Justices Matter: A Theory of Judicial Resilience

We invite you to the first seminar of the VALOR research group– Values, Accountability, and Law: Examining the Constitutional Core and the Rule of Law in the European Union led by Dr. Anna Wójcik from the Department of Constitutional Law.

The guest of the seminar will be Yinn-Ching Lu from Emory University (Atlanta, USA).

The topic of the speech: „Justices Matter: A Theory of Judicial Resilience”

During the meeting, the speaker will present the results of comparative research on Poland, Georgia, and Taiwan. The discussed article develops the theory of judicial independence from a constitutional law perspective, examining the relationship between judicial selection mechanisms and judicial independence, and highlighting the role of apex courts in the era of democratic backsliding.

The study put forward three main theses:

• the judiciary’s composition is key to the resilience of courts – greater diversity helps maintain independence,
• judicial selection mechanisms involving a broader range of actors are increasing the diversity,
• even well-designed appointment mechanisms cannot guarantee the full judicial resilience against the great political pressure – the can, however, delay the eventual capture.

Date: March 10th Time: 12:15–13:45 Place: Room A/142 Kozminski University | and online Event language: English

Speaker Bio Yinn-Ching Lu focuses on constitutional law and technology law from an interdisciplinary perspective. He holds an LL.B. from National Chengchi University and two LL.M. degrees from National Taiwan University and the University of Chicago Law School. He is currently an S.J.D. candidate at Emory University.

His recent work focuses on Artificial Intelligence regulation and the practice of the Taiwan Constitutional Court. He served as a law clerk at the Taiwan Constitutional Court from 2021 to 2023 and is currently a research fellow in the AI Infrastructure Governance project, funded by the Taiwan Technology and Science Council and co-led by nine distinguished information law scholars.