What’s New in Public Law

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–Maja Sahadžić, Visiting Professor and Research Fellow (University of Antwerp)

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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 iconnecteditors@gmail.com.

Developments in Constitutional Courts

1. The Supreme Court of Nepal delivered a historic judgment on the House of Representatives dissolution.
2. The Constitutional Court of Turkey ruled that a lengthy interim injunction violated a citizen’s right to property.
3. The Constitutional Court of France approved a Covid pass that limits access to public areas to people who have not been vaccinated or tested negative for the coronavirus.
4. The Supreme Court of India upheld an arbitration order effectively blocking the multibillion Reliance-Future acquisition deal.
5. The Constitutional Court of Angola validated the constitutional revision.
6. The Constitutional Court of South Africa reserved a judgment in an application by the Women’s Legal Centre on the recognition of Muslim marriages under South African law.
7. The Supreme Court of the United States of America blocked a part of the state’s eviction moratorium that bars landlords from evicting certain tenants in the midst of the pandemic.

In the News

1. The interviews for the South African Constitutional Court vacancies carried out earlier this year will be held again in October after a successful application from civil society.
2. The upper house of the Indian parliament approved The Taxation Laws Amendment Bill to end all retrospective taxation.
3. The government of the United States of America issued an executive order blocking the property of individuals contributing to the authoritarian regime in Belarus.
4. The Polish Parliament passed a controversial media bill.
5. The sitting of the Australian Parliament is postponed after the nation’s capital was plunged into a lockdown.
6. The Members of the Ugandan Parliament who have not been vaccinated against the coronavirus will not be allowed to attend parliament sessions.

New Scholarship

1. Patricia Popelier, Bjorn Kleizen, Carolyn Declerck, Monika Glavina, and Wouter Van Dooren, Health crisis measures and standards for fair decision-making: a normative and empirical-based account of the interplay between science, politics and courts European journal of risk regulation (examining, in the light of the COVID-19 crisis, the room for judicial oversight of health crisis measures based on the public’s expectations of how governments should act in the interplay with experts).
2. Mariano Croce and Frederik Swennen, Cont(r)actualisation: a politics of transformative legal recognition of adult unions 30(2) Social and Legal Studies (explores a new legal recognition model that emphasises the transformative potential of people’s use of family law).
3. Eva Maria Belser, Thea Bächler, Sandra Egli, and Lawrence Zünd (eds.), The Principle of Equality in Diverse States, Reconciling Autonomy with Equal Rights and Opportunities (2021) (examining different approaches by which states characterised by federal or decentralized arrangements reconcile equality and autonomy).
4. Ali Dayioğlu and Mustafa Çirakli, Turkish Nationalism and the Cyprus Question: Change, Continuity and Implications for Engagement with Northern Cyprus 20(4) Ethnopolitics (exploring the change and continuity in the Turkish policy toward Cyprus since the de facto partition of the island in 1974).
5. Brian Christopher Jones (ed.), Democracy and Rule of Law in China’s Shadow (2021) (providing detailed insight into some of the most contentious events occurring in jurisdictions operating within China’s vast shadow).

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The Institutum Iurisprudentiae Academia Sinica accepts papers for the 9th Asian Constitutional Law Forum to be held in Taipei on 13-14 May 2022.
2. The Institutum Iurisprudentiae Academia Sinica organizes an online book talk on “Hate Speech in Japan—The Possibility of a Non-Regulatory Approach” to be held online at 13:00 UTC on 1 October 2021.
3. California State University Channel Islands announces a vacancy for a new faculty position in Constitutional Law. The deadline for applications is 20 September 2021.
4. The IFIM Law School organizes the research colloquium “Business and Human Rights” on 23 October 2021.
5. The Conference Committee of the International Initiative organization for Human Rights (IIOHR) invites participants to the International Human Rights Conference “Elimination Violence Against Women & Children, Human Trafficking and Child Abuse” to be held in Massachusetts on 21-24 September 2021.
6. The College of Law & Business and the Law & Ethics of Human Rights Journal organize the symposium “Crowdsourcing and the Decline of the Individual”. The deadline for abstracts is 2 September 2021.

Elsewhere Online

1. Martina Trettel, Democratic innovations against climate change: the French Citizens’ Convention on Climate, Eureka!
2. Wojciech Sadurski, The Disciplinary Chamber May Go – but the Rotten System will Stay, Verfassungsblog
3. Emilio Peluso Neder Meyer and João Andrade Neto, Courts are Finally Standing up to Bolsonaro, Verfassungsblog
4. Lindsay F. Wiley and Steve Vladeck, Why Carefully Designed Public Vaccination Mandates Can—and Should—Withstand Constitutional Challenge, lawfareblog
5. Eya Jrad, Constitutional or Unconstitutional: Is That the Question?, Arab Reform Initiative
6. Rosalind English, Poland’s disciplinary chamber for judges threatens rule of law – ECJ, UK Human Rights Blog
7. Jason Marczak and Wazim Mowla, Cuba’s protests have ebbed. But the forces that fueled them are as powerful as ever, Atlantic Council
8. Alison L Young, Judicial Review of Policies – Clarification or Judicial Retreat?, UK Constitutional Law Blog