What’s New in Comparative Public Law

–Mohamed Abdelaal, Alexandria University (Egypt)

In this weekly feature, I-CONnect publishes a curated reading list of developments in comparative public law. “Developments” may include a selection of links to news, high court decisions, new or recent scholarly books and articles, and blog posts from around the comparative public law blogosphere.

To submit relevant developments for our weekly feature on “What’s New in Comparative Public Law,” please email contact.iconnect@gmail.com.

Developments in Constitutional Courts

1. The Supreme Court of Japan upheld a statute requiring married couples to share one surname and overturned a remarriage moratorium for women.
2. The Brazilian Supreme Court ruled on two measures, a re-formation of a congressional committee and on the Senate power to review a lower house vote for impeachment; this appears to make he impeachment of the President Rousseff less likely.
3. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of arbitration as a preferred method for resolving issues between companies and their customers to class-action lawsuits.
4. The Supreme Court of India moved to appoint the anticorruption ombudsman of Uttar Pradesh invoking the “complete justice” provision of Art. 142 of the Constitution and will now hear a case on the appointment later in January.
5. The Constitutional Court of Kuwait upheld a university gender segregation law and struck down a 2012 emergency decree establishing the Anti-Corruption Authority.

In the News

1. Bulgaria’s Parliament adopted a constitutional amendment on judicial reform.
2. Poland’s ruling party unveiled plans to change the constitution amid political protests.
3. Turkey may hold two separate referenda on constitutional reform and a move to a presidential system.
4. The Central African Republic voted to adopt new constitution in a constitutional referendum.
5. Rwanda voted to extend presidential term limits.

New Scholarship

1. Richard Albert, The Conventions of Constitutional Amendment in Canada, (forthcoming, 2016) 53 Osgoode Hall Law Journal (examining whether the federal political actors in Canada are bound by a constitutional convention of national referendal consultation for formal amendments to the basic structure of the Constitution of Canada)
2. Conor A. Gearty, The State of Freedom in Europe, 21(6) European Law Journal (forthcoming, 2015) (discussing the decline in breadth of liberty and human security in the European Union)
3. Fan Jizeng, The Evolution of Fundamental Rights Legislation in PRC: From Soviet Model of Human Right Theory to Influence of the UN Universal Standard of Human Rights, 3 Taiwan Journal of Human Rights (2015) (discussing the relationship between constitutional rights system of China and the Soviet Union, and exploring the relation between China’s human rights legislation and the UN human rights treaties)
4. George P. Kyprianides, The Uncodified Nature of the UK Constitution: Distinction between Laws and Conventions, (2015) (analyzing the uncodified nature of the United Kingdom Constitution in order to assess whether there is an accurate distinction between statutes and convention)
5. Steven Douglas Smith, The Tortuous Course of Religious Freedom, Notre Dame Law Review (forthcoming) (considering new challenges to and issues for religious freedom)

Call for Papers and Announcements

1. LUISS Guido Carli University of Rome, Complutense University of Madrid and University of London announced a new joint Master program funded by the European Commission, on ‘Parliamentary Procedures and Legislative Drafting’.
2. The University of Exeter Law School and the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Faculty of Social Sciences issued a call for papers for a conference to be held at in Budapest on June 23-24, 2016 on ‘Rethinking European Constitutional Democracy – With Special Focus on the United Kingdom and Hungary’.
3. The graduate students of McGill’s Faculty of Law are accepting submissions for their annual conference to be held on May 14-15, 2016, at McGill University, in Montreal, Canada, on the theme ‘Legal Challenges in Cyberspace’.
4. The California Law Review is now accepting submissions of symposium proposals for the 2016-2017 academic year. Submissions will be accepted until February 26, 2016.
5. Stanford Law School and University of Pennsylvania Law School issued a call for paper for the Ninth International Junior Faculty Forum.

Elsewhere Online

1. Vladan Kutlesic, States’ markings in constitutions – a comparative analysis, Constitution-Making and Constitutional Change
2. Jacob T. Levy, Richard Albert and Tom Ginsburg have each contributed a response essay to a lead essay Examining Constitution Crisis, by Sanford Levinson, at Cato Unbound.
3. Tomasz Tadeusz Koncewicz, “Court-packing” in Warsaw: The Plot Thickens, Verfassungsblog
4. Meg Russell and Daniel Gover, The Lords, Financial Privilege and the EU Referendum Franchise, The Constitution Unit
5. Stefano Civitarese Matteucci, Austerity and Social Rights in Italy: A Long Standing Story, UK Constitutional Law Association
6. Bertrand Mathieu, La democratie est elle compatible avec l’ordre juridique européen?, Blog of the IACL, AIDC
7. Stefan Voigt and Christian Bjørnskov, The Determinants of Emergency Constitutions, BelConLaw Blog