Category: Analysis
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Sovereignty of Rights vs. “Global Constitutional” Law: The Italian Constitutional Court Decision No. 238/2014
—Diletta Tega, University of Bologna (Italy) As Francesco Duranti already pointed out in his comment here at I-CONnect on 17 December 2014, Judgment no. 238, delivered on 22 October 2014, demonstrates how the Italian Constitutional Court (CC) “dialogues” with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) about the international custom on the immunity of States from the civil jurisdiction of…
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Kuwait’s Political Adolescence: The Controversies of Constitutional Reform
—Dr. Fatima AlMatar, Kuwait University, Department of Public Law The political situation of Kuwait today resembles 17th century Britain, where the Amir[1] still has the power to dissolve parliament whenever he pleases so long as he provides a reason for doing so, and so long as the parliament is not dissolved again on the same…
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Does Hong Kong Need a Mayor?
–Alvin Y.H. Cheung, Visiting Scholar, U.S.-Asia Law Institute, NYU School of Law It has been known for about two thousand years that it is impossible for one person to serve two masters. Unfortunately, this lesson was lost on the Drafting Committee of Hong Kong’s Basic Law.
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An Update on the Death Penalty in Trinidad & Tobago
—John Knechtle, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad The sentence of death has been the mandatory penalty for murder in Trinidad and Tobago since independence in 1962 and with the country consistently ranking in the top ten percent for homicides per capita around the world, public support for the death penalty remains strong.
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New Scholarship Review: Interview with Jonathan Marshfield on Federalism and the Amendment Power
—Richard Albert, Boston College Law School In this installment of I-CONnect’s interview series, I speak with Jonathan Marshfield about his forthcoming paper on Decentralizing the Amendment Power. In his new paper, Marshfield explores how and why constitutional amendment rules might be structured to include subnational units in the process of formal amendment.
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Constitutional Interpretation and Constitutional Review in Afghanistan: Is There Still a Crisis?
—Shamshad Pasarlay, University of Washington School of Law Constitutional interpretation—specifically, the question over where to locate the power to issue constitutional interpretations that would bind the branches of the government—was a controversial issue during the drafting of the 2004 Constitution of Afghanistan.
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A Brewing Supreme Court Nomination Crisis in Brazil?
–Vanice Regina Lírio do Valle, Estácio de Sá University This past February 26th, the Brazilian Supreme Court was unable to rule in a relevant lawsuit: the votes were tied, which made the absence of the eleventh Justice an insuperable obstacle to come to a decision.
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Brazilian Constitutionalism Moving Backwards? Same-Sex Marriage and the New Conservative Congress
—Juliano Zaiden Benvindo, University of Brasilia, Brazil The debate over same-sex marriage is once again in the newspaper headlines. After the US Supreme Court accepted, on February 16, to hear the cases brought by fifteen same-sex couples from four states (Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee), chances are that, finally, a federal judicial ruling in this…
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Mercy and Judicial Review in the Commonwealth
—Adam Perry, Lecturer in Law, Queen Mary University of London Judges in Commonwealth jurisdictions are increasingly willing to review the executive’s decisions to grant or refuse mercy (ie, decisions to grant or refuse a request for a pardon or remission of a sentence for a criminal offence).
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Video Interview: Counter-Interpretation and Constitutional Supremacy, Featuring Joshua Braver
—Richard Albert, Boston College Law School In this latest installment of our new video interview series at I-CONnect, I interview Joshua Braver on judicial review in the United Kingdom and the United States, specifically as it relates to a phenomenon he identifies as “counter-interpretation.”