Category: Richard Albert
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The Rise of Comparative Constitutional Change — Book Review: Reijer Passchier and Alissa Verhagen on “The Foundations and Traditions of Constitutional Amendment”
[Editor’s Note: In this installment of I•CONnect’s Book Review Series, Reijer Passchier and Alissa Verhagen review The Foundations and Traditions of Constitutional Amendment (Hart 2017), edited by Richard Albert, Xenophon Contiades and Alkmene Fotiadou] –Reijer Passchier[*] and Alissa Verhagen[**] I. The renaissance of an issue The matter of constitutional change is one of the most difficult and challenging issues…
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The Changing Composition of the Canadian Supreme Court
Earlier this morning, the Supreme Court of Canada announced that Justice Marie Deschamps will retire from the bench on August 7, 2012. She was originally appointed on August 8, 2002. Justice Deschamps will therefore have served ten years on the high court.
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Scholarly Announcements for Comparativists
Below, I’m pleased to share three announcements from two groups with which I’m involved. The first is a new Call for Papers from the AALS Section on Law and South Asian Studies. It is open to all comparativists irrespective of seniority.
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“Guiding Cases” in China
The Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China has begun the practice of announcing “guiding cases.” These are cases that, as explained here, “provide guidance to people’s courts in hearing similar cases and handing down judgments, and reference shall be made by judges in hearing similar cases and cited as the basis for…
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Hungary’s New Constitution
The new constitution of Hungary—called the Fundamental Law of Hungary—became effective a couple of days ago on January 1, 2012. The day after its coming into force, thousands of Hungarians gathered in Budapest to protest the nation’s new constitution. Analyses of the day’s events are available here, here and here.
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Call for Papers on Comparative Law
As Chair of the Younger Comparativists Committee of the American Society of Comparative Law, I am pleased to share with our readers the Call for Papers below. The Call for Papers is directed to comparative law scholars who have been engaged as law teachers, lecturers, fellows or another academic capacity for ten years or fewer…
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The Conservative Consolidation in Canada
As our colleague Ran Hirschl reported earlier this month, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently filled two vacancies on the Supreme Court of Canada. With those two appointments, four is now the total number of Prime Minister Harper’s Supreme Court nominations since he ascended to power in 2006.
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New Comparative Public Law Scholarship
As Chair of the Younger Comparativists Committee (YCC) in the American Society of Comparative Law (ASCL), I’m pleased to announce that the YCC will host a panel on “Building Constitutionalism in Post-Authoritarian States” at the ASCL’s Annual Meeting. The panel will feature the work of two younger comparativists: William Partlett’s paper on Making Constitutions Matter; and…
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On this Day in the History of Comparative Constitutional Law
On this day, we remember the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada: Bertha Wilson, born on September 18, 1923, in Kirkcaldy, Scotland. Justice Wilson was a comparativist. In two of the most controversial judgments issued during her tenure, she looked to American constitutional law and the American constitutional tradition to help her resolve a…
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The Indian Supreme Court Headlines the WSJ
Today’s edition of the Wall Street Journal profiles the Indian Supreme Court under the headline of “In India, the Supreme Court Takes an Activist Role.” As the article notes, however, it is an understatement to call the Indian Supreme Court “activist.”