What’s New in Public Law

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—Mohamed Abdelaal, Assistant Professor, Alexandria University Faculty of Law

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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 Italy declared Criminal Code Provision on Child Abduction Unconstitutional.
2. The Constitutional Court of South Africa denied the application of an opposition party challenging the Disaster Management Act.
3. The US Supreme Court ruled that states cannot ban public funding for religious schools.
4. The Constitutional Court of Costa Rica found that freedom of transit is not unlimited.
5. The Constitutional Court of Kosovo annulled the 2019 Law on salaries.

In the News

1. In Russia, proposed constitutional amendments were approved in a referendum.
2. In Georgia, a bill on constitutional amendments to the electoral system was adopted.
3. The Armenian President refused to sign further amendments to the constitution about the composition of the Constitutional Court.
4. The US approved new sanctions after China passed a repressive security law.
5. In Egypt, a new law has been ratified to govern legislative elections and the formation of the Senate.

New Scholarship

1. Akhilesh Dubey, Legislating Fake News-Drawing Line Between Free Speech and Disinformation (2020) (discusses the challenges faced by fake news and disinformation disseminated through social media platforms in India)
2. Christine A. Desan and Nadav Orian Peer, The Constitution and the Fed after the COVID-19 Crisis (2020) (reconstructing the traditional ways of thinking that distinguished money creation by the Fed from the congressional power of the purse)
3. Gregory M. Collins, Commerce and Manners in Edmund Burke’s Political Economy (2020) (providing an analysis to the Commerce and Manners in Edmund Burke’s Political Economy that raises timely ethical questions about capitalism and its limits)
4. Joanna Bell, The Anatomy of Administrative Law (2020) (seeking to further our understanding of the nature of administrative law doctrine and adjudication)
5. Joshua Kastenberg, National Security And Judicial Ethics: The Exception To The Rule Of Keeping Judicial Conduct Judicial And The Politicization Of The Judiciary, 22 Elon Law Journal (2020) (incorporating original research from the personal correspondences of several judges and justices)
6. Mehdi J. Hakimi, Elusive Justice: Reflections on the Tenth Anniversary of Afghanistan’s Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women, 18 Northwestern Journal of Human Rights (2020) (examining Afghanistan’s legal framework on combating gender-based violence against women, and the mounting challenges on the ground)
7. Grainne De Burca, The Mutual Judicial Influence of National Courts and the European Court of Justice through the Preliminary Rulings mechanism: Evidence from the UK (2020) (examining 113 preliminary references made by the higher English courts over ten years to understand the extent to which the British courts have implemented rulings of the CJEU’s and the extent to which the interpretations proposed by the UK courts influenced the CJEU in return)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. Starting next week: the online course on Judging in Times of Crisis: Conversations with High Court Judges around the World, featuring Supreme and Constitutional Court judges from Brazil, Canada, the Caribbean, Italy, Portugal, South Africa, and Taiwan.
2. Chicago Journal of International Law (CJIL) invites comparative law articles for publication.
3. The Law Review Anthology (TLRA) welcomes submissions for its new volume.
4. Legal Corner (LC) Law Review calls for unpublished research papers, short notes, book reviews, case comments.
5. The Shimla Law Review seeks submissions for its upcoming volume.
6. The Comparative Constitutional Law and Administrative Law Quarterly invites submissions for its upcoming volume.

Elsewhere Online

1. David R. Cameron, Civil War politics finally ends in Irish parliament: Fianna Fáil & Fine Gael form coalition, Yale MacMillan Center
2. Isaac Ssemakadde, Ugandan electoral commission’s digital campaign order is unconstitutional, ConstitutionNet
3. Liên H. Payne, Law Firms Need to Have Uncomfortable Conversations About Race, American Lawyer
4. Thomas F. Cotter, Disgorgement as an Equitable Remedy, Comparative Patent Remedies
5. Johannes Socher, Farewell to the European Constitutional Tradition The 2020 Russian Constitutional Amendments, Verfassungsblog