http://dx.doi.org/10.17176/20190622-232658-0 https://staging.verfassungsblog.de/france-criminalises-research-on-judges/ France Criminalises Research on Judges Langford, Malcolm Madsen, Mikael Rask eng 2019-06-22 electronic resource text/html ddc:342 European Convention of Human Rights Freedom of Expression Freedom of research judicial independence Verfassungsblog Verfassungsblog--2366-7044 CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 In March, France made a controversial move and became the first country in the world to explicitly ban research on individual judicial behaviour. It is now a criminal offence to ‘evaluate, analyse, compare or predict’ the behaviour of individual judges. The result is a flagrant violation of the freedom of expression, represents an affront to basic values of academic freedom, and disregards basic principles of the rule of law.