Johanna FRÖHLICH

Degrees: Ph.D (2017), LL.M. (2015), Dr.jur. (2009)

Research interests: Constitutional theory, judicial interpretation and reasoning, contemporary natural law, constitutional review, law and courts, comparative law.

Publications: MTMT

Membership: International Society of Public Law, International Academy of Comparative Law, Lonergan Women Scholars, The Collective - Women in Legal Philosophy, The Southern Political Science Association

Contact: frohlich.johanna[at]uni-nke.hu

Projects: Analytic Thomism and the New Natural Law

Johanna Fröhlich is a senior research fellow at the Research Institute for Politics and Government, within the Eötvös József Research Centre, at the Ludovika University for Public Service. She holds an LL.M. from the University of Notre Dame, IN, USA and a Ph.D. in Law from the Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Hungary.

Previously, she worked as research assistant professor in the Faculty of Law, at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, and at the Law School of the University San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador. In Ecuador she served as Director of the Institute for Legal Research, as well as Director of Post-Graduate Studies. Her research interests include legal and political philosophy, natural law, constitutional theory, legal reasoning, comparative constitutional law, and law and courts. In the past years she led a regional academic project on Constitutional Reasoning in Latin America and the Caribbean, which is forthcoming at Hart Publishing in September 2024. Currently, she is working on a project on Analytic Thomism and New Natural Law. Johanna has been teaching since 2008, and her courses range from legal reasoning and comparative constitutional law to constitutional theory and research methodology, in English, Spanish and Hungarian. She has been a visiting research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law various times, and has taught in Master’s courses and summers schools in México, Italy, or Uruguay. She has co-authored her first book on the new Hungarian Fundamental Law in Hungarian (Gondolat 2012) and has published for instance on “Law as reason for action” in the Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (Springer 2018) or on constitutional amendment rules in Ecuador in the International Journal of Constitutional Law. Her publications can be found in Hungarian, English, Spanish and in Polish. 

Selected publications:

Johanna Fröhlich: “¿Formalismo o un tercer camino para la reconciliación del valor de la norma escrita y el constitucionalismo? Un ejemplo de la Corte Constitucional de Hungría” Díkaion Vol.31. Núm. 1. (2022)

Johanna Fröhlich: “More flexibility in favor of constitutional stability? – What breaking amendment rules in Ecuador can teach us” International Journal of Constitutional Law Vol.19. Issue 3. 974-996. (2021)

Johanna Fröhlich, Természetjog és Természetes Jogok, in Máté Botos - Balázs Fekete (szerk.): A Megőrzés Parancsa. Mai magyar konzervatív szerzők esszéi meghatározó könyvekről. Budapest, MCC Press (2022)

Johanna Fröhlich: „Law as Reason for Action” in: Mortimer Sellers – Stephan Kirste (eds.), Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. Springer, The Netherlands. (ISBN 978-94-007-6519-1) (2018) 

András Jakab – Johanna Fröhlich: “The Hungarian Constitutional Court” in: András Jakab – Arthur Dyevre – Giulio Itzcovich (eds.): Comparative Constitutional Reasoning, Cambridge University Press, 2017.