The Venice Commission’s Role in Safeguarding Constitutional Courts’ Independence: Emerging Challenges in an Era of Democratic Backsliding

This article examines the role of the Venice Commission in safeguarding the independ- ence of constitutional courts, with particular focus on the challenges posed by contemporary demo- cratic backsliding. Through a comparative analysis of appointment crises in Hungary, Poland, Spain, and Slovakia, the study identifies four principal categories of institutional manipulation: significant delay, deadlock, court-packing, and court-curbing. The analysis reveals that these crises are driven by the confluence of political polarization, partisan degradation, and populist challenges to liberal con- stitutionalism. Drawing on the German 2024 constitutional reform as a preventive case study, the article proposes specific recommendations including temporal cooling-off periods, constitutional en- trenchment of structural essentials, anticipatory provisions against interpretive manipulation, and ro- bust anti-deadlock mechanisms.