What’s New in Comparative Public Law

–Rohan Alva, Jindal Global Law School

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 Colombian Constitutional Court mandated that within a thirty day time period, the Colombian Health Ministry must frame ‘guidelines’, which clarify the circumstances in which euthanasia is permissible.
2. The Constitutional Court of Russia held that legislative provisions, which do not stipulate a time frame within which prosecutorial investigations into the activities of non-governmental organizations should be conducted, constitute as a constitutional violation.
3. The High Court of Delhi has asked the central government of India to justify its refusal to renew the passport of Prashant Bhushan, a lawyer and activist, for a ten year term; a refusal which has been criticized for being an ‘arbitrary’ decision.
4. The Canadian Supreme Court invalidated portions of the ‘Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act’ so far as it required attorneys to inform the government of ‘suspicious financial activity involving their clients.’ This responsibility, the Court found, could not be properly reconciled with the professional obligation of the attorney to protect the interest of their clients.
5. The Supreme Court of Florida, U.S.A., halted the execution of Jerry Correll over doubts as to propriety of the method in which the lethal injection is administered.

In the News

1. The Assistance to and Protection of Victims of Crime and Witnesses Bill was recently passed in the Sri Lankan Parliament. The bill aims to extend robust protection to witnesses by safeguarding their privacy interests and imposing strong criminal sanctions on persons engaging in witness intimidation.
2. In Virginia, U.S.A., a piece of legislation, which extends to mothers the ‘right to breastfeed in public’, was passed successfully in the Senate and the House of Delegates. The bill, which has been reserved for gubernatorial assent, is expected to come into force from July, 2015.
3. Zeid Raad Al Hussein, the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights has sought the release of ‘activists’ imprisoned in Syria, some of whom have been imprisoned for years without being afforded an opportunity of a fair hearing.
4. The Thai Parliament passed a law, which prohibits ‘commercial surrogacy’. Under the new legislation, strict conditions have been put into place before a couple can resort to surrogacy, and commercial advertisements on surrogacy are disallowed.
5. The Italian Prime Minister’s proposals to ‘reform’ the ‘labour market’ received the support of the Italian cabinet. The proposals, which aim to regulate the workforce, in part, eases the ability of employers to dismiss workers without being obligated to re-employ in case the dismissal is found to be legally infirm.

New Scholarship

1. Robert E. Mutch, Buying the Vote: A History of Campaign Finance Reform (Oxford University Press, 2014) (tracing the development of campaign finance reform in the U.S.A., and evaluating the jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court on this point and its consequences for democratic equality)
2. Sumner B. Twiss, Mariah Gh. Simion, Rodney L. Petersen (editors), Religion and Public Policy: Human Rights, Conflict, and Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2015) (a volume in which the different authors, from multiple perspectives, analyze the ideal of creating a society respectful of human rights as well as of religion)
3. Christoph Moellers, The Three Branches: A Comparative Model of Separation of Powers (Oxford University Press, 2015, forthcoming) (advancing a liberal defense of the separation of powers, and presenting, through a comparative exercise, a ‘jurisdictionally neutral model’ for the division of powers amongst the different branches of the state)
4. Michal Bobek & David Kosař, Global Solutions, Local Damages: A Critical Study in Judicial Councils in Central and Eastern Europe, 15 German Law Journal 1257 (2014) (positing that the adopition of the Judicial Council model in Central and Eastern Europe nations for the administration of courts has been unsuccessful, and proposing that for countries in transition incrimental reforms of courts would be well suited)
5. Audrey Macklin and Rainer Bauböck (editors), The Return of Banishment: Do the New Denationalisation Policies Weaken Citizenship? EUI Working Paper RSCAS 2015/14 (a collection of essays in which the authors analyse the ramifications of nation’s suspending citizenship entitlements of individuals suspected of acts of terror)

Elsewhere on the Web

1. Venkatesan­, Sonu Sardar v State of Chattisgarh, Law and Other Things
2. Oliver Windridge, A Watershed Case for African Human Rights: Mtikila and others v. Tanzania, Oxford Human Rights Hub
3. Editorial, Loopholes in political funds law, The Japan Times
4. Suhrith Parthasarthy, Secularism and the Freedom of Religion Reconsidered – Old Wine in New Bottles?-I, Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy
5. Christen Giannaros, Why Collection of Arrestee DNA Violates the Fourth Amendment, Jurist

Call for Papers

1. Koç University Law School, Boston College Law School and the International Society of Public Law invite submissions for a full-day workshop on unamendable constitutional provisions, to be held on the campus of Koç University Law School in Istanbul on Tuesday, June 9, 2015.
2. The American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law welcome submissions for their forthcoming issue. For being considered for publication, authors must submit their papers by the 6^th of March, 2015.
3. Papers are invited for the first issue of the Journal of Aging, Longevity, & the Law, which will focus on the topic of ‘adult guardianship.’ All papers must be submitted by the 10^th of March, 2015.
4. Entries are invited for a conference on ‘The Journey of Aging- the Law and Beyond’ to be held on the 12^th and 13^th of November, 2015 in Vancouver, Canada. Abstracts of papers must be submitted by the 1^st of May, 2015.
5. A call for papers has been issued by The International Journal of Human Rights for a special issue on the ‘Responsibility to Protect’. Articles, which should not exceed eight thousand words, are to be sent in by the 30^th of June, 2015.
6. The Canadian Women’s Studies Journal invites articles for its ‘Special Issue on Women’s Human Rights’. All articles must be submitted along with an abstract by the 15^th of July, 2015.