liberal democracy, the rule of law, and human rights as permanent obligations. Against this backdrop, the notion of “illiberal democracy,” advanced by PM Viktor Orbán, is a contradiction in terms, one that is fundamentally incompatible with membership in the European Union.

Although the rule of law is not exhaustively defined in the EU Treaties, it is clearly presupposed. Among the most influential articulations is the Venice Commission’s Rule of Law Checklist, updated in December 2025. At its core lies a simple but demanding insight: democracy, the rule of law, and human rights are mutually reinforcing. Without an independent judiciary, individuals lack effective remedies. Without effective remedies, rights become illusory. And where courts can be silenced or subordinated, executive power becomes unchecked.

But courts do not operate in a vacuum. Their independence can only function meaningfully within a broader ecosystem of accountability, one that depends on transparency, public scrutiny, and informed citizens. The rule of law is therefore not sustained by judges alone, but by a wider constitutional culture that insists that power must always justify itself.

This is why the principle that no one should be above the law is inseparable from the existence of independent and pluralistic media. Accountability must apply to all, especially those who govern, and without reliable information the public cannot hold power to account. In an era of disinformation, cyber manipulation, and hate-driven narratives, free, independent, and responsible media are indispensable to democratic choice. Where citizens are uninformed, elections lose their meaning; where scrutiny weakens, power hardens, and history shows that when scrutiny fades, the judiciary is often the next institution to come under pressure.

The warning signs are no longer theoretical. Across Europe and beyond, courts have been targeted through court-packing, forced retirements, disciplinary chambers, punitive transfers, and restrictions on judicial dialogue with supranational courts. The European Court of Human Rights has condemned blatant violations of judicial appointment procedures, including a Grand Chamber judgment against Iceland where merit-based selection was openly disregarded. History reminds us that these tactics are not new. Even Franklin D. Roosevelt famously threatened to expand the U.S. Supreme Court to secure political approval for the New Deal. And long before that, as Emma Southon recounts, the Roman king Tarquinius doubled the Senate with loyalists to entrench his power. Vestigia terrent—the footprints warn us.

What these examples show is that the erosion of the rule of law rarely begins with tanks or coups. It begins with technical adjustments, procedural shortcuts, and narratives of efficiency or popular will. And it often ends with judges standing alone, asked to uphold principles precisely when doing so is most costly. That is the moment we must be prepared for. Because if judges retreat when pressure mounts, the rule of law does not merely weaken, it collapses quietly, from within. And this danger is not confined to fragile systems; it can unfold just as easily in long-established democracies as in openly authoritarian regimes.

It is precisely for this reason that developments in the United States deserve close and sober attention. For decades, the United States has been seen as a lighthouse of democracy, constitutional freedoms, equal opportunity, and judicial independence. Its courts have long set global benchmarks, shaping how the rule of law is understood far beyond its borders. Yet today, even lighthouses can flicker.

Recent developments during Donald Trump’s second term have raised serious questions about the resilience of American democracy and the rule of law. I will confine myself to a single source: an editorial opinion published by The New York Times on 1 November 2025, entitled “ In Trump’s America, Are We Losing Our Democracy? ” I am fully aware that the New York Times is ideologically distant from MAGA Republican thinking. That, however, does not relieve us of the responsibility to engage seriously with the arguments presented.

The Editorial Board identified twelve markers of democratic erosion. They did not claim that the United States has become an autocracy akin to Russia or China. But they warned, crucially, of a slide toward authoritarianism. Among the indicators they listed were the suppression of dissent, persecution of political opponents, bypassing of the legislature, defiance of courts, misuse of emergency powers, vilification of minorities, control of information, pressure on universities, cultivation of a cult of personality, personal enrichment through power, and manipulation of law to retain office.

These indicators are not abstract warning signs; they acquire meaning only when we ask how far they translate into practice and whether existing constitutional safeguards are strong enough to resist them. Time does not permit a detailed discussion of examples. But none of us who follow the news seriously can pretend ignorance. What remains uncertain is whether the American system of checks and balances will ultimately prevail. The President has not, so far, openly defied rulings of the Supreme Court. Yet recent scholarship, including work by German constitutional scholars, suggests that a conservative-majority Court may, in sensitive cases, show increasing deference to interpretations aligned with the executive’s agenda. That alone should give us pause, but the recent Supreme Court judgment on tariffs provides hope for the future.

At this point, a clarification is essential. Neither the United States nor the European Union Member States previously discussed, such as Hungary and Poland, are dictatorships. They hold elections. Opposition parties exist. Political competition is not abolished. But democracy does not collapse overnight. It erodes incrementally, through gerrymandering, media pressure, selective party financing, and the instrumentalisation of law. Elections may remain, while their fairness is quietly hollowed out.

Why, then, focus so intently on the United States? Not only because it remains the world’s sole superpower, led by the most powerful individual on the planet. What matters just as much are its evolving security and foreign policy doctrines, and, in particular, how Europe is perceived within them. The current U.S. administration has openly criticised the European Union for liberalism, migration policies, climate action, and minority rights. It has also explicitly supported European governments and movements that share its worldview.

These positions do not remain confined to rhetoric or diplomacy. In an interconnected political environment, they travel quickly across borders and translate into influence on domestic debates within Europe itself. The consequences are tangible. Political parties and movements in Europe now receive ideological, and sometimes material, support from overseas for agendas that sit uneasily with EU values and Member State commitments. The old Cold War divide between capitalism and communism has faded. The new fault line is different. One influential framing is the GAL–TAN divide: Green, Alternative, Liberal versus Traditional, Authoritarian, Nationalist. This is not merely a cultural clash; it is a constitutional one.

Seen through this lens, the rise of autocratic national-conservative movements becomes easier to understand. Often described as populist, their defining feature is a direct appeal to “the people,” coupled with deep suspicion toward institutions, especially courts. They reject a core premise of the rule of law: democracy is not the dictatorship of the majority. Human rights do not depend on opinion polls. It is precisely at this point, where majority will collide with constitutional limits, that independent courts become both indispensable and acutely vulnerable. Against this backdrop, it is hardly surprising that Justice Alex Stein of the Supreme Court of Israel noted during the first judicial dialogue organised by the Global South Network on 20 January 2025: “There is a demand and pressure placed upon the judiciary to make decisions according to some sort of popular will which does not align with the common goal of the protection of human rights and the rule of law”.

This vulnerability is further intensified by political polarisation. Even societies with strong liberal traditions struggle when political discourse shifts toward extremes. The challenge is real: how do we defend liberal-democratic values, those embedded, for example, in Article 2 TEU, without drifting so far into abstraction that they lose the confidence of the majority? This tension is not hypothetical; it defines our moment. And it is because this struggle is so widespread and unresolved that its consequences are now visible far beyond any single country or region.

Globally, the rule of law is not merely backsliding, it is in danger of free fall. As mentioned at the outset, rule-of-law scores have declined in most countries for at least seven consecutive years. In 2025, 68% of countries experienced further decline, up from 57% in 2024. More than 5.7 billion people now live under autocratic regimes, and 1.5 billion lack meaningful access to justice. Rising authoritarianism and weakening judicial independence are central drivers of this regression. These developments leave little room for complacency: the rule of law is under attack across the globe. In some countries it has, so far, been successfully defended, but even there it remains vulnerable and fragile. The rule of law is not self-executing. It cannot be taken for granted. If it is to survive, it must be consciously protected, and, when necessary, actively defended.

What strikes me most is how frequently large segments of the population are drawn to authoritarian, nationalistic, and conservative currents, even when the empirical evidence speaks so clearly against them. This is all the more puzzling when we turn to decades of rigorous economic and institutional research demonstrating that societies governed by the rule of law consistently outperform those that are not. Countries that score highest on rule-of-law indices, such as Denmark, Norway and Finland, are also among the most prosperous, stable, and, yes, happiest societies on earth. This is not coincidence. It is correlation with causation. The lesson is unmistakable: where the rule of law weakens, prosperity, trust, and freedom follow it down. However, I do not suggest that Finland is free from rule-of-law challenges. For example, court proceedings can be excessively lengthy, and the prevalence of domestic violence remains deeply concerning. There is always room for improvement.

Societies marked by weak institutions and extractive governance do not generate sustainable growth or genuine social progress. This insight has been powerfully articulated by the 2024 Nobel Prize laureates in economics, Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson. In Why Nations Fail published in 2012 and The Narrow Corridor published in 2019, they show, through history, data, and comparative analysis, that prosperity flows from inclusive institutions built on trust, accountability, and the rule of law. Where institutions are extractive, designed to benefit those in power, societies become trapped in stagnation.

Inclusive institutions would benefit everyone in the long run. Yet extractive institutions offer short-term rewards to elites, and as long as political systems guarantee their continued dominance, promises of reform lack credibility. No one believes that power will not revert to abuse once pressure subsides. Paradoxically, this inability to make credible promises also explains why democratisation sometimes occurs at all: when the threat of unrest or revolution becomes real, elites may discover that the only way to restore trust is to relinquish power itself.

And yet, despite this knowledge, the global trajectory is moving in the opposite direction. Authoritarianism, nationalism, and populism are on the rise. Institutions are openly despised. The naked exercise of power is admired. A rules-based international order is increasingly replaced by a deals-based one. Minorities and women are exposed to hostility rather than protection. This forces us to ask an uncomfortable question: is the liberal, rule-of-law-based vision of democratic society merely under strain—or is it at risk of being abandoned altogether?

If this diagnosis is correct, the next question becomes unavoidable: how can the rule of law be secured for the future, and what, concretely, can judges and court presidents do? History offers a stark answer. One of the most reliable routes to authoritarian consolidation is the capture of apex courts and independent media. Once constitutional courts and a free press fall under executive control, effective checks and balances disappear. This strategy is no longer theoretical; its footprints are visible in multiple jurisdictions.

Yet this is not the only path available. Some countries have chosen a different path, acting before the fire starts. In several Nordic states, reforms have been adopted to strengthen judicial independence before any acute crisis emerges. We often say that you cannot buy fire insurance once your house is already in flames. Norway amended its Constitution to entrench safeguards relating to the number of Supreme Court justices, retirement age, judicial appointments, and the establishment of a judicial council with a majority of judges. Sweden has followed a similar path, pending final parliamentary confirmation.

In Finland, a constitutional reform has been carefully prepared, strengthening guarantees around court composition, judicial appointments, retirement age, and court administration. Notably, this initiative has been strongly supported, or actively initiated, by courts themselves and academia. The proposal has been very recently reviewed positively by the Venice Commission. These reforms are not reactions to crisis; they are acts of constitutional foresight.

Of course, the most fundamental defence of the rule of law remains everyday judging. Integrity. Impartiality. Transparency. Careful reasoning. Timely justice. Courts defend the rule of law not through rhetoric, but through the quiet discipline of principled decision-making, day after day.

Yet new and troubling threats are emerging. In 2025, the United States imposed sanctions on judges and prosecutors of the International Criminal Court for carrying out their statutory duties. These individuals were effectively cut off from banking and essential services linked to U.S.-based companies. European judicial associations rightly condemned this as an extreme form of pressure on an independent court. But the chilling effect may go further. Can we be certain that national or European judges will feel free to decide cases impartially when powerful foreign interests are involved? This is not a marginal issue—it strikes at the very heart of judicial independence.

In the European Union, unity in defence of shared values is not optional. It is a constitutional necessity. In a turbulent world, adherence to the rule of law is not only a legal obligation, it is also the most reliable path to prosperity, trust, and social cohesion. If proof is needed, we need only look to Estonia. In little more than three decades since regaining independence, it has risen into the top tier of global rule-of-law rankings. Estonia’s success demonstrates that even against daunting historical odds, a deliberate commitment to institutions, trust, and legality can deliver remarkable results.

That is the hopeful note on which I would like to end. The rule of law is fragile, but it is also powerful. And when defended with foresight, courage, and integrity, it remains one of humanity’s most successful inventions. And it is precisely because the rule of law is both fragile and powerful that platforms for dialogue, reflection, and mutual learning matter more than ever. No court, no country, and no legal system can confront these challenges in isolation. The pressures we face are global, and so must be our conversations.

This is where the work of the Global South Network becomes indispensable, and where the role of court presidents, through active participation in the Network’s initiatives, proves vital in fostering knowledge exchange, sharing good practices, and facilitating joint efforts to address global challenges. By bringing together judges, lawyers, academics, and voices from beyond academia, the Global South Network creates a rare and vital space where experiences are shared across legal cultures, regions, and traditions. It enables us to learn not only from success stories, but also from failures, before they become irreversible.

At a time when institutions are questioned, expertise is mistrusted, and dialogue is replaced by slogans, the Global South Network insists on something profoundly countercultural: informed discussion, respectful disagreement, and principled engagement. It reminds us that defending the rule of law is not merely a national task or a regional concern, but a shared responsibility that transcends borders.

For this vision, and for the tireless effort required to turn it into reality, my sincere thanks go to Dr Nauman Reayat. His commitment to fostering genuine exchange among judges, scholars, practitioners, and societal actors has created not just a network, but a community, one that equips us to think more clearly, act more courageously, and stand less alone when the rule of law is tested.

In uncertain times, such connections are not a luxury; they are vital.

I look forward to the responses of my esteemed colleagues from across the world. Thank you!