Research seminar information
Time: Friday, 6.6.2025, 12:00-13:00 (UTC +3)
Place: Room 247 (2nd floor), Unioninkatu 33 (inner courtyard), you can also join in by Zoom, Passcode: 791038
Engaged Observers: French Legal Scholars and the Defence of Liberal Democracy during the State of Emergency (2015–2022)
“Constitutionalists’ Fever” — that is how the French centre-left newspaper Libération headlined its piece on the striking rise of public engagement by French jurists after the dissolution of the National Assembly in June 2024. For legal scholars, who had typically been seen more as “advisers to the Prince” than as defenders of universal values in France, such extensive media presence was indeed extraordinary.
Yet, as I will argue in this presentation, this break from traditional discretion goes back to earlier controversies surrounding the state of emergency during the security and health crises. I explore how the politics of exception has drawn legal scholars out of their usual splendid isolation into the spotlight of public debate. This shift, I suggest, has profoundly unsettled their understanding of law and their role in safeguarding liberal democracy. Ultimately, the state of emergency has been perceived by legal scholars as a symptom not only of a crisis of law but also, by extension, of their own profession. It has also exposed a deep ambivalence in their relationship to the rule of law – an ideal they invoke, even as they grow increasingly disillusioned with its capacity to resist political instrumentalization. This case sheds light on how maintaining an acceptable distance from politics plays a crucial role in how legal scholars define their professional identity.
About the speaker
Weronika Adamska is a teaching fellow in political science at Sorbonne Paris Nord University and a doctoral candidate affiliated with the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) and Freie Universität Berlin. This presentation presents key insights from her dissertation research.