The panel “Constitutional Stability of Democratic Institutions in an Era of Global Crises: The Balance of Security, Human Rights, and Post-War Law and Order” is dedicated to one of the key challenges of contemporary constitutionalism — the ability of a democratic state to maintain its institutional and legal resilience in the face of war, protracted crises, and large-scale security challenges. The focus will be on the internal architecture of state power, the functioning of the system of checks and balances, the limits of the powers of parliament, the government, and the judiciary, as well as the role of judicial and constitutional oversight in ensuring the state’s democratic trajectory.

The relevance of this panel stems from the need to strike a balance between national security and defense requirements and the fundamental principles of democracy, the rule of law, and the protection of human rights. Of particular importance is the question of the permissible limits on the restriction of rights and freedoms in times of war and under a prolonged state of emergency, as well as the prevention of authoritarian drift, hyper-centralization of power, and the gradual erosion of constitutional checks and balances. In this context, participants will discuss the concept of a “democracy capable of self-defense,” the problem of hybrid threats to democratic institutions, the limits of judicial review, and the practice of the European Court of Human Rights in relevant cases.

A separate segment of the discussion will be devoted to issues of democratic legitimacy and the social contract: whether the state, in the context of profound transformation, needs a new social contract, and what its constitutional foundations should be. Participants will also examine the challenges to freedom of expression in the post-truth era, including the limits of judges’ public communication, as well as the relationship between judicial independence, professional ethics, and the public interest.

The panel’s comparative analysis will focus, in particular, on the constitutional role of Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court in protecting new forms of family and its approaches to judicial activism, human rights, and democratic resilience. At the same time, the concepts of democratic erosion and reflexive republicanism will help broaden the discussion on the mechanisms for the self-preservation of the democratic state and its ability to counteract the gradual degradation of institutions.

The main objective of the panel is to develop a modern constitutional and legal framework for the sustainability of democratic institutions and to identify legal safeguards that prevent legitimate security restrictions from being transformed into arbitrary curtailments of rights and freedoms. The expected practical outcome is to outline legal mechanisms for restoring the full functioning of democratic procedures after the end of hostilities — in particular, electoral and administrative processes — as well as to establish guidelines for the transition from a special legal regime to a stable postwar constitutional order.