What’s New in Public Law

–Angélique Devaux, Cheuvreux Notaires, Paris, France, Diplômée notaire, LL.M. Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law

In this weekly feature, I-CONnect publishes a curated reading list of developments in 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 public law blogosphere.

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

Developments in Constitutional Courts

1. The Constitutional Court of Ecuador approved same-sex marriage in a close 5-4 decision.
2. The Federal Supreme Court of Brazil voted to criminalize homophobic discrimination.
3. The Supreme Court of Israel allowed a Jewish settler organization to lease three church properties in Jerusalem’s Old City.
4. The Constitutional Court of Indonesia hears an appeal in a case to annul presidential election, while protesters gather before the Court building despite a police ban.
5. The European Court of Human Rights published a guide on Article 1 of the Convention’s First Protocol, the protection of property.
6. The Constitutional Court of Spain blocked a Catalan politician from leaving jail to collect his credentials for the European Parliament, to which he was elected on May 26.

In the News

1. The Supreme Court of Kentucky invalidated a constitutional amendment that granted constitutional rights for victims.
2. The Supreme Court of Washington ruled against a florist who refused to provide flowers to a same-sex wedding.
3. The Supreme Court of Alaska ruled unconstitutional the state’s sex offender registry law.
4. The High Court in Botswana found laws criminalizing homosexuality unconstitutional.
5. Moldova has a new Government.
6. The referendum on constitutional amendments on local elections in Ghana will take place on December 29.
7. The Governor of Illinois signed legislation ensuring women’s right to abortion.
8. The Parliament of Albania passed a motion criticizing President Ilir Meta’s decision to cancel municipal elections as unconstitutional.
9. Hong Kong government announced suspension of the controversial extradition bill.

New Scholarship

1. Stefan Voigt, Taking the Rule of Law Seriously – How the EU Could Foster Its Own Values, (2019) (developing a proposal to improve the rule of law in Europe)
2. Giovanni De Gregorio, From Constitutional Freedoms to the Power of the Platforms: Protecting Fundamental Rights Online in the Algorithmic Society, 11 European Journal of Legal Studies (2019) (examining how online platforms affect fundamental rights and proposing solutions to limit the influence of such private powers from a constitutional law perspective)
3. Ana Micaela Alterio, Reactive vs. Structural approach: A public law response to populism, 8 Global constitutionalism (2019) (assessing answers to populism by using the new Latin American Constitutionalism as an example)
4. Federico Fabbrini and Oreste Pollicino, Constitutional Identity in Italy: Institutional Disagreements at a Time of Political Change, in Christian Calliess and Gerhard van der Schyff, Constitutional Identity in a Europe of Multilevel Constitutionalism (forthcoming 2019) (examining the notion of constitutional identity in Italy through the analysis of the discourse and practice of the two key constitutional bodies, the President of the Republic and the Constitutional Court)
5. Francisco Pereira Coutinho and Nuno Piçarra, Portugal: The Impact of European Integration and the Economic Crisis on the Identity of the Constitution, in Anneli Albi and Samo Bardutzky (eds.) National Constitutions in European and Global Governance: Democracy, Rights, the Rule of Law (2019) (analyzing the Portuguese Constitution in light of the European Union)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The University of Würzburg invites submissions for an exploratory workshop on “Constitutions of Value,” to be held on December 12-13, 2019. The deadline for abstracts is July 12, 2019.
2. The Law Faculty of Humboldt University Berlin invites applications for a Postdoc position and PhD positions in the new research group established to study “Dynamic Integration – Law in-between Harmonization and Plurality in Europe” (DynamInt).
3. The Maastricht University and the University of Liverpool Research and Development Fund invite submissions for a workshop on “Judicial and extra-judicial challenges in the EU multi-and-cross-level administrative framework,” to be held on July 8-9, 2019 in Brussels.
4. The University of Ottawa invites submissions for its conference on the theme “Public Law: Rights, Duties and Powers,” to be held on June 17-19, 2020 in Ottawa. The deadline for submission of abstracts is September 2, 2019.
5. Loyola University Chicago School of Law invites submissions for its 13th Annual Symposium on Health Law and Policy to be held in Chicago, Illinois on November 15, 2019. The deadline for submission of abstracts is July 1, 2019.
6. The Board of Editors of Trade, Law and Development invites original, unpublished manuscripts for publication in the Winter 2019 Issue of the Journal (Vol. 11, No. 2) in the form of Articles, Notes, Comments and Book Reviews.
7. The European Implementation Network, a hub of European civil society aimed at increasing the timely and effective implementation of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, has launched a call for contributions to create a handbook on the domestic advocacy for implementation of Strasbourg Court judgments.

Elsewhere Online

1. Linda Greenhouse, Who cares about Supreme Court’s legitimacy? The New York Times
2. Idris Fassassi, France: The Yellow vests, the right to Protest and the Conseil Constitutionnel, ConstitutionNet
3. David R. Cameron, Boris Johnson far ahead of others in first ballot of Conservative leadership race, Yale MacMillan Center
4. Johannes Graf von Luckner, German Prosecutors are insufficiently independent to issue European arrest warrants, European Law Blog
5. Richard Ekins, Constitutional lessons from America, the UK Constitutional Law Association
6. Michael Kenny, The English Question – from the margins to the mainstream? Center on Constitutional Change