What’s New in Public Law

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–Swapnil Tripathi, Attorney, India

In this weekly feature, I-CONnect publishes a curated reading list of developments in 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 public law blogosphere.

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

Developments in Constitutional Courts

1. The Constitutional Court of Burundi allowed former President Domitien Ndayizeye to contest in the Presidential election, due later this year.
2. The Supreme Court of Israel held that Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein must reconvene the Parliament and schedule a vote on naming his replacement.
3. The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom held that no further assistance should be given to authorities in the USA for the trial of two former British citizens accused of killing people for ISIS until the authorities give an assurance that the death penalty would not be imposed or if imposed, would not be carried out. Death penalty as a form of punishment has been abolished in the UK.
4. The United States Supreme Court ruled that Byron Allen (an African-American entrepreneur) had to meet a demanding standard (i.e. his race was a but-for cause of his injury) in his lawsuit filed against Comcast for allegedly discriminating against him on the grounds of his race by not carrying programming from his network.
5. The United States Supreme Court held that copyright holders cannot sue the states for copyright infringement. The case arose from a copyright infringement claim filed by Frederick Allen against the state of North Carolina for uploading his video and photos of the recovery of Queen Anne’s Revenge (a wrecked flagship vessel).

In the News

1. Chile has postponed the referendum on whether to overhaul its Constitution due to Coivd-19 contingency measures.
2. Federal Interior Minister of Germany banned the “United German Peoples and Tribes” organization, as well as its sub-group “Osnabruck Landmark” for its racist and anti-Semitic activities.
3. Citizens of Guinea vote in a referendum whether or not to adopt a new Constitution. According to the government, the standout feature of the proposed Constitution is that it will codify gender equality.
4. India declared a National Lockdown for 21 days to fight Covid-2019.
5. Uzbekistan passed legislation that grants citizenship to stateless persons within its borders, who had received permanent residency before 1 January 1995.

New Scholarship

1. Han-Ru Zhou, Legal Principles, Constitutional Principles, and Judicial Review, 67 American Journal of Comparative Law (2019)  (proposing a principle-based conception of judicial review of legislation in common law systems)
2. Mordechai Kremnitzer, Talya Steiner, Andrej Land (eds.), Proportionality in Action: Comparative and Empirical Perspectives on the Judicial Practice (2020) (providing an empirical and comparative exploration of the proportionality doctrine in case law of apex courts in  Germany, Canada, South Africa, Israel, Poland and India)
3. Randy E Bernett and Josh Blackman, An Introduction to Constitutional Law: 100 Supreme Court Cases Everyone Should Know, (2019) (exploring the development of the US constitutional law over the past two centuries)
4. Rebecca Schiel, Malcolm Langford and Bruce Wilson, Does it Matter: Constitutionalisation, Democratic Governance, and the Human Right to Water, 12 Water 350 (2020) (examining whether robust democratic governance is a determinant for ensuring that the constitutional recognition of the human right to water has concrete outcomes)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The African Disability Rights Yearbook (ADRY), published by Pretoria University Law Press, has invited submissions for the next issue in 2020. The deadline for submitting the manuscripts is 30 March 2020.
2. The International Association of Constitutional Law (IACL-AIDC) in association with the University of Melbourne invites submissions for a roundtable on the topic “Democracy 2020: Assessing Constitutional Decay, Breakdown and Renewal Worldwide,” to be held on 10-12 December 2020. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 1 May 2020.
3. The National Law School of India University, Bangalore invites submissions for its Indian Journal of Law & Technology (Volume 16). The last date for submissions is 15 April 2020.
4. The University of Ghent, Belgium has issued a Call for Papers for its International Conference titled “The European Convention on Human Rights turns 70: Taking Stock, Thinking Forward,” to be held on 18-20 November 2020. The submissions date is 15 April 2020.
5. The William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, invites submissions for a special issue of its Nevada Law Journal on “Race and Gender and Policing.” The last date for submission of abstracts is 5 May 2020.

Elsewhere Online

1. Brian Christopher Jones, The Widely Ignored and Underdeveloped Problem with Judicial Power, UKCLA blog
2. David R Cameron, After new ECB program and fiscal loosening, the EU needs joint action vs. pandemic, Yale MacMillan Centre
3. Gadi Taub, Israel’s Supreme Court Rigs the Game Again, Haaretz
4. Swapnil Tripathi, Do Ends Justify Means? Calcutta HC’s Expansive Reading Of Article 21 In Polish Student’s Case, Live Law
5. William Isdale, Dr Yunupingu’s claim for native title compensation – the Constitutional path not yet trodden, AUSPUBLAW
6. Kimberly Wehle, The Constitution will be in tatters if America holds no election this year, The Hill