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Part IX Trends, Ch.60 Militant Democracy

Jan-Werner Müller

From: The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law

Edited By: Michel Rosenfeld, András Sajó

From: Oxford Constitutions (http://oxcon.ouplaw.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2023. All Rights Reserved.date: 30 September 2023

… if my fellow citizens want to go to Hell I will help them. It’s my job. (Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1920) One has to remain faithful to one’s flag, even when the ship is sinking. (Hans Kelsen, 1932) A constitution is not a prescription for suicide, and civil rights are not an altar for national destruction. (Aharon Barak, 2002) ‘Militant democracy’—sometimes also called ‘defensive democracy’ or ‘fighting democracy’—refers to the idea of a democratic regime which is willing to adopt pre-emptive, prima facie illiberal measures to prevent those aiming at subverting...
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