Author: Tom Ginsburg
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Arato on The Return of Revolutions
We certainly said good-bye to revolutions too soon, between 1989 and 1995. Yes, we were right Romania was the exception, and the series of changes of regime certainly did not represent revolutions. Yet the fact that the latter were represented finally and definitively by the journalistic cliche as the „Revolutions of 1989” demonstrates the tremendous…
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Egypt: Parliament to the Rescue
Egypt’s military has begun to commandeer its revolution. Its handpicked commission of legal experts has come up with recommendations for patching up the existing constitution to suit the post-Mubarak era. These top-down reforms have been generated within the space of 10 days and without broad popular participation.
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Egypt’s amendments announced
Egypt’s eight-member committee charged with drafting constitutional amendments has announced their proposals. Originally tasked with modifying six provisions, they instead called for eight amendments. [An excellent discussion of the issues at stake, featuring our contributor Tamir Moustafa, can be found here.
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Amending the Egyptian Constitution: Six critical articles that test the military’s commitment to democracy
The most important announcement last week from the Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces was that it had appointed a committee to amend the Egyptian Constitution. The committee, chaired by retired judge Tariq al-Bishri, was tasked to draft constitutional amendments within 10 days, followed by a national referendum on the proposed amendments within two…
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Does Egypt Need a New Constitution?
(cross-posted by Tamir Moustafa from foreignpolicy.com As street protests in Egypt witnesses its third week, we hear frequent calls for a new Egyptian constitution. The April 6th Youth movement reiterated its demand that Mubarak step down from power immediately and that a transitional coalition government lead a process of transition, including the drafting of a…
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New report on Human Dignity
We have a new report on the protection of human dignity in national constitutional texts, available in the “Reports” section of the website under the “Rights” tab, or directly here. From what we can tell, the concept first appeared in the constitutions of Finland and Estonia in 1919 and spread rapidly after its adoption as…
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Further Changes Proposed to the Turkish Constitutional Court
Late last year, in September 2010, Turkish voters approved by 58% of the vote a set of constitutional amendments, which included a court-packing plan that expanded the size of the Turkish Constitutional Court from eleven to seventeen seats (which I discussed here).
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Uganda High Court finds anti-gay discrimination, enjoins paper
Uganda has received a good deal of attention since anti-homosexual legislation was proposed in parliament in 2009. Though the legislation has still not been passed, the environment for gays in Uganda remains by all accounts harrowing. Today, the High Court ruled that a newspaper story which listed the names and addresses of homosexuals under the…
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Whither constitutions in 2011?
The turning of the year provides an opportunity to look back at 2010 and ahead at 2011. One of the big themes in 2010 was executive attempts to extend their stay in office: we observed various strategies in Georgia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and elsewhere.