ICON-S CEE 2026 Ljubljana Conference

ICON-S International Society for Public Law Central and Eastern European Chapter

Annual Conference

University of Ljubljana Faculty of Law

14-15 May 2026

CONSTITUTIONAL COURTS x SCHOLARSHIP

IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Law www.pf.uni-lj.si

Institute for Comparative Law at the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana www.ipp-pf.si

Slovenian Constitutional Law Association www.dups.ustava.si

ICON-S CEE Chapter  www.icon-society.org/central-and-eastern-europe/

The Chapter was established in April 2018. Its mission is to promote the values of the International Society of Public Law and, in particular, its commitment to an interdisciplinary approach to public law that engages constitutional, European, administrative, and international law scholars and practitioners so as to better understand global and transnational legal developments. It endeavors to create a space for Central and Eastern European legal scholarship to grow and enter into a global dialogue.

Samo Bardutzky is Associate Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Law and Head of Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law's Institute of Comparative Law. Previously, he was Fulbright Research Scholar at the University of Michigan Law School and Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Kent Law School.  Samo co-ordinated the Jean Monnet module on »Migration and Refugee Law in Europe« and was principal investigator of »Judicial Selection under Scrutiny (JUDGMERIT)«. He serves as Vice-Chair of the Slovenian Constitutional Law Association.

Djordje Gardašević is Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Law (Croatia). He earned his L.L.M. degree at the Central European University in Budapest and his PhD at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Law. He participated, among other events, at the ICON·S Annual Conferences, the World Congresses of the International Association for Constitutional Law, the Congresses of the International Political Science Association, the APSA Annual Meeting and the ASN World Conventions. His research interests include: states of emergency, fundamental rights and freedoms, constitutional theory and comparative constitutional law.

Gloria Golmohammadi is a postdoctoral researcher and Lecturer-in-Law at Stockholm University and visiting researcher at University of Ljubljana. Her work focuses on EU constitutional and administrative law, particularly democratic and citizen participation in multi-level settings, participation rights and the EU legislative process. She earned her PhD in European law in 2023 and holds an LL.M. from Columbia Law School, where she was a Fulbright Scholar. She previously worked as an Associate Judge at the Administrative Court of Stockholm. Her book, The Principle of Participatory Democracy in the European Union, is forthcoming with Hart Publishing.

Barbara Havelková is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, and a Law Fellow at St Hilda’s College. Barbara’s research and teaching interests include gender legal studies and feminist jurisprudence, equality and anti-discrimination law, constitutional law, EU law and law in post-socialist transitions. Her book, 'Gender Equality in Law: Uncovering the Legacies of Czech State Socialism', was published by Hart/Bloomsbury in 2017, and a volume on ‘Anti-Discrimination Law in Civil Law Jurisdictions’, she co-authored and co-edited, came out in 2019 with Oxford University Press.

Marjan Kos is an assistant professor of administrative law and public administration at the Department of Administrative Law. Since 2024, he has acted as the head of the Department. He holds a PhD in constitutional law and specializes in issues related to EU public law, especially fundamental rights protection and EU administrative law, to transparency, integrity and the prevention of corruption, administrative procedure and dispute as well as tax law.

Kristina Krajnc is a PhD candidate and teaching assistant at the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana. She teaches tutorials in sociology of law and anti-discrimination law and co-coordinates the faculty’s Anti-Discrimination Legal Clinic. Building on her experience in civil society activism, her academic work explores questions of anti-discrimination law and social justice.

Mojca Mauhler is a teaching assistant in constitutional law at the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana. She holds a law degree from the University of Ljubljana (2011) and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School (2015). Before entering academia in 2025, she practiced law for more than a decade at Slovenia’s largest law firm. She also completed a judicial traineeship at the High Court in Ljubljana and worked as a legal adviser supporting asylum seekers and NGOs. Her doctoral research focuses on judicial deference in constitutional adjudication.

Silvia Suteu is Professor of Law at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy, having previously worked at University College London and the University of Edinburgh, UK. Her areas of expertise lie in comparative constitutional law, constitutional theory, and gender law. She has a special interest in the theory and practice of constitutional change, in particular from deliberative and feminist perspectives. Her work has appeared in leading academic journals and includes the monograph Eternity Clauses in Democratic Constitutionalism (Oxford University Press 2021). She currently co-leads the Feminist Judgments in Central and Eastern Europe Project and a collaborative project on unwritten constitutionalism.

Anna Śledzińska-Simon is a Professor at the University of Wrocław with an SJD in Comparative Constitutional Law from Central European University. Her research includes comparative constitutional law, gender constitutionalism, and equality law, with interdisciplinary approaches. She is a founding member of ICON-S CEE and serves on editorial and advisory boards in public law. She has held fellowships at leading institutions including NYU, EUI, and Max Planck Institutes. Her recent work examines abortion, democratic backsliding, and human rights in populist contexts.

Tilen Štajnpihler Božič is an Associate Professor in the Department of Legal Theory and Sociology of Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana. He earned his PhD in legal theory and philosophy of law in 2011 and has since focused on the interdisciplinary field of the sociology of law. In his research and teaching, he explores law through the prism of sociological theory and social and political philosophy, with particular attention to issues of social (in)equality and the role of (anti)discrimination law.

The theme of the CEE Chapter’s 2026 conference brings together two elements. First, it touches upon constitutional courts, institutions that is frequently researched and studied as well as a phenomenon characteristic of the region and a part of its story of post-authoritarian, legal constitutionalism(s). The second element of the conference theme is public law or constitutional scholarship - a social institution that is present, influential and impactful in this part of Europe, but rarely itself the object of academic attention.

Our ambition is to interconnect the two elements in several different ways. This is what the ‘x’ in the title of the conference stands for: in an American address, it can mean “at the intersection of”; in a French textbook, it would read “multiplié par”; and at the end of a text message, it can even be a kiss.  

As for the convenors, we will try to connect the two elements through a string of three plenary events, linked together by the emphasis on Central and Eastern Europe and focus on constitutional adjudication and constitutional scholarship. The three plenary events will tell stories of three roles that often interconnect in their search for a meaning:

‘What does it mean to be a constitutional court judge in CEE?’

Keynote discussion among constitutional court judges or former judges from the region with different ties to the legal academia: Jiří Přibáň, Goran Selanec and Katja Šugman Stubbs, hosted by Samo Bardutzky.

Jiří Přibáň is a Czech-British academic, author, translator and essayist. He was appointed professor at Charles University and Cardiff University and a justice of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic in 2024. He specialises in sociology of law, jurisprudence, legal and constitutional theory and philosophy of law. In 2014, he co-founded the Centre of Law and Society at Cardiff University, which he led until his appointment as a Justice of the Constitutional Court. Přibáň authored and edited dozens of books and hundreds of studies, including Sázka na svobodu [The Freedom Gamble] (2024), The Defence of Constitutionalism (2014 in Czech, 2018 in English). His notable works include a trilogy of monographs on constitutional semantics: Legal Symbolism (2007), Sovereignty in Post-Sovereign Society (2015), and Constitutional Imaginaries (2022) as well as Dissidents of Law (2002) which explores political dissent in communist regimes and its theoretical and philosophical significance.

Goran Selanec graduated in Law from the University of Zagreb and then went on to obtain his LLM and SJD degrees from the University of Michigan. From 2001 to 2009 he worked at the Faculty of Law of the University of Zagreb, first in the Department of Constitutional Law, then in the Department of European Public Law. He also lectured at other departments of the University of Zagreb as well as at the ERA European Legal Academy in Trier. In 2012 he was appointed Deputy Ombudsman for Gender Equality, a position he held until his election as judge of the Constitutional Court of Croatia in October 2017. 

Katja Šugman Stubbs is Professor of Criminal Law and Associate Professor of Criminology at the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. She is focusing her research on different topics in the fields of criminal procedure (evidence law, standards of proof, rights of the defendant), EU criminal law and criminology. Since December 2018 she serves as judge at the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia.

‘What does it mean to be a public law scholar in CEE?’

Distinguished speaker address by Tanasije Marinković, chaired by Marjan Kos

Tanasije Marinković is a professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Belgrade - Faculty of Law. He received his degrees from the University of Belgrade (LL.B and Ph. D) and University of Paris I (LL.M). He is a member of the Electoral Commission of the Republic of Serbia and of the University of Belgrade Gender Equality Committee. He is a co-founder of the independent Commission of Inquiry for Establishing the Responsibility for the 2024 Collapse of the Novi Sad Railway Station Canopy. His bibliography includes Serbia (International Encyclopaedia of Constitutional Law, Wolters Kluwer, 2019).

‘What does it mean to be an intellectual in CEE?’

Plenary discussion with Professor Renata Salecl and Luka Lisjak Gabrijelčič, hosted by Kristina Krajnc

Luka Lisjak Gabrijelčič is a historian and political analyst with a regular opinion column in the largest Slovenian daily newspaper, Delo. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Razpotja journal on culture and is a member of the Editorial Board of the Eurozine network of European cultural journals. He coauthored A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe, vol. II, published by Oxford University Press, and co-edited The Legacy of Division: East and West after 1989, published by CEU Press.

Renata Salecl is a philosopher, sociologist and legal theorist. She is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and a Professor at the School of Law, Birkbeck College, University of London. Her books, which have been translated into 20 languages, include A Passion for Ignorance: What We Choose not to Know and Why  (Princeton UP, 2020), Tyranny of Choice (Profile Books, 2011), On Anxiety (Routledge, 2004), and (Per)versions of Love and Hate (Verso, 1998).

In addition, the conference will feature a special workshop for junior scholars PhDs Anonymous: How to build and maintain a productive and healthy relationship with your supervisor and a plenary book launch for Constitutionalism and Its Discontents by Bojan Bugarič and Mark Tushnet (University of Chicago Press).

Constitutionalism and Its Discontents, by Mark Tushnet and Bojan Bugarič

Book launch

Hosted by Gloria Golmohammadi and Mojca Mauhler

The Icon-s CEE Ljubljana conference will be an opportunity to learn about and discuss an exciting new monograph, Constitutionalism and Its Discontents, by Mark Tushnet and Bojan Bugarič. The scholars joined forces again after having published “Power to the People: Constitutionalism in the Age of Populism” with OUP in 2022. Their new book, forthcoming this year with University of Chicago press, was announced as a “thoughtful and provocative meditation on both the potential and limits of constitutionalism”. The monograph is a plea for a “thin” idea of constitutionalism and for realistic expectations with regard to what constitutionalism can achieve. 

Mark Tushnet is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, Emeritus at Harvard Law School, who has written on constitutional review in the United States and around the world, as well as on other institutions created to protect constitutional democracy. He is the author of, among other books, Taking the Constitution Away From the Courts (1999), Weak Courts, Strong Rights: Judicial Review and Social Welfare Rights in Comparative Constitutional Law, (2007) and The constitution of the United States of America: a contextual analysis (2015). 

Bojan Bugarič is Professor of Law at the University of Sheffield School of Law and a Founding Member of the Icon-S CEE Chapter. Previously, he was Professor of Law at the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Law. His areas of research are comparative constitutional law, EU law, rule of law and law and law and development. He has dedicated a number of works to the issues in our region, e.g. Populism, liberal democracy, and the rule of law in Central and Eastern Europe’ (2008), ‘A crisis of constitutional democracy in post-Communist Europe: "Lands in-between" democracy and authoritarianism’ (2015) and ‘Central Europe’s descent into autocracy: a constitutional analysis of authoritarian populism (2019)’. 

PhDs Anonymous: How to build and maintain a productive and healthy relationship with your supervisor 

Special workshop for junior scholars

Led by Mojca Mihelj Plesničar

The Ljubljana annual conference of the Icon-S CEE chapter continues an important tradition of addressing issues important to younger colleagues at the beginning of their academic path. This year, a special workshop will focus on the relationship between a PhD candidate and their supervisor. The title “PhD Anonymous” is not to be taken too literally; it does not mean that the identities of the participants will be hidden but rather that we aim to create an environment away from your home institution where you can discuss some of the issues revolving around a productive mentoring relationship with your peers who may come from different systems and backgrounds - but experience shows that the problems they encounter are often very similar. 

Mojca Mihelj Plesničar is Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Criminology and Associate Professor of Criminology at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ljubljana. In 2024, she was awarded a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (»Sentencing architecture: building a decision-making matrix« - SENTRIX). 

A Participant Information Guide with some relevant practical information is available in PDF format through the link below.

The conference was made possible by:

E-mail address: icon-s-cee@pf.uni-lj.si