The European Law and Governance University (ELGU) invites the public to attend the open lecture “Backsliding and Resilience: The Future of Constitutional Democracy in Europe”, taking place on Tuesday, 17 November 2026, from 11:30 to 13:30 at the ELGU Rome Campus (Piazza di Porta Portese, 6, Rome).The lecture brings together distinguished academics and experts to examine one of the most pressing questions facing Europe today: how democracies respond when the rule of law comes under strain. Speakers will explore the dynamics of democratic and rule of law backsliding, the prospects for democratic restoration, and the role that European Union mechanisms play in strengthening constitutional resilience across Member States.Prof. Bernardo Giorgio Mattarella, Director of the EPLO Office in Rome, will moderate the discussion, which features three presentations:
• Prof. Valentina Rita Scotti (ELGU) – The Anatomy of Rule of Law Backsliding: Concepts, Mechanisms, and Trajectories
• Prof. Gábor Halmai (ELTE and LUISS) – Restoration and Resilience of Democracy and Constitutionalism: The Case of Hungary after the April 2026 Election
• Prof. Cristina Fasone (LUISS) – EU Tools and Procedures to Tackle Rule of Law Backsliding: Which National Resilience?
Together, the presentations move from diagnosis to response: from how backsliding unfolds, to what democratic recovery looks like in practice, to the tools the EU can deploy in support of national institutions. The event offers participants a valuable opportunity to engage with current academic debates on the future of constitutional democracy in Europe and to exchange perspectives on the challenges of democratic backsliding and the responses available.
Registration
Participation is free and open to the public. Prior registration is required through the online form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSej1nmfRQZwNwPnBlqH3ACvhxCXg6qJTz3RZ_BlmHcoMgOeRA/viewform
About Our Speakers
Prof. Valentina Rita Scotti is Associate Professor of Comparative Public Law at ELGU in Rome. She also lectures at LUISS University and is an international professor at New Vision University in Tbilisi, Georgia. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Siena and has taught and conducted research at Koç University Law School in Istanbul and Sciences Po in Menton. Her work spans comparative constitutional law, gender studies, and the legal systems of the Mediterranean, with a particular focus on Türkiye, as well as the crisis of constitutional democracies. She co-chairs the “Gender and Constitutions” research group of the International Association of Constitutional Law and is a member of research centers including KOC-KAM (Koç University) and CESP (LUISS). Her publications include Il Costituzionalismo in Turchia fra identità nazionale e circolazione dei modelli (2014) and La Turchia di Erdoğan (2022).
Prof. Gábor Halmai is Professor Emeritus at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest and at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, where he served as Professor and Chair of Comparative Constitutional Law from 2016 to 2022. Before joining the EUI, he taught and conducted research at ELTE and Princeton University, served as chief advisor to the President of the Hungarian Constitutional Court, and sat on the Management Board of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency. He edits the CEU Press book series Constitutions and Constitutionalism in Central and Eastern Europe and is the founding editor-in-chief of Fundamentum, a Hungarian-language human rights quarterly. He has published widely in English, German, and Hungarian.
Prof. Cristina Fasone is Associate Professor of Comparative Public Law in the Department of Law and Institutions at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome, where she directs the BA in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Public Law from the University of Siena and was a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow in Law at the European University Institute in Florence (2013–2015). She held the Jean Monnet Module PATEU (2016–2019) on parliamentary accountability and technical expertise and, until January 2024, coordinated the LUISS research unit of the Horizon Europe project RED-SPINEL. She has been a visiting scholar at institutions including Complutense University of Madrid, the University of Copenhagen, Durham Law School, the European University Institute, Georgetown Law Center, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Sciences Po Bordeaux, Uppsala University, and Victoria University of Wellington.
