New Visiting Researcher at iCourts - Michal Kovalcik
Michal is a PhD candidate in constitutional law at the Faculty of Law, Masaryk University, and a researcher at the Judicial Studies Institute (JUSTIN), Masaryk University, Brno.
In his PhD project, he focuses on the promises and pitfalls of judicial transparency at apex courts (supervised by David Kosař). At JUSTIN, as a member of the ERC INFINITY project, he explores informalities in the judiciary and their impact on democratic decay. Michal holds a master's degree in law (2023) and a bachelor's degree in political science (2022) from Masaryk University. In his theses, he addressed judicial dialogue, judicial resistance or populism. As part of his master's studies, he also studied at the University of Helsinki. Currently, he works as a judicial clerk at the Czech Constitutional Court. Among his publications, take a look at the "Kovalčík M. Constitutional Referrals by Ordinary Courts: A Platform for Judicial Dialogue and Another Toolkit for Judicial Resistance? European Constitutional Law Review. 2024, 20(1), pp. 52-81.“ and "Kovalčík, M. The instrumental abuse of constitutional courts: how populists can use constitutional courts against the opposition. International Journal of Human Rights, 2022, 26(2), pp. 1160-1180."