Dr. Nina Peršak (Advanced Academia Fellow, Oct ‘21 – Feb ‘22) will present her research project on the topic:

Diversity and European Courts: Implications for Judicial Legitimacy and the Rule of Law

on 28 October, 2021 (Thursday) at 16:30 h.

Moderated by Prof. Martin Ivanov.

The research project focuses on understanding diversity (and wider topics of inclusion, representation, participation and equality) in the context of judicial legitimacy and the rule of law in Europe. The concept of ‘diversity’ generally refers to a practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of backgrounds, and while it is commonly paid lip service, it also attracts controversy, as it often challenges the status quo and existing distributions of power.

The project aims to inspect and document the ways in which diversity considerations have been acknowledged as relevant for, or even incorporated in, the functioning and legitimacy of European courts. It will examine the relevant factors, justifications, limits and effects of diversity in relation to judicial legitimacy and the rule of law. In order to achieve this, it will draw on a wide variety of sources to grasp the extent of this multidimensional issue in a comprehensive way. In view of the focus on the implications of diversity in courts for judicial legitimacy and the rule of law, however, the discussion will be primarily situated in the discursive context of equality/equity, procedural and normative legitimacy and the rule of law. This requires not only a descriptive but also normative engagement with the topic with a view on potential policy implications of research results. The presentation will outline the main elements of my project’s research plan as well as present some of the results acquired to date.