What’s New in Comparative Public Law

–Angélique Devaux, French Qualified Attorney (Notaire Diplômée), LL.M American Law (IUPUI Robert H. McKinney School of Law)

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. Supreme Court of Canada, in a divided opinion, ruled that police can conduct a limited search of suspect’s cellphone without getting a search warrant, regardless of password protection.
2. Polish Constitutional Tribunal Justices ruled ban on ritual slaughter unconstitutional
3. A State Appeals Court in Wisconsin ruled that government has no constitutional obligation to provide health care
4. The US Supreme Court ruled that in seeking a new trial, a defendant may not use one juror’s affidavit of what another juror said in deliberations to demonstrate the other juror’s dishonesty duringvoir dire
5. Turkish Constitutional Court rejected individual applications that say the new presidential palace was built illegally

In the news

1. A mother is suing the French State after her 16 year old son travelled to Syria to join jihadists fighting there
2. The Younger Comparativists Committee (YCC) of the American Society of Comparative Law (ASCL) invites nominations, including self-nominations, for the first annual Richard M. Buxbaum Prize for Teaching in Comparative Law.
3. Liberia’s Supreme Court rejects petition to delay elections over Ebola
4. The International Criminal Court confirmed four charges of crimes against humanity against Charles Ble Goude, and committed the ally of former Ivory Coast President Gbagbo to trial at the Hague.
5. The federal constitutional court in Karlsruhe, Germany is set to decide whether it is fair that beneficiaries of inherited corporate wealth in Germany enjoy sweeping tax exemptions.
6. Illinois passes bill that makes it illegal to record the police
7. Nevada poised to create an intermediate Court of Appeals

New scholarship

1. Delivré and E. Berger, Popular Justice in Europe (18^th-19^th centuries), Duncker and Humblot Berlin (2014), (offering a comparative overview of the history of popular justice in France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium and England)
2. Vernon Valentine Palmer, Mohamed Y Mattar, and Anna Koppel (eds), Mixed Legal Systems, East and West, Ashgate (January 2015) (Advancing legal scholarship in the area of mixed legal systems, as well as comparative law more generally, and expanding the comparative study of the world’s legal families to those of jurisdictions containing not only mixtures of common and civil law, but also to those mixing Islamic and/or traditional legal systems with those derived from common and/or civil law traditions)
3. Sylvain Soleil, Le modèle juridique français dans le monde. Une ambition, une expansion (XVI^e-XIX^esiècle) [French Legal Model in the World. An ambition, an Expansion (16^th-19^th centuries)], IRJS éditions (2014) (Explaining why and how the French Legal system has gradually emerged as a legal model in the world) [Book in French]
4. Adam Shinar, Method and Culture in American Constitutional Law: A Critique of Proportionality and Constitutional Culture, Jerusalem Review of Legal Studies,(forthcoming 2015) (reviewing Moshe Cohen-Eliya’s and Iddo Porat’s book “Proportionality and Constitutional Culture” and offering two reasons why proportionality has not been embraced in the U.S.)

Call for papers

1. The ICLARS Series on Law and Religion (Ashgate ed.) welcomes proposals for its new series on any matter falling under ‘law and religion’ widely defined.
2. The Legal Information Review invites calls for papers for its first volume planned for December 2015
3. Boston College Law School and the International Association of Constitutional Law’s Research Group on Constitution-Making and Constitutional Change invite submissions for a full-day workshop on comparative constitutional amendment, to be held on the campus of Boston College Law School on Friday, May 15, 2015
4. The University of Milan Department of National and Supranational Law in collaboration with The Younger Comparativists Committee of the American Society of Comparative Law request submissions for a Workshop on Comparative Constitutional Law at the University of Milan, Italy on May 4, 2015.
5. The Younger Comparativists Committee of the American Society of Comparative Law is pleased to invite submissions for the Phanor J. Eder J.D. Prize in Comparative Law, in connection with its Fourth Annual Conference, to be held on April 16-17, 2015, at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida
6. The Program in Law and Public Affairs, Princeton University, co-sponsored by the American Society of Comparative Law, invites paper submissions to the next annual Comparative Law Work-in-Progress Workshop, which will be held on 6-7 March 2015 in Princeton University.
7. The School of Law, KIIT University (India) calls for papers for the Vol. 4, Issue 2 of the “KIIT Journal of Law and Society”
8. Melbourne Journal of International Law calls for papers for its coming issue No 16 that will be published in June 2015
9. The National Law Institute University Law Review calls for papers for the Sixth Issue to be published in April, 2015

Elsewhere on blogs

1. Peter J. Hammer, Mich-issippi Burning: Marriage Equality, Anti-Gay Animus and Majoritarian Politics, Jurist
2. Mark Sherman, Justice Antonin Scalia Says The Constitution Is Silent On Torture, Huffington Post
3. Steven D. Schwinn, How Elite Lawyers Influence the Supreme Court, Constitutional Law Prof Blog
4. Constitutional Law Group, News: Reforming electoral law across the UK, UK Constitutional Law Association
5. Chris Edelson, Torture is What the U.S. is Right Now, But That Can Be Changed, American Constitution Society for Law and Policy
6. Michael Smith, How Not to Write a Petition for Certiorari, Michael Smith’s Law Blog