What’s New in Comparative Public Law

–Sandeep Suresh, National Law University, Jodhpur, India

In this weekly feature, I-CONnect publishes a curated reading list of developments in comparative public law. “Developments” may include a selection of links to news, high court decisions, new or recent scholarly books and articles, and blog posts from around the comparative public law blogosphere.

To submit relevant developments for our weekly feature on “What’s New in Comparative Public Law,” please email contact.iconnect@gmail.com.

Developments in Constitutional Courts

1. The Turkish Constitutional Court has held that the closure of private tutoring centers violated the right to education.
2. Th French Constitutional Council recently held that the new controversial surveillance law is constitutional.
3. The Supreme Court of India ruled that religious faith does not have any relation to wearing a particular kind of dress.
4. The  Russian Constitutional Court has declared that decisions of the European Court of Human Rights are inferior to Russian domestic law.

New Scholarship

1. Christian Marxsen, Participatory Democracy in Europe – Article 11 TEU and the Legitimacy of the European Union, in Federico Fabbrini, Ernst Hirsch Ballin, Han Somsen (eds.), What Form of Government for the European Union and the Eurozone? (Hart Publishing, Oxford 2015, 151-169) (reviewing the developing practice of participatory democracy and its critical assessment in Europe)
2. Christopher Zurn, Democratic Constitutional Change: Assessing Institutional Possibilities, in Thomas Bustamante (ed.), Democratizing Constitutional Law: Perspectives on the Future of Constitutionalism (Forthcoming) (developing a normative framework for conceptualizing and assessing various institutional possibilities for democratic modes of constitutional change, with special attention to the recent ferment of constitutional experimentation witnessed across the globe)
3. Stephen Riley, Human Dignity and the Rule of Law, Utrecht Law Review, Vol. 11, No. 2, p. 91-105 (assessing how the rule of law, taken together with a basic conception of the person, can be treated as ‘good governance consistent with human rationality or agency’ and be associated with human dignity)
4. Carolina Arlota and Nuno M. Garoupa, Do Specialized Courts Make a Difference? Evidence from Brazilian State Supreme Courts, European Business Law Review (Forthcoming) (focusing on possible differences between decisions made by a non-specialized court or by a specialized court panel to determine whether there are significant variations in the outcome of the cases decided by a specialized panel)
5. Michael C. Davis, The Basic Law, Universal Suffrage and the Rule of Law in Hong Kong, Hastings International and Comparative Law Review, Vol. 38, No. 2, 2015 (exploring perspectives on Hong Kong’s autonomy and the rule of law under the ‘one country, two systems’ framework)
6. Fiona De Londras, In Defence of Judicial Innovation and Constitutional Evolution, in Laura Cahillane, Tom Hickey, James Gallen (eds.), Judges, Politics And The Irish Constitution(MUP, 2016) (Forthcoming) (arguing in favour of judicial innovation as an important and legitimate part of constitutional evolution, taking into account the broader constitutional tradition and structure within which Irish superior courts operate).

In the News

1. Russian official proposes that adherence to international law must be removed from the Constitution of Russia.
2. The Attorney General of India recently argued before the Supreme Court that Indian citizens do not have the right to privacy.
3. The Chinese Communist Party’s top official targeted and investigated during President Xi Jinping’s Anti-Graft drive.
4. Union Law Minister announces that India will soon have a National Litigation Policy.
5. Maldivian Parliament moves a constitutional amendment bill that would empower the Government to sell islands to private parties.

Calls for Papers

1. The Arab Association of Constitutional Law and the Faculty of Juridical, Political and Social Sciences of Tunis (University of Carthage) are organizing the first session of the Arab Association’s Constitutional Academy from December 1^st, 2015 to January 31^st, 2016 in Tunis, Tunisia. Interested candidates are required to submit an application no later than September 25^th, 2015. Further details can be found here.
2. The New Zealand Centre for Public Law at Victoria University of Wellington, Faculty Law, Boston College Law School, and The International Society of Public Law (ICON·S) invite submissions for a two-day symposium on quasi-constitutionality and constitutional statutes, to be held on the Pipitea campus of Victoria University of Wellington, Faculty of Law (Old Government Buildings) on Thursday & Friday, May 19-20, 2016.
3. Kabarak University School of Law, Boston College Law School and the International Society of Public Law invite submissions for a two-day Symposium on Constitutional Change and Transformation in Africa, to be held on the campus of Kabarak University in Nakuru on Thursday and Friday, June 9-10, 2016.
4. The European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, a pan-European trimestral publication, is inviting contributions (articles or case-law annotations) for its upcoming issues. Submission deadline for Issue No.3/2015 is August 3^rd, 2015 and for Issue No.4/2015 is November 2^nd, 2015.
5. The UCL Journal of Law and Jurisprudence is calling submissions for the first Issue of 2016. The Journal’s Editorial Board welcomes papers covering all areas of law and jurisprudence, accepting articles of between 8,000-12,000 words, case notes of 6,000-8,000 words and book reviews of 1,000-2,000 words. The deadline for submissions is October 16^th, 2015. For further information, please visit the website.
6. Graduate School of Government and European Studies and the European Faculty of Lawis organising a 2 day Workshop on the theme ‘In Search of Basic European Values’. The Workshop will be conducted from November 20^th – 21^st, 2015 in Ljubljana. They are inviting abstracts for the same and interested applicants should send a 250-word abstract and a CV in narrative form by September 1^st, 2015 to dignitas@fds.si. For further information, please visit the website.

Elsewhere on the Internet

1. Tom Ginsburg, Rearmament and the Rule of Law in Japan: When Is it OK to Change the Constitution With a Statute?, The Huffington Post
2. David Landau, Term Limits Manipulation across Latin America – and what Constitutional Design could do about it, Constitution.net
3. Michael Pal, Ontario court ruling on expats forgets that voting is a right, not a privilege, The Globe and Mail
4. Lyle Denniston, Constitution Check: Is natural-born citizenship sometimes not a fundamental right?, Constitution Daily
5. Evan Bernick, Do We Have an Amoral Constitution? A Second Reply to Kurt Lash, The Huffington Post