What’s New in Public Law

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—Irina Criveț, PhD Candidate Public Law, Koç University

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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. On October 25, 2023, the Turkish Constitutional Court ruled that MP Can Atalay’s rights were violated, ordering his release, but the Court of Cassation upheld his conviction, stating that the offense predated his parliamentary status revealing a conflict between the courts.
2. Alabama’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of executing convicted murderer Kenneth Eugene Smith using nitrogen gas, making him the first to face this method in the US, following the court’s approval and the state attorney general’s intent expressed in court filings.
3. The UK Supreme Court will review the refusal to stop prosecutions against two Dublin women accused of defying COVID-19 quarantine orders after returning from Dubai, citing important public issues in their legal challenge over the delegation of quarantine powers to the Health Minister.
4. The US Supreme Court will review two conflicting decisions from U.S. Courts of Appeals over the legality of the ban, namely whether the bump stock can be classified as a machine gun and therefore banned under the National Firearms Act and Gun Control Act. The US Supreme Court will discuss whether a law that stops people from having guns when they have a restraining order due to domestic violence is allowed.
5. South Korea’s Constitutional Court has upheld a provision in the Military Criminal Act prohibiting same-sex activity among soldiers, leading to up to two years in prison.

In the News

1. Serbia’s President, Aleksandar Vučić, dissolved the parliament, calling early elections amidst global challenges and internal strife.
2. The chief justice of Indonesia’s Constitutional Court, Joko Widodo, faces potential guilt for enabling the president’s son’s candidacy, sparking controversy over the court’s decision and alleged political dynasty concerns.
3. The Supreme Court of Canada might have the first majority-female Supreme Court following the nomination of Mary Moreau.
4. President Emmanuel Macron proposed an amendment to enshrine the right to abortion in France’s constitution, in response to fears arising from restrictions on abortion rights in the United States, despite the existing widespread support for abortion in France.
5. The Algerian parliament unanimously authorized President Abdelmadjid Tebboune to support Palestine in its conflict with Israel, following Yemen’s declaration of war on Israel, as several other Arab and non-Arab nations express solidarity with Palestine.

New Scholarship

1. Nakul Nayak, Constitutional Morality: An Indian Framework, American Journal of Comparative Law (examining constitutional morality from the lens of its intellectual history, how Indian courts have interpreted its meaning, and its implications for India’s constitutional and political system)
2. Aysel Küçüksu, Proactive Prevention: Denmark’s Domestic Practices of Human Rights Compliance (delving into Denmark’s proactive domestic human rights prevention practices, contrasting its negative international press with leading ECtHR compliance statistics and highlighting the limitations of solely relying on compliance data)
3. Ezgi Yildiz, Between Forbearance and Audacity The European Court of Human Rights and the Norm against Torture (examining the international courts’ use of strategic approaches for survival and resilience, examining 2,300 European Court of Human Rights judgments from 1967–2016 to analyze how these strategies shaped the anti-torture norm and changed its contents over time. Through a blend of social science and legal methods, the study makes a significant contribution to debates about international courts, norms, and legal change in public international law and international relations)
4. Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco, When Moral Principles Meet the Normative or Deliberative Stance of Judges: The Layers of Common Good Constitutionalism (introduces a new constitutional theory, proposing a middle ground between progressive and originalist constitutionalism, emphasizing the role of the common good and rational governance)
5. Snjólaug Árnadóttir, International Obligations Calling for Constitutional Protection of the Right to a Healthy Environment An Icelandic Perspective (explores the rise of a universal right to a healthy environment, noting the widespread recognition of this right through international treaties and UN General Assembly resolutions)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The University of Liverpool’s School of Law and Social Justice, in collaboration with the Liverpool Public Law Unit, is organizing a one-day symposium on unwritten constitutionalism on January 23, 2024. The symposium aims to address the limitations of written constitutions in controlling authoritarianism, political disengagement, and weaknesses in political accountability. Topics for submissions include the written/unwritten distinction, non-legal enforcement of constitutional norms, parliamentary sovereignty, the role of common law, institutional dynamics, and performative aspects of unwritten constitutionalism. The submission deadline is November 15, 2023.
2. The Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law at UNSW, the Public Law and Policy Research Unit at the University of Adelaide, the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law at Monash University, and the School of Law at Western Sydney University organise the Public Law in the Classroom Workshop 2024 on Thursday, February 8, 2024. The organisers call for contributions from public law teachers, and particularly early-career public law teachers and sessional academics. The panels will be made up of short presentations between 5-7 minutes. The submission deadline for abstracts is Sunday November 12,  2023.
3. The Australasian Society of Legal Philosophy’s Essay Competition invites early career scholars to submit original research in legal theory and philosophy. The contest aims to foster scholarly work by offering a cash prize of AU$1,000 and up to AU$500 toward attending the Society’s annual conference to present the winning essay. It’s open to postgraduate students across disciplines, excluding those already holding a first degree in one field and pursuing a Juris Doctor. Entries, limited to 15,000 words in English, should focus on legal theory or the philosophy of law. The deadline for submission of essays is ending on December 31, 2023.
4. The Journal of Human Rights Practice welcomes proposals for special collections on priority themes in the field of study.  A special collection is a group of articles, policy and practices notes or other innovative formats, such as interviews, edited by guest editor(s) under a common theme. Proposals for special collections can be submitted between 1 February 2023 and 14 June 2023.
5. The Abolition Feminism for Ending Sexual Violence Collective is hosting an online seminar by Eliana Cusato and Emily Jones on ‘The ‘Imbroglio’ of Ecocide: A Political Economic Analysis’ on December 11, 2023. Interested participants are invited to register at the following link, here.

Elsewhere Online

1. Neil Laurie, Removing the watchdog’s bark: Crime and Corruption Commission v Carne, AUSPUBLAW
2. Lorenzo Acconciamessa, When Should ECtHR Proceedings Become ‘Horizontal’? The Issue of the ‘Interested’ Third Party in A.S. and M.S. v. Italy, EJIL:Talk!
3. Adriana García Gómez, Climate justice, health, and sexual and reproductive rights, Open Global Rights
4. Betül Durmuş, Judicial Stereotypes on Female Sexuality and Reproduction: Nurcan Bayraktar v Türkiye, Strasbourg Observers
5. Joe Tomlinson, Eleana Kasoulide, Jed Meers & Simon Halliday: Targeted case reviews: a legitimate compliance exercise or a scandal in the making? UK Constitutional Law Blog
6. Justin Winchester, Thubakgale: Bringing Home the Right to Adequate Housing Against a Recalcitrant Municipality, Oxford Human Rights Hub
7. Eleonora Bottini, Guest Editor’s Introduction: Constitutional Landmark Judgments in Europe, IACL-AIDC Blog
8. Catarina Santos Botelho & Marta Vicente, Not a ‘Usual Suspect’, but Definitely Noteworthy: The Portuguese Constitutional Court and its Landmarks, IACL-AIDC Blog
9. Dániel Karsai, The Right To Die Like The Trees: Standing, Verfassungsblog
10. Joseph Blocher & Reva Siegel, Gun Rights and Domestic Violence in Rahimi—Whose Traditions Does the Second Amendment Protect?, Balkinization
11. João Vitor Cardoso, Transnational Constitutional Dialogues: Searching for New Songs of Freedom, I-CONnect Blog
12. Mihir Rajamane & Deeksha Viswanathan, The Supreme Court’s Equal Marriage Judgment – IV: Between Gendered and Neutral Approaches – Untying the Bench’s Self-Made Knots, Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy