What’s New in Public Law

—Yacine Ben Chaabane Mousli, Research Assistant, Institut Michel Villey, Panthéon-Assas University

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. By stating that the Congress, not the States, is responsible for enforcing Section 3, the Supreme Court of the United States declares former President Donald Trump eligible for next presidential elections.
2. The Constitutional Council of Senegal ordered that presidential elections must take place on March 31st, after deeming its postponement unconstitutional.
3. For the first time, the Court of Justice of the European Union recognises that women, as a whole, can be regarded as belonging to a social group and qualify for refugee status.
4. The Supreme Court of India decides that Members of Parliament and Members of Legislative Assembly cannot claim immunity from prosecution in cases of bribery for votes or speeches in the House.
5. The European Court of Human Rights considers the threat of dismissal by a public employer for having referred a case to the Court violates the European Convention.

In the News

1. French Congress approves the inclusion of the freedom to have an abortion in the Constitution, despite an unclear scope.
2. On International Women’s rights day, Ireland is set to vote in a constitutional referendum about the “women at home” provisions.
3. The Congress of Peru approves a constitutional reform reintroducing bicameralism, diverging from the 2019 referendum which had voted against it.
4. After changing the Constitution in 2022, the Tunisian President Kais Saied declared that presidential elections will take place in compliance with new eligibility criteria.
5. South Africa submitted a new urgent request for the indication of additional provisional measures before the International Court of Justice in its case concerning the genocide convention, requesting measures to allow humanitarian assistance.

New Scholarship

1. Eugenia Artabe and Alex Badas, Measuring the Countermajoritarian Nature of Supreme Court Decisions, (Suggesting the Supreme Court rarely engages in substantial countermajoritarianism and finding that it is more countermajoritarian when it is more institutionalized and has less ideological diversity.)
2. Pablo Castillo-Ortiz, Judicial Governance and Democracy in Europe, (Open access, analyzing the relationship between mechanisms for judicial governance and democracy through an interdisciplinary perspective).
3. Jeremy Kessler, Law and Historical Materialism, (promoting historical materialism as a viable framework for left-leaning legal thought.)
4. Michael Sevel, Historical Origins of Raz’s Legal Philosophy, (Describing the complex historical origins of Joseph Raz’s legal philosophy.)
5. Michael S. Smith, History as Precedent: Common Law Reasoning in Historical Investigation, (Discussing implications of the Supreme Court’s treatment of history as precedent).
6. Judicial Power, the last edition of the review Jus Politicum (in French).

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. Applications are open for a Workshop on Constitutional Interpretation in Emergencies in Europe.
2. The French Society for Philosophy and Legal Theory welcomes proposals for papers and workshops for its third conference in Strasbourg (deadline is March 31st).
3. The ICON·S Austrian chapter organizes its first conference about “Public Law & Cities” (Call for papers open until April 15th).
4. The ICON·S Italian chapter opened its call for papers and panels for its fifth conference on “The State of Transitions”.
5. The Michel Villey Institute hosts a roundtable with Julian Jackson about the Pétain trials.
6. Applications are open for Philipp Dann’s Masterclass on “Colonial Legacies in Public Law” at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany.

Elsewhere Online

1. Carolina Cerda Guzman and Ximena Insunza, Constitutional Status of Animals in Chile’s Draft Constitutions of 2022 and 2023: Two Contrasting Approaches, IACL-AIDC Blog.
2. Peter Doran, The Rights of Nature Are The Rights of Ireland – Towards a constitutional referendum like no other, Chemins Publics.
3. Melina Girardi Fachin and Estefânia Maria de Queiroz Barboza, The Rise of Feminist Constitutionalism, Symposium on Feminist Constitutionalism.
4. Jules Lepoutre, Some Doubts about the Constitutional Plan to Abolish the Birthright in Mayotte, JusPoliticum Blog (in French).
5. Pablo Riberi, Pandemocracy in Latin America: Revisiting the Political and Constitution Dimension of the Pandemic, interview about the new edited collection.
6. Misogyny and the Law, Broken Law podcast with Julie Suk.
7. The Brooklyn Law School deeply mourns the loss of Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus Larry Solan.