Constitutional courts today find themselves at the front lines of three converging crises: the persistence of socio-economic inequalities, the escalating climate emergency, and the erosion of democratic norms through rising autocratization. In each case, political actors are failing, stalling, or actively undermining responses that constitutionalism would require. This Special Issue on ‘Constitutionalist Challenges and the Practice of Judging’, curated by the wonderful guest editors Başak Çalı, Cathryn Costello, and Nora Markard, asks what it means to judge under such pressure. Judges with a constitutional function are no strangers to politically charged cases. Yet, rarely have they been called upon to do so much, so urgently. Across a global set of jurisdictions, the contributions examine ‘judgecraft’—the full range of doctrinal tools, rhetorical strategies, and institutional practices judges deploy when their role, their independence, and the constitutional order itself are at stake.

Here is what you will find:

Başak Çalı, Cathryn Costello & Nora Markard introduce the Special Issue by mapping the three intertwined crises that now dominate the constitutional horizon: persistent socio-economic inequality, accelerating climate breakdown, and the erosion of democratic norms. Each of these challenges reflects global patterns and pressures courts to stretch their mandates, take political risks, and innovate doctrinally—all while safeguarding their own legitimacy. Moving beyond the familiar debate between activism and restraint, the authors propose ‘judgecraft’ as the lens through which to examine how courts actually operate under pressure.

Shreya Atrey calls for a ‘structural turn’ in equality law, arguing that its current focus on individual discrimination misses the systemic dimensions of injustice and has been unable to mitigate stark persisting inequality. Drawing on case law from India, South Africa, and the United States, she contrasts the liberal model, which sees discrimination as a discrete harm between identifiable parties, with a structural view that situates inequality in intersecting social, economic, and political contexts.

Sarah Ganty examines how judges can act as ‘metanarrators’ who shape the legal and public story about poverty. While prevailing legal narratives often mischaracterise poverty as a matter of individual failure or temporary misfortune, Ganty identifies cases in which judges have shifted the frame, helping to dismantle myths about poverty. Her contribution is a call for judges to take responsibility for the deeper narratives which their decisions sustain.

Catherine O’Regan turns to the South African experience to illustrate how even a robust constitutional equality clause has struggled to undo the spatial legacies of apartheid, inequalities that continue to shape access to education, health, income, and security. Using the example of a case on the allocation of policing resources in Khayelitsha—a township marked by poverty and entrenched racial segregation—she traces how such legacies persist despite formal legal guarantees.

Cara Röhner examines how the German Federal Constitutional Court has addressed socio-economic inequality in cases on minimum subsistence for the working poor and asylum-seekers, as well as refugee family benefits. She situates this jurisprudence within a vision of ‘social constitutionalism’ that links equality and dignity to the lived realities of social participation, offering it as a template for a more socially grounded constitutionalism.

Victoria Miyandazi analyses how Kenyan courts have interpreted the 2010 Constitution’s equality provisions in a political environment that blends democratic and autocratic traits. Drawing on ideas of ‘collaborative constitutionalism,’ she argues that Kenyan jurisprudence illustrates both the promise and the limits of using constitutional litigation to address deep-seated inequality.

Kim Lane Scheppele proposes that as a reaction to democratic backsliding, courts shall transform ‘rights into structures,’ ie translate individual rights into structural guarantees for democracy, protecting institutions such as independent judiciaries, neutral election administrations, and term limits by grounding them in rights adjudication. Her article is a lucid diagnosis of authoritarian legalism’s tactics and a toolkit for judicial resistance across jurisdictions.

David Kosař presents court communication as a key and overlooked factor for how apex courts can strengthen their ‘social embeddedness’ to resist political attacks and court-curbing measures. Such communication practices include proactive media strategies; outreach to marginalised communities; holding hearings outside court buildings; and scrupulous avoidance of conflicts of interest or the appearance of bias. For Kosař, judicial legitimacy not only stems from formal authority, but ought to be rooted in relationships with diverse constituencies and hence requires building trust without becoming ‘populist judges’.

Mariana Velasco-Rivera develops the concept of ‘soft guardrails’ of legal constitutionalism—the unwritten norms that sustain judicial authority, including mutual tolerance, institutional forbearance, and a shared ethic of public responsibility. Drawing on case studies from South Africa, the United States, and Mexico, she shows how these norms can shield courts even in politically charged contexts, but also how their erosion can leave the judiciary exposed and defenseless.

Gabriele Britz reflects on her role as reporting judge in Germany’s landmark Constitutional Court climate decision, which declared parts of the Climate Protection Act unconstitutional for shifting excessive burdens to future generations. She examines the democratic short-termism that undermines climate policy and the structural limits of judicial capacity to compel legislative action.

Sam Bookman situates climate constitutionalism within the competing priorities of constitutional orders. He argues that ambitious climate targets often collide with other constitutional commitments, such as fiscal constraints like Germany’s ‘debt brake,’ federal divisions of power in Canada, or socio-economic rights claims in Mexico. These tensions, he suggests, require judges to adopt principled, context-sensitive approaches that respect constitutional polyvocality while still advancing urgent climate action.

Susanne Baer closes the volume with a personal reflection on ‘listening’ and ‘belonging’ in constitutional adjudication. Drawing on her twelve years at the German Federal Constitutional Court, she reflects on how her own appointment challenged assumptions about who belongs on the bench, and how collegial deliberation and diversity on the bench strengthen both the quality and legitimacy of judicial decision-making.

Lastly, the Special Issue also features as an addendum a keynote contribution by Catharine MacKinnon, ‘Three Crises: Saving the World’, which advances a sweeping, interlinked analysis of the three crises at the center of this Special Issue. At the centre is her argument for substantive equality as both a legal doctrine and a practical tool: an approach that exposes and dismantles entrenched hierarchies rather than papering over them with formal ‘sameness’ tests.

We hope you will read this Special Issue not just as a set of compelling and often comparative legal analyses, but as a call to think urgently about what it means to judge under pressure, and about the role all of us play in defending constitutionalism in our time.

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We would like to draw your attention to our open call for Special Issue Proposals for GLJ Volume 27 (2026) and 28 (2027). Please see all details here. The deadline for submissions is September 19. We look forward to your proposals—and please reach out in case of any questions!

As always, happy reading, Klaas Hendrik Eller
on behalf of the GLJ Editors-in-Chief