This contribution offers introductory reflections on the tentative impacts of the jurisdiction’s size on constitutional court performance in the context of de-democratisation. To do so, it uses the case of Slovakia, a small and relatively less frequently scrutinised European Union member state with a formally powerful centralised constitutional court, where de-democratisation has amplified since 2023. With the help of anecdotal evidence concerning the Slovak Constitutional Court, the piece argues for more attention towards how the degree of closure of local doctrinal legal academia vis-à-vis global scholarly discourses complicates the capacity of the respective constitutional court to uphold and advance democracy amidst attempts at undermining it.