What’s New in Public Law

–Sandeep Suresh, LL.M in Comparative Constitutional Law (Central European University, Budapest)

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 contact.iconnect@gmail.com.

Developments in Constitutional Courts

1. The Indian Supreme Court held that citizens have the right to access the Internet, and search engines must not encroach upon that right but must censor prenatal sex determination advertisements on the Internet according to the law.
2. The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany ruled that restrictions on gambling halls imposed by laws of three Laender are constitutional.
3. The Constitutional Court of Hungary annulled local regulations in Asotthalom village that banned muezzins operating in public areas, banned burkas and chadors, and also “propaganda activities that present marriage in other ways than the bond between a man and a woman.”
4. The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany rejected an appeal against the Germany’s data retention law.
5. The Constitutional Court of South Africa decides whether a non-confidence motion against President Jacob Zuma may be initiated through secret ballot.

In the News

1. Turkish people approved constitutional amendments in a referendum that will grant the President sweeping new powers.
2. The Hungarian National Assembly passed a law on higher education that constrains the operation of non-EU universities in the country. And while it is not specifically named, it has been widely noted that the legislation seems to target one institution in particular: The Central European University (CEU).
3. Justice Neil Gorsuch was sworn in as a judge of the US Supreme Court.
4. The Indian Supreme Court Collegium, the body responsible for recommending names for judicial appointments, recommended 51 candidates for appointments to 10 High Courts at once.
5. The Parliament of Egypt passed an amendment to the country’s emergency law to allow detention without warrants and for indefinite periods.
6. Nigeria is to deal with diverging versions of the Constitution in circulation.
7. Saldi Isra has been appointed to the Indonesian Constitutional Court. [Submitted by Rosa Ristawati.]

New Scholarship

1. Richard Albert, Constitutional Amendment and Dismemberment, 43 Yale Journal of International Law (forthcoming 2018) (introducing and theorizing the phenomenon, concept, doctrine and theory of constitutional dismemberment, a type of constitutional change situated between an amendment and a new constitution)
2. Karen J. Alter, National Perspectives on International Constitutional Review: Diverging Optics, in Erin Delaney and Rosalind Dixon (eds.), Comparative Judicial Review (forthcoming 2018) (discussing two diverging lenses which national judges use to approach international law and rulings of international courts)
3. Moshe Cohen-Eliya and Iddo Porat, The Administrative Origins of Constitutional Rights and Global Constitutionalism, in Mark Tushnet and Vicki Jackson (eds.), Proportionality: New Frontiers, New Challenges (forthcoming 2017) (explaining the difference in the development of constitutional and administrative law in the US and Europe, and the influence of that difference on the conception of constitutional law and rights)
4. Mark Elliott, The Supreme Court’s Judgment in Miller: In Search of Constitutional Principle, Cambridge Law Journal (2017) (critically examining the UK Supreme Court’s judgment in (Miller) v Secretary of State and exposing certain drawbacks of the majority judgment)
5. Asim Jusic, Mobilizing Around Religious Symbols: The European Court’s Margin of Appreciation between Consent, Mobilizations and Status, University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law (forthcoming 2017) (critically scrutinising the European Court of Human Rights’s use of the doctrine of margin of appreciation in cases involving controversial religious symbols)
6. Rebecca E. Lipman, Protecting Privacy with Fourth Amendment Use Restrictions, George Mason Law Review (forthcoming 2017) (offering a new, two-track approach based on doctrines of the fourth amendment to restrict certain uses of lawfully collected material by the Police authorities)
7. Anne Peters, Constitutionalisation (2017) (showing the various aspects of constitutionalisation of international law and international organisations)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The European Law Institute invites original unpublished papers for the “1st ELI European Young Lawyers Award.” The award winner will be eligible to present his or her paper at the ELI Annual Conference. Interested authors must submit their papers by April 30, 2017 to award@europeanlawinstitute.eu.
2. The Spring 2017 Issue of the ‘European Journal of Legal Studies’ has been released. The topics discussed in this issue include the Council of Europe Istanbul Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, the European Court of Justice’s interpretation of the fundamental right to conduct business, the cross-border portability of online content services in the EU, and empirical legal studies.
3. The Harvard Journal on Racial and Ethnic Justice invites submissions for a volume of “Race in Education.” Interested authors must send their papers to hjrejsubmissions@gmail.com. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis.
4. The Manchester Centre for Political Theory at the University of Manchester invites papers for presentation at the Workshop on “Change of Law in a Democratic State: Normative Foundations and Factual Processes,” to be held on September 11-13, 2017. Interested participants must submit abstracts of their papers before June 1, 2017 to michal.dru@gmail.com.
5. The CyberLaw Program at the Hebrew University and the Cyber, Law, and Policy Center at the Haifa University invites paper proposals for the Conference on “Cyber Challenges to International Human Rights.” The conference will held in Jerusalem and Haifa on December 11-12, 2017. Interested scholars must submit their proposals to hcsrcl@gmail.com by May 1, 2017.

Elsewhere Online

1. Giancarlo Anello, The Holy Word does not come strictly in Italian – Another Islamophobic Law stopped in Northern Italy, Verfassungsblog
2. Gautam Bhatia, What is the Role of a Judge in a Polyvocal Court?, Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy
3. Colin PA Jones, Japanese people v. the United States et al, Japan Times
4. KM Hayne, The ‘Great Repeal Bill’, UK Constitutional Law Blog
5. Alok P Kumar, No Democracy Without the Courts, Firstpost
6. Tarik Olcay, Turkey’s Presidentialist Shift: An Anticonstitutional Amendment?, Blog of the IACL, AIDC