What’s New in Public Law

–Simon Drugda, Nagoya University Graduate School of Law (Japan)

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 lifted immunity and suspended a sitting constitutional court judge who had become embroiled in a bribery scandal.
2. The Zambian Constitutional Court struck an affidavit filed by its own registrar stating that the court did not have space to keep ballot papers, after the main opposition party filed a petition with the Constitutional Court challenging the election results; the Zambian government in the meantime suspended the inauguration of re-elected President Edgar Lungu.
3. The Namibian Supreme Court abolished adultery as a ground on which damages against someone interfering in a marital relationship can be claimed.
4. The South African Constitutional Court warned the government and the legislature not to waste time in amending laws found unconstitutional.
5. The Indonesian Constitutional Court will hear a challenge to regional election laws requiring incumbent lawmakers running for re-election to take leave during the campaign period.
6. The French Council of State overturned the ban on full-body “burkini” swimsuits in Cannes [article in French].
7. The Supreme Court of India entertained another petition challenging the constitutional validity of triple talaq mode of divorce.
8. The Honduran Supreme Court Supreme Court invalidated a constitutional ban on presidential reelection.
9. The Supreme Court of Argentina blocked economic reforms because the government had failed to consult the public.
10. Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court recused the panel reviewing an appeal against annulment of the Egyptian-Saudi maritime border demarcation accord.
11. The Peruvian Constitutional Court ordered the government to distribute contraceptive pills nationwide for free, overruling its prior judgment that banned the state health system delivery of oral emergency contraceptive in 2009.

In the News 

1. Brazil’s Senate began the impeachment trial of suspended President Dilma Rousseff, presided over by the country’s Supreme Court Chief Justice.
2. Congolese opposition parties went on strike to demand that President Joseph Kabila step down when his constitutional mandate expires in December.
3. Bosnia’s President requested the Constitutional Court to halt a vote planned by Bosnian Serbs on whether to continue marking their national day on an Orthodox Christian holiday, a date the court previously ruled as discriminatory to non-Serbs.
4. Kenya’s Senate failed to vote on a constitutional amendment bill on gender balance among its MPs.
5. FARC set a permanent cease-fire under Colombia Peace Deal.

New Scholarship

1. Rehan Abeyratne, Upholding Judicial Supremacy in India: The NJAC Judgment in Comparative Perspective, George Washington International Law Review (forthcoming 2016) (examining the Indian Supreme Court NJAC judgment in comparative perspective)
2. Thorvaldur Gylfason, Chain of Legitimacy: Constitution Making in Iceland (2016) (examining Islandic constitutional revision processes since 2009, and the implications of the 2012 constitutional referendum)
3. Stephen G.A. Pitel and Nicholas S. Rafferty, Conflict of Laws (2016) (examining the rules of the conflict of laws in force in common law Canada)
4. Colin P.A. Jones, Legitimacy-Based Discrimination and the Development of the Judicial Power in Japan as Seen Through Two Supreme Court Cases, University of Pennsylvania East Asian Law Review (2016) (arguing that the Japanese Supreme Court subtly expands the scope of its judicial power, in an analysis of two family law cases)
5. Yvonne Tew, On the Uneven Road to Constitutional Redemption: The Malaysian Judiciary and Constitutional Politics, 25 Washington International Law Journal (forthcoming 2016) (exploring the Malaysian judiciary’s approach toward interpreting the Federal Constitution in the context of the nation’s political and constitutional history)
6. Marc Hertogh and Marina Kurkchiyan, “When Politics Comes into Play, Law is No Longer Law”: Images of Collective Legal Consciousness in the UK, Poland and Bulgaria, International Journal of Law in Context (forthcoming 2016) (examining the idea of a common European legal culture by exploring its foundational component, “collective legal consciousness,” in three EU states: the UK, Poland, and Bulgaria)
7. Arno Tausch, The Civic Culture of the Arab World: A Comparative Analysis Based on World Values Survey Data, Middle East Review of International Affairs (2016) (estimating the development of civil society in the Arab World by using comparative opinion survey data based on the author’s evaluation of the World Values Survey)

Calls for Papers

1. The Hungarian Academy of Sciences invites applications for up to two Fulbright positions in constitutional studies for the academic year 2017/18. The deadline for applications is September 12, 2016.
2. The National Law School of India Review (NLSIR) is now accepting submissions for its upcoming issue. The deadline for submissions to Volume 29(1) is November 1, 2016.
3. The International IDEA issued a call for applications for the position of a program manager at its Myanmar Constitution Centre – MyConstitution, in Yangon.
4. The University of Bristol Law School issued a call for papers for an international workshop on “Democracy Beyond Elections: Empowering Citizens, Strengthening Participation” to be held at the University of Bristol on March 17-18, 2017. The deadline for submission of abstracts is September 30, 2016.
5. The Law and Society Association announced its theme for the 2017 meeting, which will be “Walls, Borders, and Bridges: Law and Society in an Inter-Connected World.” The meeting will take place in Mexico City, on June 20-23, 2017. The deadline for proposal submission is October 18, 2016.

Elsewhere Online

1. Surabhi Chopra, Taming India’s militant military, Nikkei Asian Review
2. Surabhi Chopra, Judging the soldiers: Confronting extrajudicial killing on India’s borders, South Asia @LSE
3. Luke Beck, Marriage Equality/Inequality, Religion and the Constitution, AUSPUBLAW
4. Tony Blackshield, Void or Vacant? The Vibes of Vardon, AUSPUBLAW
5. Tomasz Tadeusz Koncewicz, Polish Constitutional Tribunal goes down with dignity, Verfassungsblog
6. Thomas Hochmann, Islam on the Beach – The Burkini Ban in France, Verfassungsblog
7. William Partlett and Tatiana Khramova, Analysis: Interpretation and the Impossibility of Implementation in Russian Prisoner Voting, Blog of the IACL, AIDC
8. Colin P.A. Jones, Japan fumbles for the legal path to an ‘Emprexit’, The Japan Times
9. Lucianna Thuo, Is the two-thirds gender rule discourse engendering double invisibility in public life for other vulnerable groups in Kenya?, Oxford Human Rights Hub
10. Haji Ali Dargah, Bombay High Court Upholds Women’s Right to Access the Inner Sanctum, Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy
11. Upendra Baxi, Managing mistrust, The Indian Express
12. Anne Marlborough, Irish constitutional debate on abortion and the resort to Citizens’ Assemblies, ConstitutionNet
13. Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, The Greece constitutional reform process: Towards direct democracy and secularism?, ConstitutionNet