Category: hp
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Analysis of the October amendments to the Constitution of Georgia
The Parliament of Georgia passed a new wave of constitutional amendments on October 15, 2010, which have seriously reconfigured the relationship between all three branches of government and have affected their rights and responsibilities. These amendments limit the rights and functions of the President in favor of the growing importance of the Prime Minister and…
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Sad News
The famous German legal scholar, Professor Winfried Brugger of the University of Heidelberg, died suddenly. Besides being a leading legal philosopher, and scholar of German constitutional law, he was one of Germany’s preeminent experts on American constitutional law. He also was a frequent visitor to Georgetown Law.
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New Constitution for the US?
The Revolutionary Communist Party has issued a new draft constitution for the Socialist Republic of North America. Only the preamble is available on the website; those interested in learning more will have to buy the book. The preamble itself, full of anachronistic language, is over 2700 words long, which would, according to a recent paper…
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New paper by Kay: Constituent Authority
Richard Kay of the University of Connecticut Law School has posted a new paper, Constituent Authority, on SSRN. Its an interesting analysis of constituent power and its effect on constitutional endurance. Abstract: The force of a constitution, like the force of all enacted law, derives, in significant part, from the circumstances of its enactment.
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Zimbabwe process sputters along
Earlier this year, David Law commented on next year’s constitutional referendum in Zimbabwe and on the potential ramifications for civil rights in that country. With November deepening however, and the vote approaching, it is time to look at Zimbabwe’s constitutional chaos from another angle – separation of powers.
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Socio-Economic Rights Decline
In late 2009, several of the South African Constitutional Court’s most famous Justices were scheduled to step down. They still had to write opinions in some difficult socio-economic rights cases. To the surprise of many legal scholars, they authored opinions which appear to put the brakes on the development of a transformative socio-economic rights jurisprudence.
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Time-bar restrictions held to be reasonable and justifiable limitation of the right of access to court
In Road Accident Fund and Another v Mdeyide (CCT 10/10) [2010] ZACC 18 (30 September 2010) the South African Constitutional Court upheld an appeal against the high court’s declaration that the time-bar provision contained in the legislation regulating the affairs of the Road Accident Fund was unconstitutional.
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South African Constitutional Court Building
I spent the last few weeks giving lectures at several South African law faculties on socio-economic rights issues, and on my book “Constitutional Rights in Two Worlds: South Africa and the United States.” I will write several posts about what I learned from my South African colleagues.
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Constitutional Restrictions on the Freedom of Testation in South Africa
The Supreme Court of Appeal in South Africa in The Curators Ad Litem To Certain Potential Beneficiaries of the Emma Smith Educational Fund v The University of Kwa Zulu Natal [2010] ZASCA 136 (1st October 2010) dismissed an appeal against a judgment that set aside a racially restrictive clause limiting the beneficiaries of the Emma…
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Courting Trouble in Pakistan: the Next Chapter
The tug-of-war between the Supreme Court of Pakistan and that country’s executive continues. In 2007 Pervez Musharraf sacked the court’s chief justice and two associate justices for openly opposing the erstwhile dictator’s seizure of emergency powers. Within hours of the dismissal throngs of lawyers had taken to the streets in protest, exacerbating the crisis and…