Category: hp
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Chile’s Constitutional Plight
In light of the current crisis of Honduras, Chile’s constitutional plight represents an interesting, contrasting case. While in Honduras the crisis started when the sitting President tried to bypass the Constitution’s prohibition against amendments aimed at allowing his own reelection, in Chile, a dictatorial regime managed to perpetuate important features of the military regime through…
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Of Coups and Term Limits: Thoughts on the Niger Referendum This Week
All eyes will be on Niger this Tuesday as President Mamadou Tandja goes ahead with a referendum to allow himself to rule for three more years after completing his constitutional mandate of two terms this December. Recall that when the Constitutional Court ruled his proposal unconstitutional earlier this summer, Tandja assumed emergency powers and disbanded…
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Pakistan’s constitutional war continues
First off, these are no doubt good times for the comparative study of constitutions. A blog devoted to comparative constitutional law and courts would have been a near-fantasy merely a decade ago. More than anything else, its establishment reflects the growing interest and tremendous advancement in the comparative study of law and courts over the…
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Removal of judicial workers and freedom of expression in Venezuela
In the last four months, at least one hundred judicial employees and close to fifty judges from all Venezuelan regions have been fired, suspended, or have suddenly resigned. Unionized judicial workers sounded the alarm on July 13th because the special Judicial Commission set up by Supreme Justice Tribunal (TSJ) to carry on this job, have…
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The Spending Power in Australia
A recent decision of the Australian High Court has answered some questions about the source and scope of the federal spending power although many remain unresolved. Pape v Commissioner of Taxation [2009] HCA 23 also is of interest for a range of other purposes, including the interface between federalism and other institutional arrangements and comparative…
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Constitutional Court Censors German Government
It’s been a tough week for the German government. It was handed defeats by the constitutional court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) in two separate cases touching on the government’s authority to withhold information from parliament.In 2006, the German parliament — on an initiative by opposition parties — constituted a parliamentary commission to investigate allegations that the German government…
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The Lawrence of India (Pt 2) (the Supreme Court Sequel)
In a recent post (7/5/09), I reported and commented on the decision of the Delhi High Court in NAZ Foundation v. Government of NCT of Delhi & Ors, reading down 377 of the Indian Criminal Code, so as to apply only to “nonconsensual penile non-vaginal sex and penile non-vaginal sex involving minors” – a decision…
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Honduras: When Constitutions Collide?
The constitutional fracas in Honduras is attracting a good deal of attention from comparative constitutional scholars, and deservedly so. One aspect of the entire mess that appears to have largely escaped attention–but raises a number of important questions with ramifications far beyond Honduras itself–is the relationship between domestic and supranational constitutional law.
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Will the Bolivian Constitutional Tribunal Rise From the Ashes?
During the first days of June 2009 the last member of the Bolivian Constitutional Tribunal (BCT), Silvia Salame Farjat, resigned. Judge Salame was the only active member of the BCT since November 2007, because the other four members of the Tribunal had either resigned (some under the threat of impeachment) or left when their ten…
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Honduras: The Relevant Provisions
The discussion of Honduras’ constitutional crisis has focused on the military coup removing President Zelaya and installing a replacement. The coup raises intriguing issues concerning the Constitution of 1982 and its attempt to avoid the problem of extending the executive term beyond constitutional limitations.