Judicial Populism and the Politicization of Constitutional Courts: A Threat to the Rule of Law

Marlinda Martha Fenny Pandi (Faculty of Law, University of Dr. Soetomo)
Prettysita Kusuma Wardhani (Faculty of Law, University of Dr. Soetomo)
Yovan Iristian (Faculty of Law, University of Dr. Soetomo)

Lex Journal : Kajian Hukum dan Keadilan
Vol 10 No S1 (2026): Special Issue

This research examines the conceptualization, mechanisms, and systemic ramifications of judicial populism and the politicization of constitutional courts. In contemporary comparative constitutional law, the traditional role of constitutional courts as neutral guardians of fundamental rights and counter-majoritarian checks on state authority is increasingly compromised by populist political movements and internal shifts in judicial philosophy. This article investigates how populist actors utilize institutional re-engineering, court-packing, and abusive constitutional borrowing to weaponize judicial institutions, while some jurists actively adopt a populist discursive style that disparages pluralistic contestation and institutional mediation. Applying a descriptive normative legal methodology combined with comparative constitutional analysis, this study evaluates the structural erosion of de jure and de facto judicial independence across multiple jurisdictions. The findings demonstrate that judicial populism undermines the rule of law by replacing principled legal reasoning with majoritarian rhetoric, dismantling unwritten democratic guardrails such as institutional forbearance, and transforming constitutional review from a shield against tyranny into a sword for autocratic consolidation. The study highlights the urgent necessity of fortifying judicial appointment procedures, tenure protections, and cross-institutional safeguards to insulate constitutional adjudication from political capture.