CELS Lunchtime Seminar: 'Interpretive Twists, Argumentative Turns, and New Reference Points: Unpacking the Jurisprudential Shift in the European Citizenship Jurisprudence'

Professor Urška Šadl (University of Copenhagen) will give a CELS lunchtime seminar - "Interpretive Twists, Argumentative Turns, and New Reference Points: Unpacking the Jurisprudential Shift in the European Citizenship Jurisprudence".

Scholars have over the past years identified a generational shift, a new cycle, and even the emergence of a new reactionary phase in the European citizenship jurisprudence. In the article (co-authored with dr. Suvi Sankari, Faculty of Law, Helsinki), which is the basis for the presentation, Urška seeks to unpack the nature of this jurisprudential shift.

The article highlights the dynamics of legal change of European citizenship case law by identifying first, a modification on the level of application of the same teleological method of interpretation and autonomous concepts, which supports  a novel if not the opposite understanding of the same legal instrument, or of the same legal concept; second, the subtle alterations in the reference frames, in particular the effective replacement of the so-called foundational case law with more recent rights curbing precedents, and third, the transformation of economic considerations underlying free movement, which from public policy arguments turn into a slippery slope argument. It argues that to understand the substance of judicial transformations of law, one has to consider the mechanisms, which allow the Court (or any court) to change the law: interpretation, argumentation, and the practice of precedents, and how they interact over time.

The talk will take place at 1:05pm – 1:55pm in lecture room B16, Faculty of Law.
A sandwich lunch is provided at 12:45pm.
There is no charge for lunch or to attend the seminar.

Enquiries to: cels@law.cam.ac.uk