What’s New in Public Law

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—Vini Singh, Assistant Professor & Doctoral Research Scholar, National Law University Jodhpur, India.

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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 Constitutional Court of Thailand upheld a law that states marriage can only be contracted between a man and a woman.
2. The Constitutional Court of Albania will review the dismissal of the President in June 2021.
3. The Constitutional Court of Colombia will vote on the decriminalisation of abortion.
4. The Supreme Court of India set aside the lower court’s ruling that skin to skin contact is essential for a sexual offence.
5. The Supreme Court of India cautioned against the abuse of public interest litigation.
6. The Constitutional Court of Ecuador held a hearing in the Indigenous Cofan territory of Singanoe.

In the News

1. Prime Minister Narendra Modi announces the repeal of three contentious farm laws.
2. US Congress punishes Congressman Paul Gosar over a violent clip.
3. Members of Parliament in the UK back raising the minimum marriage age to 18 to protect children.
4. Greece suspends espionage trial of 24 aid workers.
5. India is likely to get the first openly gay person as a judge of a constitutional court.

New Scholarship

1. Nikolas Bowie, Antidemocracy, 135 Harv. L. Rev. 160 (2021) (analysing the anti-democratic potential of the decision of the US Supreme Court in Cedar Point)
2. Giuliano Amato, Benedetta Barbisan and Cesare Pinelli, Rule of Law vs Majoritarian Democracy (2021)(exploring the framework within which the tension between the rule of law and majoritarian democracy takes place on four key themes)
3. Rainer Grote, Mariela Morales Antoniazzi, and Davide Paris, Research Handbook on Compliance in International Human Rights Law (2021) (offering an in-depth examination of the most significant factors affecting compliance with international human rights law, focusing in particular on the relationships between regional human rights courts and domestic actors)
4. Raymond Wacks, The Rule of Law Under Fire? (2021) (examining the risks posed to the rule of law by the rise of populism, authoritarianism and nationalism and suggesting strategies for their effective management)
5. Shruti Bedi, The Contestation Between the Right to be Forgotten and Freedom of Expression: Constitutional Silences and Missed Opportunities, 6 Comparative Constitutional Law & Administrative Law Journal 1 (2021) (highlighting the importance of striking a balance between the right to privacy and freedom of speech and expression and suggesting that both rights can coexist in the context of the right to be forgotten)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law is currently soliciting applications for up to three postdoctoral fellows under its Global Academic Fellows program. Applications close January 3, 2022.
2. American University Washington College of Law’s Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law invites JD/law students from around the world to register as teams in the 2022 Inter-American Human Rights Moot Court Competition to be held in an offline mode on May 23-27, 2022.
3. The Criminal and Constitutional Law Journal invites submissions for its upcoming volume. The deadline for submissions is December 31, 2021.
4. ANU Law and the Centre for International and Public Law invite registrations for an international conference on the theme of Public Law and Inequality on February 16-18, 2022. The conference will be held in a hybrid format.
5. All are welcome to an online workshop on Getting Published in Public Law on Wednesday 8th December from 3-5pm, hosted by the Public Law Section of the Society of Legal Scholars and the British-Irish Chapter of ICON-S.

Elsewhere Online

1. Maja Sahadžić, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Constitutional Crisis: Is this time different?, Centre on Constitutional Change.  
2. Dominique Custos, Some food for comparative thinking on the disclosure of reasons for administrative action: Using comparative lenses to examine the French law of giving reasons, British Association of Comparative Law (BACL) Blog.   
3. Anmol Jain, Judicial Review of Legislative Process – Analysing Calcutta High Court’s Decision in Ambika Roy, Indconlawphil.
4. Karolina Kocemba, Towards Gilead, Verfassungsblog.
5. Lasse Schuldt, In Singapore’s war on fake news, the Constitution is not an obstacle, Verfassungsblog.
6. Melissa Crouch, Feminisation of the Judiciary between Thick and Thin: Women as Model Minority Judges in Indonesia, IACL – AIDC blog.