Ring the bell. Judiciaries as anti-autocratization radar systems

Judicial resistance has been the new buzz word of 2020s. The perception of the role of the courts in democratic society, and expectations laid on courts, changed significantly. Many scholars capture this development through the concept of resilient, militant rule of law, or democracy which is capable of defending itself. The recent scholarship documented that the de-democratization of 21st century occurs in two major forms. The first one is represented by (mostly) executive-led attacks at democratic institutions, individual freedoms and rights. The second one is more difficult to spot, decay of democratic institutions from the inside, crumbling down of demo structures, emptying of the role of the state, decreasing public trust. Given the lacklustre reactions of international arena, experienced both on the level of EU and UN, the majority of media owned by oligarchs or political actors, and electoral campaigns twisted a lot of hope was invested in courts, which are the frequent targets of early democratization erosion, but also the potential radars, alarming the rest of the society with a narrative showing when democracy is under a threat. With supranational organisations lacking the momentum, media owned by oligarchs or politicians, and electoral campaigns twisted by AI and hoaxes, a lot of hope has been invested in courts, which are the frequent targets of early democratization erosion, but also the potential radars, alarming the rest of the society with a narrative showing when democracy is under a threat. But in order to do so, they first need to be able to recognise the threat and signals that democracy is being undone. How do they learn this? In this article, we use a comparative study of CEE states, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland, to discuss the process, in which judges internalise their new roles in protection of fragile democracies and what measures they use to activate them. Using the concept of mental maps, we show that judges in all countries appropriated a different understanding of both judicial independence and their position in the democratic system, mostly also due to workings of long-existing informal practices, institutions and networks. Building on this pre-understanding, our core research aim is to uncover how these different perceptions of the role of judges in democracies impacted their ability to recognise and communicate new threats to democracy to the rest of the society. In order to do so, we first identify democratic threats in countries (since 2016) and create a database of threats addressed by apex courts. Second, we conduct a thematic analysis of all press releases and social media posts of apex courts, and analyse their language, sensitivity (use of legal vocabulary vs focus on story-telling), and - collegial vs individual voice (use of press releases, official channels, vs. individual blogs, interviews, social media profiles, dissents…).