Founding Members

The Constitutionalism and Politics Working Group was founded in September 2016 by four researchers of the European University Institute :

The following descriptions pertain to the position of the researchers during academic year 2016-2017

Elena Brodeală (Romania) is currently a PhD Candidate in Law at the European University Institute (‘EUI’) in Florence, Italy under the supervision of Prof. Ruth Rubio Marin. Her dissertation project analyses the legal evolution of gender equality in Romania and she is generally interested in issues related to gender, constitutionalism and politics in Central and Eastern Europe. Previously, she was a visiting researcher at New College Europe in Bucharest, Romania and at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary; she also followed different courses in Law and Gender at the University of Oslo (Norway), “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu (Romania), and the University of Akureyri (Iceland). She has attended conferences and carried out study visits in the fields of human rights, gender studies, public law and Europeanisation in various countries, including France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Sweden, Germany and the United Kingdom. In 2016 she was a speaker at the EUI State of the Union dedicated to “Women in Europe and the World”, on the panel on Sexual and Reproductive Politics and has presented her work at the Yale Law School.

Théo Fournier (France) is currently a PhD Researcher in Law at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy under the supervision of Prof. Gábor Halmai. His research focuses on democratisation processes analyzed under the scope of comparative constitutional law. The broader objective of his research is to understand what is the influence of constitution-making processes on the achievement or disruption of democratic transitions. More generally, his areas of interests are related to the dynamics of post-conflict or post-crisis situations with a specific focus on transitional justice, state rebuilding, judicial transition and operationalization of constitutional rights. Théo holds a Master of Laws from the Faculty of Law of Aix-en-Provence (France) with a specialization in State Rebuilding in Post-Conflict situations. In 2015 he was a Visiting Researcher at the Dullah Omar Institute of the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town and a founding member of the Clinic of International Human Rights Law of Aix-Marseille University. In 2015-2016, he spent 6 months as an intern at the Philippine Office of the Asia Foundation. During his internship, he worked on the judicial transition of Muslim Mindanao (Philippines).

Bartosz Krzysztof Marciniak (Poland) is a Ph.D. Candidate at the European University Institute. He is conducting a research project which regards boundaries of legitimate constitutional authority, under the supervision of professors Mattias Kumm and Giovanni Sartor. The project’s starting point is a recent practice of some Supreme and Constitutional Courts; these courts establish the unconstitutionality of constitutional amendments and laws on the grounds of their infringing upon ‘the essence of the liberal democratic state governed by the rule of law’. Courts do so even if the values and principles infringed are not enshrined within a constitution. Ultimately, the aim of the project is to determine whether one can speak of only one source of legitimate law – the so-called ‘core of constitutionalism’, the contents of which are beyond the reach of le pouvoir constituant. Bartosz received his master’s in Law from University of Warsaw (2010), a master’s degree in Classics from University of Warsaw (2011) and an LLM degree from the European University Institute (2013). During his academic career, before being offered a position of Ph.D. researcher at the EUI, he studied law for one year at Federico II University of Naples, Faculty of Law (2008-09). He was twice a grantee of the Italian Government in 2010 and 2011. In 2010 he conducted research on the Italian constitutional jurisprudence (the position of Constitutional Court within the Italian legal system)  at the University of Catania, Faculty of Law. In 2011 he conducted research on Roman law (the way Roman law was taught in antiquity) at Frederic II University of Naples, Faculty of Law. He worked as a law clerk in the Bureau of the Polish Ombudsman (XII Commission for Constitutional Affairs) and in the Legal Office of the Ministry of Polish Culture and Heritage.

Juha Tuovinen (Finland) is a PhD Candidate in Law at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy under the supervision of Prof. Martin Scheinin. Before coming to the EUI, Juha spent two years as a researcher at the South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public and International Law (SAIFAC) at the University of Johannesburg and as a law clerk at the Constitutional Court of South Africa. Prior to that, he studied legal theory, public international law and law in Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK.