Biography

Gábor Halmai is professor emeritus and scientific director of the project ’TRust, Independence, Impartiality and Accountability of of Legal Professionals under the EU Charter – part 2 (TRIIAL 2) in the Center for Judicial Cooperation of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies.

Between 2016 and 2022 he was Professor and Chair of Comparative Constitutional Law at the Law Department of the European University Institute. He served as Director of Graduate Studies at the Law Department from 2017 till 2021. His primary research interests are comparative and European constitutional law. He has published several books and articles, as well as edited volumes on these topics in English, German and Hungarian.

His latest book, 'Perspectives on Global Constitutionalism' (Eleven International Publishing, 2014) deals with the use of foreign and international law by domestic courts. He joined the EUI in 2016 after a teaching and research career (at the Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, at the Princeton University in the USA, at the European Master's Program in Human Rights and Democratization in Italy) as well as years of professional career as chief advisor to the President of the Hungarian Constitutional Court, member of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency’s Management Board and numerous other civic activities.

Gábor Halmai is founder and editor-in-chief of Fundamentum, the Hungarian human right quarterly, and Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Yearbook on Human Rights, and of the Review of Constitutionalism and Constitutional Change (RC3). His recent research focuses on illiberal constitutional theories and developments in East-Central Europe.

Research projects, clusters and working groups

Ongoing

• Constitutional Law and Politics Working Group
• Transnational Democracy in the 21st century
• Resistance and resilience of constitutional courts against autocratisation
• Eastern Europe as Laboratory of Change

Completed

• Religion, Illiberal Constitutionalism and the Retrogression of Fundamental Rights in East Central Europe
• TRust, Independence, Impartiality and Accountability of judges and arbitrators under the EU Charter

Supervisees

• Andrzej Schultz
• Jakub Sawicki
• Katarzyna Krzyżanowska Nowicka
• Oskar Polanski
• Paulina Milewska

Fields of expertise

Recent research output

• HALMAI, Gábor (2022), The blame for defeat and the morality of politics, Article
• HALMAI, Gábor (2021), Restoring constitutionalism in Hungary, Article
• ARATO, Andrew; HALMAI, Gábor (2021), So that the name Hungarian regain its dignity : strategy for the making of a new constitution, Article
• HALMAI, Gábor (2024), From liberal democracy to illiberal populist autocracy : possible reasons for Hungary’s autocratization, Article
• (2023), Economic constitutionalism in a turbulent world, Book
• HALMAI, Gábor (2022), The pandemic and constitutionalism, Article