Category: hp
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The Puzzle of Unamendable Provisions: Debate-Impairing Rules vs. Substantive Entrenchment
Many constitutions purport to make some provisions immune from ordinary amendment processes. The Constitution of Turkey, for example, states that the character of the country as a secular democracy and republic cannot be changed, and forbids any proposal to amend these provisions.
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Israel’s equality in education
Equality in education continues to be a main issue in the ongoing political and culture wars within Israeli society. On August 6, the Supreme Court of Israel, seating as High Court of Justice released an important ruling in a case dealing with a clash between the right to sectarian autonomy in education, and equality rights.
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Notable new book on the constitutionalization of international law
It’s rare to come across a collection of papers and to feel that one may be witnessing something fresh and important, the birth of a field, or at least a subfield. But I’ve had that experience twice this year – once this spring, when I got my hands on the recent “Rule by Law” collection…
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The Spread of the Jury Trial
David Law’s excellent post (if you liked that, you should read his great article on Japan, employing a relatively new, interview-based strategy for studying comparative constitutional law, an article which Ran Hirschl also referenced) reminded me to draw attention to a new article on the spread of the jury trial around the world.
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How do you say “ladies, gentlemen, and judges of the jury” in Japanese?
For the first time in decades, as the Economist reports, Japan once again has a jury system (or, if you’re feeling saucy, a “saiban-in seido”), and it is puzzling in a variety of ways. The first puzzle has to do with its sheer existence.
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A New Chief Justice for South Africa
Today, President Zuma announced that Justice Sandile Ngcobo will become the new Chief Justice of South Africa. The appointment is potentially significant in both: (1) what it says about Zuma’s commitment to judicial independence; and (2) what it signals about the likely direction of the Constitutional Court’s jurisprudence, at least over the next two years,…
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The End of the House of Lords
What presumably is the last decision, ever, of the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, was issued on 30 July. The jurisdiction of the Committee (and more) will be exercised from October 2009 by the new Supreme Court for the United Kingdom, sitting in the historic Middlesex Guildhall in Parliament Square, London.
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Symposium on constitutional design
A very interesting symposium issue of the Texas Law Review (June 2009) has just been published. It deals with the theory and practice of constitutional engineering and is aptly entitled “What, if anything, do we know about constitutional design?” The symposium issue includes fourteen articles by such luminaries as Sanford Levinson, Mark Tushnet, John Ferejohn,…
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Approaches to Constitutional Change
One of the beautiful things about this blog is that I get to note new articles about topics like constitutional change in in Tonga: The Constitution of Tonga, 132 years old in 2007 — indeed one of the world’s oldest extant constitutions — has recently, for the first time in history, been subjected to significant…
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Albert on Amendments
An article posted on SSRN, written by Richard Albert from Boston College Law School, might be of interest to our readers. Here is the summary: The constitutional text in a constitutional democracy does not necessarily constrain constitutional change. Quite the contrary, constitutional change in a constitutional democracy often occurs in ways that depart from the…