Pablo Castillo-Ortiz | The University of Sheffield (original) (raw)

Books by Pablo Castillo-Ortiz

sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give a... more sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this book are included in the book's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the book's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

Nota: Este estudio ha sido financiado por la Fundación EU-LAC. La Fundación EU-LAC es financiada ... more Nota: Este estudio ha sido financiado por la Fundación EU-LAC. La Fundación EU-LAC es financiada por sus Estados miembros y por la Unión Europea. El contenido de esta publicación es responsabilidad únicamente de los autores y no se puede considerar como el punto de vista de la Fundación EU-LAC, de sus Estados miembros o de la Unión Europea.

Cases such as the Maastricht ruling by the German Federal Constitutional Court or the 'Crotty; de... more Cases such as the Maastricht ruling by the German Federal Constitutional Court or the 'Crotty; decision by the Irish Supreme Court have gone down in the history of European integration as outstanding examples of intervention by judicial actors in important political processes. In this book, Dr. Castillo Ortiz makes for the first time a comprehensive analysis of all such rulings by national higher courts on European Union treaties issued during their processes of ratification.

Using an interdisciplinary Law and Politics approach and a sophisticated methodological strategy, the book describes the political dynamics underlying some of the most relevant judicial episodes in the process of European Integration during the last decades: litigation strategies by Europhile and Eurosceptic actors, relations between the judiciary and the other branches of government, and clashes of power between national courts and the European Court of Justice of the European Union. By offering empirical evidence and by relying on scientific rigor, the book seeks to provide both experts and the general public an accessible account of one of the most salient but least studied aspects of current European law and politics.

Journal Articles by Pablo Castillo-Ortiz

Journal of Common Market Studies, 2023

Eurosceptic actors often mobilize legal concepts and institutions against European integration. T... more Eurosceptic actors often mobilize legal concepts and institutions against European integration. This article makes three contributions to the understanding of this phenomenon. First, it proposes a conceptual definition of the Eurosceptic use of law as part of political strategies, with the aim to make a theoretical contribution to literature in the field. Second, to anchor this idea in the empirical reality, the article exhaustively analyses instances of use of law in the manifestos of medium to large size Eurosceptic parties in national elections, focusing on right wing Eurosceptic parties in the period 2010 to 2021. Third, the article presents some core features of how law is used by the Eurosceptic parties covered by this research at the strategic, conceptual, empirical and political levels, evidencing its widespread utilization and discussing its risks for the process of European integration.

International Journal of Constitutional Law, 2022

Since 2018, the radical right party Vox has been part of the political landscape in Spain. This t... more Since 2018, the radical right party Vox has been part of the political landscape in Spain. This the article analyzes Vox's electoral manifesto and some important speeches of the party's leaders, in order to address three main topics. First, the article explains how key themes of liberal constitutionalism feature in the narrative of the party. Second, the article analyzes the extent to which Vox's policy proposals can be described as illiberal. Third, the article doctrinally assesses to what extent such proposals are compatible with the Spanish Constitution. Contributing to the literature on radical right parties and illiberalism, this article describes the main traits of Vox's current political approach to constitutionalism. It is argued that these traits can be summarized in three main features: partisan use of constitutional rhetoric, constitutional double standards combined with selective constitutionalism, and unconstitutionality of core policy proposals.

Law & Philosophy, 2020

Legal and political controversies persist about the performance of Kelsenian-type constitutional ... more Legal and political controversies persist about the performance of Kelsenian-type constitutional courts in democratic systems. One of the reasons is that the design of these institutions cannot easily accommodate simultaneous but conflicting demands for the strong protection of democracy and human rights, judicial independence and constitutional restraint. Challenging the dominant approach to the design of contemporary constitutional courts, this article proposes a new way to balance these three values through reforms to the structure of Kelsenian institutions. The proposal seeks to institutionalize constitutional restraint , embedding it into courts' internal functioning rules while, concurrently, emancipating constitutional judges from political control through a reform of appointment procedures. It is argued that the combined effects of these two reforms will produce constitutional courts that are more independent and able to protect the core elements of a democratic political community while, at the same time, increasing constitutional deference to the democratically elected legislator.

Journal of Human Rights, 2019

Decisions on Article 9(2) of the European Convention on Human Rightsthe right to religious manife... more Decisions on Article 9(2) of the European Convention on Human Rightsthe right to religious manifestation-evidence the importance of intersectional considerations of gender, religion, and even nationality. This article uses qualitative comparative analysis in order to find patterns of litigation victory and defeat by intersectional groups in their claims of violation of this provision. Our analyses show that intersectionalization, operating through a methodology particularly well suited to do so, was essential to render visible important patterns in the judicial arena. These patterns show the different outcomes of litigation by intersectional groups. In particular, Muslim women, whose cases frequently had a clear dimension of "claim intersectionality" related to religious clothing, systematically were defeated before the European Court of Human Rights. This contrasts with cases brought by male Muslims, a successful category of litigants, therefore emphasizing the importance of gender dimension when understanding cases on religious manifestation.

Comparative European Politics, 2019

In recent decades, constitutional courts have become essential institutions in the political syst... more In recent decades, constitutional courts have become essential institutions in the political systems of many European countries. At the legal level, constitutional courts are designed as organs intended to protect and enforce the normative constitution. At the political level, they are also expected to play a role in the protection of democratic systems of government and human rights. However, the stability of a democracy does not only depend on efficient institutional designs, but also on acceptable levels of public support for democratic institutions. Using data from the European Social Survey, this article shows that constitutional courts have negative effects on public views of the court system in at least two dimensions: perceptions of judicial independence and perceptions of judicial fairness. These effects, however, decrease with the age of the democratic system. Given the core role that diffuse support for the judiciary plays in the stability of the rule of law in a country, our findings suggest that, paradoxically, constitutional courts might have detrimental effects to the very goal that justifies their existence: the protection of democratic systems of government.

European Constitutional Law Review, 2019

Legal constitutionalism -Political constitutionalism -Emergence of illiberal constitutionalism as... more Legal constitutionalism -Political constitutionalism -Emergence of illiberal constitutionalism as a tertium genus -Examination of constitutional courts under three illiberal governments: Poland, Hungary, and Turkey -Illiberal governments' strategies to seize control of constitutional courts -Illiberal governments' aim to secure leverage over constitutional judges and restrict the powers of review of the court -Constitutional courts under illiberal rule invert the traditional functions that were assigned to them under the original Kelsenian approach -Instead of a check on power, illiberal constitutional courts become a device to circumvent constitutional constraints and concentrate power in the hands of the ruling actors -2

Traditional debates on legal theory have devoted a great deal of attention to the question of the... more Traditional debates on legal theory have devoted a great deal of attention to the question of the determinacy of legal rules. With the aid of social sciences and linguistics, this article suggests a way out of the 'determinate-indeterminate' dichotomy that has dominated the academic debate on the topic so far. Instead, a dynamic approach is proposed, in which rules are deemed to undergo processes of political 'de-determination' and 're-determination'. To illustrate this, the article uses the example of Art. 125 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the 'no bailout' provision, which played a major role in the management of the Euro-crisis. As will be shown, with the start of the crisis, this provision, whose meaning was once scarcely controversial, became the object of intense interpretative disagreement. As it became politically relevant, the rule also became the site of interpretative competitions, until the intervention of the European Court of Justice disambiguated and redefined its meaning.

Los estudios sobre grupos de interés han prestado escasa atención al Poder Judicial. Cuando lo ha... more Los estudios sobre grupos de interés han prestado escasa atención al Poder Judicial. Cuando lo han hecho, ha sido para evaluar cómo los diferentes colectivos recurren a la judicatura para defender sus intereses, pero en raras ocasiones se ha estudiado cómo los propios profesionales del Poder Judicial constituyen grupos de interés para interactuar con otros poderes del Estado. El presente artículo trata de abordar esta problemática para el ámbito español, en un contexto marcado por el debate sobre la «politización de la justicia». Para ello, se estudian los grupos de interés constituidos por jueces y magistrados, por fiscales, y por abogados.

Papers by Pablo Castillo-Ortiz

Since the last decade of the last century, regional organisations have also increasingly focussed... more Since the last decade of the last century, regional organisations have also increasingly focussed on the provision of another type of highly political goods. These include mechanisms to ensure the observance of a certain type of regime. Since the fall of theBerlin Wall and the breaking up of communist regimes, the traditional doctrine of noninterference and respect for national sovereignty has gradually yielded to the principle that regional organisations should also provide mechanisms to guarantee that democratic regimes in member states would be maintained. Thus, democracy and integration ended up being linked together. Examples of this global development can be identified in regional organisations of every continent with the exception of Asia. In Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as in Europe, the earliest expressions of the idea that regional organisations must defend democracy in their member states go back to the organisations created in the immediate post-war period (the Organisation of American States and the Council of Europe) although in practise these were far from being perfect mechanisms. The most important development of this type of mechanisms coincided with the last decade of the twentieth century. Thomas Franck (1992) drew up the thesis of the emergence of a right to democratic governance with the corollary of an assertion of the legitimacy of transnational, international and regional organisations acting against destabilising tendencies in democratic regimes. The growth in statutory instruments in various organisations in this decade seems to confirm the existence of a paradigm shift in which, while not questioning the obligation of non-interference and respect for national sovereignty, the way has been opened for international and regional scrutiny of possible breakdowns or erosions of democratic regimes.

Desde la última década del siglo pasado, las organizaciones regionales se han orientado también a... more Desde la última década del siglo pasado, las organizaciones regionales se han orientado también a la provisión de otro tipo de bienes, de naturaleza eminentemente política.Entre ellos, mecanismos para asegurar la vigencia de un determinado tipo de régimen: frente a la tradicional doctrina de la no injerencia y respeto por la soberanía nacional, a partir de la caída del muro de Berlín y la disolución de los regímenes comunistas, se ha abierto paso progresivamente la tesis de que las organizaciones regionales también deben proporcionar mecanismos para garantizar el mantenimiento de los regímenes
democráticos en los estados miembros. Así, democracia e integración han acabado por vincularse.
Este ha sido un desarrollo global en el que se pueden identificar instancias en las organizaciones regionales de todos los continentes con la excepción de Asia. En América Latina y el Caribe, así como en Europa, las primeras formulaciones de la idea de que las organizaciones regionales deben defender la democracia en sus estados miembros se
remonta a las organizaciones creadas en la inmediata postguerra (la Organización de Estados Americanos y el Consejo de Europa) aunque su praxis no ha sido impecable en todas las dimensiones que se puedan considerar. Pero, decisivamente, el desarrollo más importante de ese tipo de mecanismos también coincide con la última década del siglo XX. Thomas Franck (1992) construyó la tesis de la emergencia de un derecho a la gobernanza democrática que tenía como corolario la afirmación de la legitimidad de las organizaciones transnacionales, internacionales y regionales para actuar frente a tendencias desestabilizadoras de los regímenes democráticos. El crecimiento de las disposiciones en diferentes organizaciones en esta década parece confirmar la existencia de un cambio de paradigma en el que, sin cuestionarse la obligación de no injerencia y el respeto por la soberanía nacional, si se ha abierto al escrutinio internacional y regional las posibles rupturas o erosiones de los regímenes democráticos.

Although the recognition of the adoptive rights of LGBT couples is a socially salient topic, cros... more Although the recognition of the adoptive rights of LGBT couples is a socially salient topic, cross-national variation regarding this issue has been largely underexplored in social science research. With the aid of configurational analysis, this article fills this gap and shows the conditions that explain the recognition of the adoptive rights of homosexual couples in the countries of the EU-27. It is argued that two different paths led to this outcome. All countries where adoptive rights were recognized had higher degrees of secularization and lower levels of social homophobia. In addition, in Northern European countries, the Protestant background and absence of conservative governments for a certain time period seemed to be the determinant. However, for the remaining European countries that recognized these rights, rising levels of gender equality appeared to have a more salient role.

This article analyses the reactions by political actors to the ruling of the Spanish Constitution... more This article analyses the reactions by political actors to the ruling of the Spanish Constitutional Court on the Declaration of Sovereignty of the Catalan parliament. It is suggested that political framings of the ruling can be classified into the legalist, attitudinal and institutional academic models of judicial behaviour. As will be shown, these models have a normative dimension, with implications for the ideal of the rule of law. These implications are skilfully captured and exploited by political actors as part of a wider battle for the framing of the ruling. The rule of law thus becomes politicised as a result of the tension around the judicialisation of the so-called Catalan ‘sovereignist process’.

RESUMEN. Las últimas décadas han supuesto la irrupción de la nueva disciplina de la "política jud... more RESUMEN. Las últimas décadas han supuesto la irrupción de la nueva disciplina de la "política judicial", heredera del realismo jurídico y empeñada en estudiar el comportamiento judicial con herramientas científico-sociales y desde variables explicativas sociopolíticas. Al hacerlo, sin embargo, dichos estudios han preterido el papel del derecho en la explicación del comportamiento de los magistrados, para lo cual se han esgrimido razones teóricas acerca de la indeterminación de la norma jurídica. En este artículo, defiendo que dicha preterición constituye una importante limitación para la construcción de modelos empíricos de comportamiento judicial.

Revista de Estudios Políticos (nueva época) ISSN: 0048-7694, Núm. 164, Madrid, abril-junio (2014)... more Revista de Estudios Políticos (nueva época) ISSN: 0048-7694, Núm. 164, Madrid, abril-junio (2014), págs. 271-294 271 Palabras clave: Crisis; tratados europeos; reforma constitucional; déficit democrático y social. la crisis y las transformaciones del derecho público estatal... pablo josé castillo ortiz Revista de Estudios Políticos (nueva época) ISSN: 0048-7694, Núm. 164, Madrid, abril-junio (2014), págs. 271-294 272

During the process of ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, a number of constitutional jurisdictions... more During the process of ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, a number of constitutional jurisdictions were activated by political actors. In playing ‘the judicial card’, opponents of ratification decided to seek political goals through judicial means, and thus they were obliged to develop litigation strategies. This article explores such strategies and the responses that courts gave them. It shows that constitutional proceedings with regards to the Lisbon Treaty became a political battleground governed by legal logics, in which the interpretation of European clauses, the democratic deficit of the Union and the tensions underlying the European judicial dialogue were privileged objects of discussion between claimants and courts in which law and politics intertwined.

Journal of Common Market Studies, 2023

International Journal of Constitutional Law, 2022

Law & Philosophy, 2020

Journal of Human Rights, 2019

Comparative European Politics, 2019

European Constitutional Law Review, 2019

Resumen: En los últimos años, Europa asiste a un desconcertante fenómeno: la consolidación y crec... more Resumen: En los últimos años, Europa asiste a un desconcertante fenómeno: la consolidación y crecimiento de una pluralidad de partidos populistas de derecha radical que luchan por hacerse con un espacio en el escenario político. En este artículo sugiero que existe una relación particularmente compleja entre el liberalismo y este tipo de movimientos, por la cual los populistas de derecha son capaces de detectar y explotar algunas de las debilidades y contradicciones del discurso y la práctica liberales. Mediante la utilización de las herramientas conceptuales proporcionadas por la teoría política y jurídica, propongo tratar de desentrañar con cierto nivel de detalle en qué consiste esta paradójica relación y reflexionar sobre los que considero que pueden ser sus aspectos más relevantes.

I. Presentación.-II. Judicial politics: los Tribunales entendidos como actores políticos.-III. La... more I. Presentación.-II. Judicial politics: los Tribunales entendidos como actores políticos.-III. Las Declaraciones 1/1992 y 1/2004 del Tribunal Constitucional: recorrido institucional, contenido de las peticiones y decisiones sobre el fondo.-IV. Facilitar la ratificación sin sobresaltos del Tratado: una explicación sociopolítica a las Declaraciones.-V. Conclusiones.-VI. Bibliografía. * Quiero agradecer a Carlos Closa, Juan Antonio Mayoral, Daniel García, Federico Crehuet y dos revisores anónimos por sus comentarios sobre este trabajo. El proyecto CSO 2009-06971 del Micinn financió esta investigación. la política Judicial del tribunal constitucional español en los... pablo josé castillo ortiz Revista de Estudios Políticos (nueva época) ISSN: 0048-7694, Núm. 159, Madrid, enero-marzo (2013), págs. 107-138

RDUNED. Revista de derecho UNED, Jan 1, 2009

... En este sentido, diversos autores han mostrado su sorpresa por la insistencia con la que algu... more ... En este sentido, diversos autores han mostrado su sorpresa por la insistencia con la que algunos actores políticos de ámbito autonómi-co se enfrentan a la Administración General del Estado a la hora reivindicar el respeto a su ámbito de autonomía14; pero a mi parecer tal ...

Revista Española de Ciencia Política, Jan 1, 2010

Diez años dan para mucho. Sobre todo, en el terreno intenso y frenético de la política de la Unió... more Diez años dan para mucho. Sobre todo, en el terreno intenso y frenético de la política de la Unión Europea. En sólo diez años, la Unión tuvo tiempo de ampliarse hasta casi las últimas fronteras del continente, entregarse a un sueño constitucional que se había convertido en pesadilla cuando despertó de él, renacer de una crisis política y, en definitiva, desdibujarse y redibujarse una y otra vez. Diez años, que comienzan en los albores de la elaboración del célebre "Tratado Constitucional" y que concluyen -en realidad, poco más o menos en nuestro tiempo-una vez entrado en vigor el nuevo Tratado de Lisboa. Sin duda, la maduración de la Unión Europea se mide en tratados. Esta intensa década es el objeto de estudio de la detallada obra de Nicolás Mariscal: Más allá de Lisboa: Horizontes europeos. En las líneas que siguen, trataremos de ofrecer una breve reseña de sus contenidos.