What’s New in Public Law

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–Maja Sahadžić, Assistant Professor and Research Fellow (University of Antwerp) and Senior Research Fellow (Law Institute in Sarajevo)

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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 Colombia ruled that public land cannot be appropriated due to domain prescription.  
2. The Constitutional Court of South Korea ruled against the annulment of existing marriages between closer cousins.
3. The Constitutional Court of Taiwan found the process for Indigenous recognition unconstitutional.
4. The Constitutional Court of Slovakia ruled that one of the upcoming referendum questions violates the constitution.
5. The Constitutional Court of Thailand dissolved Thairaktham Party.
6. The Constitutional Court of Costa Rica annulled a health order that closed Parque Viva.
7. The Constitutional Court of Malta dismissed an appeal against repeated denial of bail.
8. The Constitutional Court of Belgium decided that private companies can fire employees without hearing a defense.

In the News

1. The president of Turkey proposed a referendum on the right to wear a headscarf.
2. The Greek Council of State ruled that the university police is constitutional.
3. Brazil’s electoral authority approved rules to curb online political disinformation.
4. The President of the Central African Republic ordered the removal of a top judge from the Constitutional Court.
5. The Dutch Parliament voted to establish a special tribunal for Russian crimes against Ukraine in The Hague.
6. Pakistan ex-Prime Minister barred from office.
7. Russian court upheld the 9-year prison sentence for WNBA star.

New Scholarship

1. Brian Christopher Jones, Surprisingly (Un)Inspiring Judicial Decisions: Lochner, Brown, Roe and Others, Illinois Law Review Online (forthcoming 2022)(examining whether landmark judicial decisions can influence voter turnout).
2. Joseph Marko, Maximilian Lakitsch, Franz Winter, Wolfgang Weirer, and Kerstin Wonisch, Religious Diversity, State, and Law, National, Transnational and International Challenges (2022) (revisiting basic concepts, structures and institutional settings such as sovereignty, the separation of state, church and/or religion, human and minority rights, gender and religion, varieties of fundamentalisms, interreligious dialogue and peacebuilding, and religious education).
3. Yael R. Kaplan, Tamir Sheafer, and Shaul R. Shenhav, Do we have something in common? Understanding national identities through a metanarrative analysis 28(4) Nations and Nationalism (analyzing constitution preambles of 159 countries to assess each nation’s metanarrative and create a global identity orientation map).
4. Justin Chun-ting Ho, Understanding Hong Kong nationalism: A topic network approach 28(4) Nations and Nationalism (drawing on data from Facebook, examining how elements of nationalism discourse were invoked by political actors to advance their agenda).
5. Erika Arban (ed.), Cities in Federal Constitutional Theory (2022) (redressing the neglect of cities as constitutional players in theoretical discussions in constitutional law and federalism theory).
6. Omer Kimhi, Itai Beeri, and Yaniv Reingewertz, The Political Economy of Local Governments’ Requests for Permission to Override Central Fiscal Limitations: Insights from Israel 52(4) Publius (discussing the limited use of Permission to Override mechanism and its shortcomings and drawing conclusions from the Israeli case study).

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. Örebro University organizes the second webinar series on the legal and political culture of the Nordic countries as the context of constitutional reasoning to be held Online. Registrations are required.
2. U.S.-Asia Institute organizes the international conference „Toward A Human Right to Claim Innocence“ to be held Online on 2-4 November 2022. Registration is required.
3. The Faculty of Law of the University of Zagreb, the Croatian Academy of Legal Sciences and the Croatian Association for Legal and Social Philosophy and Theory of Law and the State organize the international scientific conference and the presentation of the book „Ethnic Diversity, Plural Democracy and Human Dignity: Challenges to the European Union and Western Balkans“ to be held on 4 November 2022 in Zagreb and Online.
4. Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law at the Faculty of Law and Justice, the Australian Association of Constitutional Law, and Federation Press organize a conference on constitutional law to discuss important developments in the High Court, Federal Court and state courts to be held in Sydney and Online on 10 February 2023. Registration is required.  
5. The Department of Legal Studies of CEU and the ESIL Interest Group on Social Sciences and International Law announce the call for papers for the Conference „The Aesthetics of International Law“ to be held in Vienna on 12-13 May 2023.
6. The European Society of International Law organizes the annual conference „Is International Law Fair?“ to be held in Aix-en-Provence on 31 August-2 September 2023. The deadline for submissions is 31 January 2023.
7. The new Journal of American Constitutional History welcomes submissions of articles, essays, and shorter pieces from scholars in law, history, political science and beyond. For questions, please contact the Journal’s Editor-in-Chief, David Schwartz, at editor-jach@law.wisc.edu.

Elsewhere Online

1. Sergii Masol, Orwellian Rulings of the Russian Constitutional Court on the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia Provinces of Ukraine, EJIL: Talk!
2. Francesco Palermo, From conflict to procedures: Taming independence referendums, Eureka!
3. Rebecca Nelson, Multi-level governance and the environment in the pandemic era, Eureka!
4. Benjamin Nurkić and Faris Hasanović, Christian Schmidt’s Stabilitocracy, A rather terrible decision by the High Representative, Verfassungsblog
5. Shpetim Bajrami and Katia Hamman, Normative Power Through Protest, How can International Law respond to the human rights violations in Iran?, Verfassungsblog
6. Kim Lane Scheppele, Gábor Mészáros, and Petra Bárd, Useless and Maybe Unconstitutional, Hungary’s Proposed Judicial Review of the Prosecutorial Decisions, Verfassungsblog
7. Iain Hardie, The SNP’s Currency Proposals, Centre on Constitutional Change
8. Ben Whitlock, The Dominion of Scotland: Does Britain’s imperial history provide a way forward for modern Scotland?, Centre on Constitutional Change
9. Dexter Govan, Braverman’s New World, The Constitution Society
10. The newest articles in the International Journal of Parliamentary Studies are now available online in advance access.