What’s New in Comparative Public Law

–Rohan Alva, Advocate, India

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. By a majority of 8 to 3, the Brazilian Supreme Court declared unconstitutional electoral laws, which permitted corporate entities to donate money to political parties in Brazil.
2. The Indian Supreme Court declined from interfering with a Bombay High Court’s decision, which had declared that the sale of meat could not be prohibited in Mumbai on account of a religious occasion.
3. In Canada, the Federal Court of Appeal decided that during the citizenship oath ceremony, women could not be disallowed from wearing ‘face-covering veils’.
4. In Oklahoma, U.S.A., the Oklahoma Appeals Court halted the execution of Richard Glossip after being presented with ‘new evidence’ which the Court deemed fit for further scrutiny. Recently, in the U.S. Supreme Court, Richard Glossip had unsuccessfully challenged a ‘drug combination’ used in the administration of the lethal injection.
5. The Indian Supreme Court suspended the operation of a state law, which stipulated that candidates in the Panchayat elections must possess a level of educational qualification.

In the News 

1. In Japan, the nation’s Parliament passed into a law a bill that will permit Japanese military personnel to engage in combat in other nations.
2. In Zimbabwe, nine new justices were formally appointed to the Zimbabwean Constitutional Court. The appointment of new justices is expected to reduce the pendency of cases in the Constitutional Court.
3. In Pakistan, the Standing Committee on Information Technology in the National Assembly approved the ‘Cyber Crimes Bill 2015’. Many members of the Assembly complained that their criticism of the bill was not considered and that certain clauses in the bill grant wide powers to investigative agencies.
4. In Egypt, 15 ministers took the oath to office, and who will now serve in President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s new cabinet.
5. Nepal formally adopted the nation’s new Constitution. The Constituent Assembly had by a vote count of 507 to 25 formally agreed upon the Constitution.

New Scholarship

1. Giacomo Delledonne & Julio Pinheiro Faro Homem de Siqueira (eds), The Tangled Complexity of the EU Constitutional Process: A Symposium, (10 Panóptica, 2015) (an international symposium examining Giuseppe Martinico’s book ‘The Tangled Complexity of the EU Constitutional Process’)
2. Fritz Edward Siregar, The Political Context Of Judicial Review In Indonesia (2015 Indonesia Law Review 208-237) (assessing the development of the Indonesian Constitutional Court’s powers in the context of the surrounding political factors)
3. Laurence R. Helfer, Sub-Regional Courts in Africa: Litigating the Hybrid Right to Freedom of Movement (iCourts Working Papers Series, No. 32, 2015) (critically evaluating the jurisprudence of the East African Court of Justice, Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States, and Tribunal of the Southern African Development Community in respect of the ‘right to freedom of movement’)
4. Simon N.M. Young, Judicial Review of Elections in Hong Kong: Resolving a Contradiction (in Po Jen Yap ed., Judicial Review of Elections in Asia, 2016, forthcoming) (evaluating the divergence in the approach of the courts in Hong Kong to election related issues)
5. Stefanus Hendrianto, The Rise and Fall of Heroic Chief Justices: Constitutional Politics and Judicial Leadership in Indonesia (Washington International Law Journal, 2016, forthcoming) (examining the tenure of four former Chief Justices upon the development of the Indonesian Constitutional Court’s ‘judicial power’)

Call for Papers /Events

1. Entries are invited for a workshop on ‘Animals in Comparative Constitutional Law’, which is to be held on the 18^th of February, 2016 at Harvard Law School. Abstracts of papers must be sent in by the 15^th of October, 2015.
2. Papers are invited for the ‘International Legal Ethics Conference VII’ that will be held at Fordham Law School from the 14^th to the 16^th of July, 2016. Papers will be considered on a rolling basis till the 1^st of April, 2016.
3. Interested participants are invited to submit papers for the ‘XV International Conference of Medieval Canon Law’, which will be held from the 17^th to the 23^rd of July, 2016 at University Panthéon-Assas (Paris II), Paris. Proposals should be sent in by the 30^th of September, 2015.
4. The Center for the Study of Work, Labor, & Democracy, University of California, Santa Barbara, will be hosting a conference on ‘Beyond the New Deal Order’ from the 24^th to the 26^th of September, 2015.
5. Michael Freeman, Emeritus Professor of English Law at UCL, will deliver the ‘Hamlyn Lectures, 2015’ on the topic of ‘A Magna Carta for Children: Rethinking Children’s Rights’.
6. The University of Brasilia Law School, Boston College Law School, Macquarie Law School, and the International Society of Public Law invite submissions for a two-day Symposium on constitutional amendment and replacement in Latin America, to be held on the campus of the University of Brasilia Law School on September 29-30, 2016.
7. The Younger Comparativists Committee of the American Society of Comparative Law invites submissions for the Fifth Annual YCC Global Conference, to be held on March 18-19, 2016, at Tulane University Law School in New Orleans, Louisiana.
8. TheNew Zealand Centre for Public Law at Victoria University of Wellington, Faculty Law, Boston College Law School, and The International Society of Public Law (ICON·S) invite submissions for a two-day symposium on quasi-constitutionality and constitutional statutes, to be held on the Pipitea campus of Victoria University of Wellington, Faculty of Law (Old Government Buildings) on Thursday & Friday, May 19-20, 2016.
9. Kabarak University School of Law, Boston College Law School and the International Society of Public Law invite submissions for a two-day Symposium on Constitutional Change and Transformation in Africa, to be held on the campus of Kabarak University in Nakuru on Thursday and Friday, June 9-10, 2016.

Elsewhere on the Internet

1. Charles Haviland, Why is Nepal’s new constitution controversial? BBC
2. John Fabian Witt, Stephen Breyer’s ‘The Court and the World’, New York Times
3. Fadzai Madzingira, Employee Rights in Zimbabwe: The Contrasting Approaches of the Constitutional Court and Executive in Response to Nyamande and Another v Zuva Petroleum, Oxford Human Rights Hub
4. Steve Peers, EU citizens’ access to benefits: the CJEU clarifies the position of former workers, EU Law Analysis
5. Lyle Denniston, Apple to appeal its e-book antitrust defeat, SCOTUS Blog