Research
UK Constitutional Law - Locations of Public Law / the Political Constitution
Stephanie's current projects concern 'Locations of Public Law' and query where constitutional law happens in the UK's contemporary political constitution. Stephanie is particularly interested in extra-parliamentary sources of constitutional activity within this framework, especially the constitutional impact of private individuals like Marcus Rashford and Elon Musk. More broadly, this work explores the increasingly private delivery of constitutional functions and the links this has to neo-liberalism as the operating politics of the political constitution, to technological developments, such as the arrival of social media, and to globalisation. Stephanie's work is keen to underscore the vital importance of re-considering and re-formulating the normative foundations and the presumed checks and balances of the political constitution in the broader context of its practical, as opposed to theoretical, functioning. To kick-start these debates, Stephanie currently runs the Liverpool Public Law unit seminar series 'The Public/Private Interface in Public Law' as a member of the unit's steering committee. This has welcomed presentations on the constitutionalisation of sports law, the right to protest on privately-owned public spaces, fundamental rights protection in the context of EU competition law, the constitutional impacts of political parties as private entities, and high-profile private individuals as constitutional actors.
Stephanie has also previously co-delivered a conference, sponsored by the UK Constitutional Law Association, on Accountability in the Contemporary UK Constitution, which took place in September 2023 and subsequently led to a series of contributions to the UKCLA's high-profile blog.
EU Citizenship and Union citizens' rights in the UK
Stephanie's research in the area of EU citizenship spans both the evolution of Union citizenship in the framework of the EU constitution and the question of EU citizens' rights in the UK both before and after the UK referendum on EU membership. She is particularly interested in critical approaches to EU internal market and Union citizenship law, specifically the impact of the neo-liberal origins of Union citizenship not only on its capacity to deliver meaningful citizenship rights but also on its potential to mask the lived realities of EU citizenship.
Stephanie has published in internationally collaborative edited collections on the Court of Justice's contribution to the current political tensions surrounding the rights of EU citizens in their host States. One of her publications uses the 'benefits brake' devised in the context of the UK's pre-referendum negotiations with the EU as a case-study for assessment of the practical impact of judicial approaches to EU citizenship. Stephanie has also published in leading journals on, for instance, the Court's introduction of the 'genuine enjoyment of EU citizenship rights' test and in edited collections on the UK/EU exit negotiations in the context of citizens' rights. Her current projects assess whether the legal claims of EU citizenship silence the voices of Union citizens when they seek to enforce their rights in practice.
Stephanie has acted as UK National Expert to the European Parliament for a Report on the 'Obstacles to Free Movement for Union Citizens and their Family Members' and as co-rapporteur to the XXVI FIDE Congress on 'Union Citizenship: Development, Impact and Challenges'.
EU constitutional law; the EU's internal market; and fundamental rights
Stephanie has published in leading journals and internationally-collaborative edited collections on the Court of Justice's adjudication of tensions between free movement and fundamental rights, as well as on the structural and historical backdrop to the concept of 'social integration' in the EU. Publications include articles assessing the constitutional drivers behind a perceived judicial preference for free movement over fundamental rights; the impact of a structural preference for free movement on national housing policy, and the cross-fertilisation of concepts between the internal market and EU citizenship.
This work builds on Stephanie's doctoral thesis, which analysed the EU Court of Justice's approach to adjudicating tensions between the Treaty free movement provisions and fundamental rights. It argues that the Court's adjudicative methodology offers procedural prioritisation to free movement over fundamental rights and that this has concrete consequences for fundamental rights protection. The thesis runs a diagnostic analysis of the causes of this adjudicative imbalance concluding that it is the result of historical factors and significant constitutional evolutions. This uneven adjudicative architecture is then critiqued against fundamental rights theory and the Union's contemporary constitutional framework. Ultimately an alternative model of adjudication is proposed rooted in the concept of balancing.
Research groups
Research collaborations
UK Constitutional Law Association
Accountability in the Contemporary UK Constitution
Conference co-convenor September 2023
Liverpool Public Law Unit
Steering Committee
Member 2024 onwards https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/law/research/research-clusters/liverpool-public-law-unit/
Information Society Law Centre, University of Milan
Research Fellow
Online fellowship 2023-2025