Professor Laurent Pech

Professor Laurent Pech, who has been studying rule of law issues since beginning his career as a junior lawyer in war-torn Bosnia two decades ago, said it is “difficult not to think that the UK is following in the footsteps of Viktor Orban’s Hungary and Jaroslaw Kaczynski’ Poland”.

His research on rule of law backsliding in the EU – currently conducted within the framework of an H2020 consortium project that was awarded £4.5 million in 2018 – has been covered extensively in international media and informed the deliberations of policy-makers across Europe.

Professor Pech, who heads the law and politics department at Middlesex University, said: “Starting in Hungary in 2010, we have seen a new trend in the EU which one may refer to as rule of law backsliding. If successful, the ruling party will no longer have to fear elections as fair elections will have been made structurally impossible.

“In Hungary, regular elections still give the illusion that the country remains a democracy while in fact minimum standards regarding democracy and the rule of law are systemically violated. Poland is now on track of becoming the EU’s second undemocratic member state within the next year or two.”

Drawing comparisons with the UK, he said this process “always begins with some anti-rule of law rhetoric taking the form of attacks on courts, judges, lawyers but also academics who are denounced for their ‘activism’ with the label ‘enemies of the people’ also used”.

Lawyers and judges are targeted first “because once you have captured the judicial branch, you can continue with more abuses of power without fearing any judicial consequence”, he said.

His evidence of rule of law backsliding gaining momentum in the UK includes the government’s unlawful prorogation of Parliament; the withdrawn proposed legalisation of lawbreaking via the Internal Market Bill; repeated attacks by senior MPs on “activist lawyers”; the “politicisation” of the offices of the Attorney General and Lord Chancellor; and the ongoing reviews of judicial review and of the Human Rights Act 1998.

Professor Pech said: “We are seeing mounting evidence of a process of rule of law backsliding gaining momentum in the UK with irresponsible legislation such as the Internal Market Bill accompanying irresponsible rhetoric and recurrent attacks on the legal profession. This seriously damages the UK’s reputation as a law-abiding country.

“The ongoing review of judicial review and the announced review of the Human Rights Act suggest that we have still a government keen on making itself as unaccountable as possible.

“Coupled with ongoing calls to abolish or revamp the Electoral Commission, it is difficult not to think that the UK is following in the footsteps of Viktor Orban’s Hungary and Jaroslaw Kaczynski’ Poland. I hope I will be proven wrong.”