Category: hp
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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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Kagan Confirmation Controversy?
The U.S. Supreme Court confirmation process has become increasingly polarized. While the system in other countries is not free of problems, things in the U.S. reached a new low lately when several prominent news commentators essentially called on Court nominee Elena Kagan to address whether she is gay or not (Maureen Dowd in the New…
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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 Socio-Economic Rights Book
An important new book on socio-economic rights has just been published. The book is called “Socio-Economic Rights –Adjudication Under a Transformative Constitution.” It’s published by JUTA press. The author is Sandra Liebenberg, the Harry F. Oppenheimer Chair in Human Rights Law at the University of Stellenbosch Law School in South Africa.
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Indonesia Blasphemy Ruling
As a follow up to my earlier post on this topic, Indonesia’s Constitutional Court has recently upheld the nation’s controversial anti-blasphemy law. To quote Chris Blake from the Associated Press, “The court ruled…that the 1965 law, which allows for criminal penalties and bans on people or groups that “distort” the central tenets of six officially…
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The Iraq Judiary: A Correction and Apology
I feel compelled to update my March 31 post about the Iraq Federal Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the meaning of “largest Council of Representatives bloc” in Article 76 of the Iraq Constitution. I maligned the Court for ruling that the phrase referred to post-election coalitions (multiple party lists that come together to form a…
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Transitional Justice in Latin America: Recent Developments
Last Tuesday April 20, a federal court in Argentina sentenced former president Reynaldo Bignone to 25 years in prison for human rights abuses during the 1976-1983 “dirty war”. The Court also sentenced five other retired military officers to prison terms ranging from 17 to 25 years in connection with abuses during the military regime.
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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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Bilingualism on the Supreme Court of Canada
Should Canadian Supreme Court justices be bilingual? That question is the latest battleground in the enduring debate on language rights and representation in Canada. The Supreme Court Act requires that at least three of the nine Canadian Supreme Court Justices come from Quebec, which has historically been the heart of Canada’s French-speaking community.
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Iraq’s Bush v. Gore?
A Special Iraqi Electoral Court today waded even deeper into political and electoral waters, ordering a partial recount of votes cast in last month’s parliamentary election. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/20/world/middleeast/20iraq.html?hp In so doing the court upset the Independent Higher Electoral Commission’s certification of the results and has played right into the hands of Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, who…