What’s New in Public Law

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—Mikołaj Wolanin, Master’s student, University of Warsaw (Poland)

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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. 94.85% – this is the percentage of votes received by Brice Oligui Nguema during the 2025 presidential election in Gabon. The constitutional court now confirmed his triumph.
2. The president of Slovenia issued a public call for two Constitutional Court justices positions. Now, anyone eliglible may apply.
3. Neither sexual orientation nor gender-based hate speech will be prosecuted in Poland for now. The President has sent a bill regulating this to the Constitutional Tribunal in a preventive mode.
4. “A hidden agenda behind the proceedings” was found in one of the Ukrainian anti-corruption criminal cases by the European Court of Human Rights.
5. The statutory amnesty for crimes commited during anti-goverment demonstrations was not lifted by the top court of Senegal.

In the News

1. Bill on the restoration of constitutional order in the Polish judiciary was presented to the Venice Commission by the Polish Minister of Justice.
2. Governor Kelly Armstrong (North Dakota) vetoed a state bill censoring books in the libraries. It was “a misguided attempt to legislate morality through overreach and censorship” – he said.
3. A total fine of 700 millions EUR was imposed by the European Commission on Apple and Meta due to their breach of the Digital Markets Act.
4. Harvard University has filed a lawsuit against Trump Administration on the funding matters.
5. April 28^th is the day of the Canadian federal elections.

New Scholarship

1. R. Bellamy, J. King, The Cambridge Handbook of Constitutional Theory, Cambridge University Press, 2025.
2. R. Dixon, Responsive Judicial Review. Democracy and Dysfunction in the Modern Age, Oxford University Press, 2025.
3. D. Cueni, Basic rights and costs in political value: The expressive point of the two-step framework, “International Journal of Constitutional Law”, online first.
4. D. Moeckli, Beyond the Reach of the People? Admissibility Requirements and Procedures for Citizens’ Initiatives in Comparative Perspective, “European Constitutional Law Review”, online first.
5. G. Tsebelis, Changing the Rules. Constitutional Amendments in Democracies, Cambridge University Press, 2025.

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The 2026 World Congress of Constitutional Law opened its call for abstracts. Its first phase is now accepting the abstract up to the end of September.
2. 32nd ANZSIL Annual Conference planned for July 2025 opened its registration.
3. The University of Ferrara welcomes now the submissions for the XXII Conference of Young Scholars of International Legal Studies on the theme of the principle of good faith. The call is open up to the June 22^nd 2025.
4. “Envisioning the Future of Human Right: Strengthening Human Rights Through Empowerment and Solidarity” is the topic of the December 2025’s IACL Roundtable that will take place in Tokyo. Applications are open up to the end of May.
5. Brno (Czech Republic) will be hosting the 2025 Argumentation Conference concerning the alternative methods of the legal argumentation. Submissions of the abstracts may be done by July 31^st.

Elsewhere Online

1. Multiple authors, Blog symposium: “Expanding Human Rights Protection to Non-Human Subjects? African, Inter-American and European Perspectives”, EJIL:Talk!.
2. R. Maruste, Narrowing the Estonian Electorate. Excluding Russian Citizens from Local Elections Amid Security Concerns, Verfassungsblog.
3. M. Domin, Current proposals to amend the Constitution of the Slovak Republic: constitutional amendment as a political tool?, IACl-AIDC Blog.
4. S. Gupta, Back to Binary Basics. The UK Supreme Court Cuts Across Both Parliamentary Intent and Human Rights in For Woman Scotland, Verfassungsblog.
5. K.J. Heller, The Appeals Chamber Decides Israel’s Appeals — And Refuses to Suspend the Arrest Warrants, OpinioJuris.