Over many years already, the conservative-nationalist governments of Poland and Hungary engaged in various measures to dismantle the independence of courts. All these actions were legitimised by the argument that judges had not considered the public will to a sufficient extent and had created a caste of their own principles ignoring political majorities. While the two governments tried to justify this as a legitimate, different understanding of norms, the EU argued that these laws conflict with EU-treaties and opened a number of cases at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Hence, both sides continuously had to justify their legal interpretations in court procedures. In most cases the two governments lost but compliance to the judgments is hardly visible. While the conflict as such may only be solved by a change in government, the judicial personnel might stay in office and new practices have been established already and the EU will have to deal with these circumstances. Two sets of question arise that will be answered by analysing the documents presented to the CJEU: First, how has Poland's and Hungary's justification changed over time, did they copy from each other and what does this tell about the meaning of rule of law, not only from a legal but also a political and cultural standpoint? Second, how did EU institutions react, what were the implications of the non-compliance (except for the imposition of financial sanctions in some cases according to Art. 260) and what does this show on the issue of enforcement failures?
