The article examines the dual and often conflicting roles of lawyers during revolutions, balancing their duty to uphold legal order with their responsibility to support revolutionary change and help shape new legal systems.
The essay situates China’s Human Rights Lawyers within authoritarian legality studies, revealing how rights lawyers navigate China’s courts to pursue social activism amid the state’s efforts to use law while maintaining political control.
The article explores how lawyers, though typically guardians of the legal order, played a pivotal and often paradoxical role in revolutionary movements by balancing their professional duties with commitments to political change.
The 2007 Lawyers’ Movement in Pakistan marked a pivotal push for rule of law and democratic reform, as lawyers mobilized against authoritarian overreach and succeeded in restoring judicial independence.
The article argues that lawyers are essential to Africa’s democratic transitions, but must overcome past associations with authoritarian regimes to regain public trust and fulfill their reformative potential.
The legal professions in Tanzania and Kenya, despite operating under repressive state control, have played a crucial activist role in challenging authoritarianism—unlike their more individualistic counterparts in the West.
A judge in El Salvador has ordered Ruth Leonora López, a prominent human rights and anti-corruption lawyer, to be jailed for six months pending trial on charges of illegal enrichment. López, head of the Anti-Corruption Unit at Cristosal, has been a vocal critic of President Nayib Bukele’s emergency powers and alleged government corruption. Her arrest …
President Trump has issued executive orders aimed at restricting certain law firms that have challenged his administration or represented controversial clients. Some firms have settled, while others are fighting back in court. The NPR Politics Podcast highlights how these orders—some already struck down—raise serious legal questions about executive overreach and the weaponization of government power …
On June 1, 2025, Mexico held its first national judicial elections, a sweeping reform led by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and current President Claudia Sheinbaum. Voters selected 2,600 judges and magistrates, including all nine Supreme Court justices, in an unprecedented move aimed at combating judicial corruption and increasing public accountability. However, the election …
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico publicly attacked a judge who fined central bank chief Peter Kazimir €200,000 for bribery, claiming the decision may be politically motivated. Kazimir, a former finance minister and current member of the European Central Bank’s policymaking council, denies wrongdoing and plans to appeal. Fico suggested the judge might have committed criminal …