Constitutional and administrative law covers a broad area of law. It provides the rules with which issues in society can be solved by government authorities.

Constitutional and administrative law is a specialisation of the master’s programme Rechtsgeleerdheid (Law) at the renowned Leiden Law School of Leiden University. This programme looks closely at the interaction between national and European law.

Today, 189 out of 193 officially recognised nation-states have a written constitution, and 75% of these have been ratified since 1975. How did this worldwide diffusion of constitutions come about?

Jaroslaw Kantorowicz, assistant professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, isolated the reaction of the public to the potential breach of constitutional fiscal rules from the reaction of other players, such as the opposition, media and civil society organizations.

Applications can be submitted by doctoral researchers (at least in the second year of their studies during the proppsed stay), postdocotral researchers, and senior researchers. The research should thematically align with one of the research themes or projects conducted by the academic staf of the Department…

On 13 December 2024, the yearly ‘Constitutional Law Conference’ took place at Leiden Law School. The central theme of the conference was ‘The Constitution outside the Constitution’.

This book presents concrete solutions for managing the legal risks distorting the development of various areas of EU law. It pursues an innovative and effective approach to identify legal risks, their causes at the EU level and their impacts on the functioning of the Union and its Member States. It…

For a long time, in the United States ‘Schmoozes’ have been organized. These small-scale meetings offer the opportunity to informally discuss important themes. On 12 and 13 October, the first European Schmooze took place in Milan. The topic was ‘Economic Inequality as a Global Constitutional Challenge’.…

The Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law of Leiden University has published a collection of research essays on the separation of powers. This collection addresses the main question of whether the historically developed combination of concepts of democratic legitimacy and the separation…

Recently, Wim Voermans, Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law, and Jaroslaw Kantorowicz, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs and a research associate at the Department of Economics, were awarded a grant from the KNAW Statesman Thorbecke Fund. This grant will…

On 10 March 2023, the Amsterdam Centre for Tax Law (ACTL) of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) organised the Conference ‘Towards eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) in Taxation: The Future of Good Tax Governanceon’.

On Thursday 9 november, Reijer Passchier defended his dissertation 'Informal constitutional change'. His supervisor is Professor Wim Voermans.

In his blog, Armin suggests two legal tools that may jointly help avoid a hard Brexit: delayed exit and decreasing membership.

On Thursday 13 October 2022, the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law bid farewell to Elly van der Tang-van Loenen, for years the department's mentor for master’s students. Having enjoyed this position for many years, Elly is now retiring.

Femke Binnendijk and Olaf van Loon have been appointed as lecturers at the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law at Leiden Law School.

On 21 April 2016, Leiden University College The Hague, in collaboration with The Hague Institute for Global Justice and the T.M.C. Asser Institute, hosted a book launch and panel discussion for Dr. Joris Larik’s new monograph “Foreign Policy Objectives in European Constitutional Law”, which has recently…

Professor Versteeg is currently Professor of Law at Virginia School of Law in the United States, where she has been working since 2011 as Miller Center Director and Human Rights Program Director at the Center for Comparative and International Law University of the Virginia School of Law.

On 8 October, an inspiring session was held at the KOG Building. The session focused on the award-winning book entitled 'The Story of Constitutions' by Professor Wim Voermans, recently published by Cambridge University Press. The event attracted a diverse audience comprising both colleagues and students…

Half a century ago, Martin Shapiro discovered that European constitutional scholarship was stuck at a stage of ‘constitutional law without politics’, presenting the EU ‘as a juristic idea; the written constitution as a sacred text; the professional commentary as a legal truth; the case law as the inevitable…

The Global Summit on Constitutionalism took place from 16 to 18 March. Wim Voermans, Gert Jan Geertjes and Rowie Stolk, from the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law, travelled to Austin where the conference was organised by the School of Law of the University of Texas at Austin.

Kantorowicz & Voigt examine whether federal systems, with their multiple levels of government, lead to higher constitutional compliance

The Netherlands has gained a third commentary on the Constitution – with Leiden as its home base. The first copy of Een nieuw commentaar op de Grondwet (A new commentary on the Constitution) (published by Boom Amsterdam) was presented to Prime Minister Mark Rutte in the Torentje last week.

This theme is central to the recently published book 'Onze Constitutie' by Wim Voermans, professor of constitutional and administrative law. The colossal book has no fewer than 911 pages, but Voermans has managed to turn it into one very readable book, with fluent pen, with an eloquent tone and, moreover,…

On Wednesday, September 27th the mayor of Leiden, Henri Lenferink, gave a lecture to the master's-degree students of Child Law, Criminal Law and Constitutional and administrative law.

On 1-2 November, Professor Luuk van Middelaar spoke at the Academic Conference “EU Constitutional Imagination: Between ideology and utopia” at the University of Copenhagen.

On 18 september 2018, Jonathan Price defended his doctoral thesis 'The Egalitarian Constitution'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. A.A.M. Kinneging.

Roel Becker and Jelle But recently joined the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law as PhD candidates.

'Een nieuw commentaar op de Grondwet' is the title of a book published this week. The book uses 35 essays to describe the importance of the Constitution to the Dutch democratic rule of law.

On 26 May 2023 the European Constitutional Law Review (EuConst) organized a symposium on constitutional change in Europe.

On Tuesday 12 January 2021, the Leiden Law School thesis prizes were awarded at the New Year’s event.

The institute that focuses on Public Law is as broad as the field itself. The Institute of Public Law has six departments, each with its own research agenda.

The first 'Tafel van Thorbecke' took place at Leiden University on Thursday 17 November 2022. For this new lecture series, initiated by Fatma Çapkurt and Gert Jan Geertjes, external scholars will be invited to speak about their research in the field of constitutional and administrative law.

Jaroslaw Kantorowicz, assistant professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, is a co-author of this publication that explores the nature of the ideological bias in a constitutionally relevant decision.

Joe Finnerty has co-edited the 2026 Symposium in the Human Rights Law Review entitled Legitimate Aims and Ulterior Purposes in International Human Rights Law: Comparative Perspectives.

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In this lecture professor Harding considered the implications of Asia's 21st-century rise for its legal systems and our approaches to studying them in the new situation we confront in the early 21st century.

Leiden law scholars prof. dr. Luc Verhey and Gert Jan Geertjes have edited a book about constitutional conventions and their added value for Dutch constitutional law. The book is published (in Dutch) by editor Boom in Amsterdam.

Students attending Richard Albert’s seminar on constitutional change asked Reijer critical questions about an article he recently wrote with Maarten Stremler.