Author: Tom Ginsburg
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Embattled Government of Kyrgyzstan seeks referendum for June 27
In early April 2010 bloody riots rocked the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek in response to high utility costs and brutal levels of perceived corruption. For nearly a week, thousands of protesters took to the streets in a bloody clash which reportedly killed at least eighty people and wounded nearly 500 more.
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Abortion foes battle Kenya draft
If the Kenyan Constitution fails in a referendum a little over a month from now, it may be largely the result of foreign groups lobbying against it. Three U.S. Congressmen are now calling for an investigation into US support for the Kenyan constitution, arguing that funds spent on civic education for the proposed draft violate…
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Dominic Nardi on Pakistan’s Judiciary: Suo Moto Tango
The Indian Supreme Court has become prominent (or notorious) amongst comparative constitutional law scholars for its judicial activism. However, if anything, the Pakistani judiciary has gone even further in finding creative ways to support public interest litigation (PIL). Under Article 184(3) of the 1973 Constitution, the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction over petitions to enforce…
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Wiki-constitutionalism?
The New Republic has just posted a nice essay by Daniel Lansberg-Rodriguez about what he calls wiki-constitutionalism in Latin America: the tendency of constitutions in the region to be changed as easily as wikipedia pages. Lansberg-Rodriguez points out the costs of rewriting, and argues persuasively that institutional stability will require overcoming wiki-constitutionalism.
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US Supreme Court debate to heat up again
With the decision in Graham v. Florida, we are likely to see a renewal of the debate over whether and how to use foreign caselaw in interpreting the U.S. Constitution. As in his earlier decision in Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.
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New developments in Japanese religion case
As noted in January, the Japanese Supreme Court held that Sunagawa city’s allowing the free use of its land by the Sorachi-buto shrine violated two provisions of the Japanese Constitution: Art. 20(1) (“No religious organization shall receive any privileges from the State, nor exercise any political authority.”)
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Guest blogger Schor: Should national high courts be staffed largely with bureaucrats?
The resignation of Justice John Paul Stevens has given rise to speculation as to his replacement. It has become an almost invariable pattern in the United States to appoint professional bureaucrats (i.e., judges who have toiled in the lower federal courts) to the high court.
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Constitutions and budgeting: why don’t we observe more pre-commitment?
A popular academic theory of constitutions holds that constitutions serve to commit the polity across time. Knowing that we are likely to try to impose majority will on minorities in the future, we tie our collective hands to limit the damage that can be done to individual and community rights.
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Kenya’s draft moves on…
Kenya’s draft Constitution moves today to the office of Attorney General Amos Wako, who has four weeks to prepare the text for public referendum. The current text is the same as that forwarded by the Committee of Experts to the Parliament in late February—Parliament debated but failed to pass some 100 proposals for amendment.
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Kenya’s constitution moves on toward referendum