What’s New in Public Law

–Angélique Devaux, Cheuvreux Notaires, Paris, France; Diplômée notaire, LL.M. Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law

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 Connecticut’s Supreme Court ruled that the State’s educational funding formula is constitutional because it does not violate the equal protection provisions of the Connecticut Constitution.
2. A federal appeals court in California ruled that sex for sale is not a constitutional right.
3. British Columbia’s Supreme Court ruled that the Canadian federal law of solitary confinement is unconstitutional.
4. A Florida court ruled an abortion waiting period unconstitutional.
5. The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka confirmed that presidential term is only for five years.
6. The European Court of Justice ruled that same-sex spouses have the same rights of residency as opposite-sex couples.

In the News

1. Polish Supreme Court Justices denounced the government’s judicial reforms as unconstitutional.
2. The Supreme Court of India agreed to re-examine the law that criminalized sex between persons of the same-sex.
3. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) Representative on Freedom of the Media, Harlem Désir, calls Turkish authorities to ensure the Turkish Constitutional Court decision will be implemented and that the journalists will be released.
4. The Supreme Court of Iraq decided to establish a federal council to supervise provisions passed by Parliament.
5. The U.S. Department of Justice introduced new immigration court policies to reduce the caseload in immigration courts.
6. The Philippines voted to convene the chamber as a constitutional assembly.
7. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide legality of President Donald Trump’s rules on travel to the United States.
8. The French Constitutional Court struck down a legislative provision prohibiting access to websites that support terrorism.

New Scholarship

1. Katalin Kelemen, The Hungarian Constitutional Court and the concept of National Constitutional Identity, Ianus – Diritto e finanza, no. 15-16/2017, pp. 23-33 (discussing a December 2016 Hungarian Constitutional Court judgment on Hungarian state sovereignty and constitutional self-identity in a comparative perspective)
2. Yaniv Roznai and Leticia Regina Camargo Kreuz, Conventionality Control and Amendment 95/2016 – A Brazilian Case of Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendment, Direitos Fundamentais na Nova Ordem Mundial (Ana Cláudia Santano, Emerson Gabardo and Bruno M. Lorenzetto eds., Editora Ithala, 2018 forthcoming) (analyzing the compatibility of Amendment 95 of December 2016 to the Brazilian Constitution with the ‘stone clauses’ of the constitution)
3. Thomas H. Lee, Natural Born Citizen, American University Law Review, Vol 67, No. 237, 2017 (analyzing Article II of the U.S. Constitution regarding presidential eligibility)
4. Antal Berkes, The Court of Justice of the European Union As an Institutional Model for the African Court of Justice and Human Rights, in Loïc Cadiet, Burkhard Hess, Marta Requejo Isidro (eds.), Approaches to Procedural Law: The Pluralism of Methods (Studies of the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law, no. 9), Nomos, 2017 forthcoming (comparing the African Court of Justice and Human Rights, the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights on procedural law)
5. Kevin R. Reitz, American Exceptionalism in Crime and Punishment, Oxford University Press (2017) (exploring American exceptionalism in crime and punishment through comparative political, economic, and historical analyses)
6. Rebecca J. Scott, Leonardo Augosto de Andrade Barbosa & Carlos Henrique Borlido Haddad, How Does the Law Put a Historical Analogy to Work?: Defining the Imposition of “A Condition Analogous to That of a Slave” in Modern Brazil, 13 Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy 1 (2017) (analyzing the term of “slave-labor”in Brazilian law)
7. Wojciech Sadurski, How Democracy Dies (in Poland): A Case Study of Anti-Constitutional Populist Backsliding, (detailing the political and legal changes occurring in Poland after 2015 elections)

Calls for Papers and announcements

1. The Academia Brasileira de Direito Internacional calls for papers for the 16th Brazilian Congress of International Law, to be held on August 22-25, 2018, in Foz do Iguaçu, under the sponsorship of the Universidade Federal da Integração Latino-Americanaand the Univerisdade de Sao Paulo.
2. The University of Rennes and the University of Paris Descartes, Paris, France call for papers for a conference to be held on April 4, 2018 and October 9, 2018 in Rennes and Paris, France. The topic is “French law versus Common law au XIXe siècle. La naissance d’une concurrence entre modeles juridiques.”
3. The Faculty of Law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong calls for papers for a conference on Teaching and Learning in Law – “Directions in Legal Education 2018” to be held on June 1-2, 2018.
4. Global constitutionalism in partnership with Pluricourts calls for papers for a workshop in the field of global constitutionalism to be held in Berlin Social Science Center on 4-6 July 2018.
5. The University of Birmingham calls for papers for the Conference European Law & Policy in Context – The Future of European Law & Policy VI to be held in Birmingham on June 28-29, 2018.
6. Papers are invited for a conference on Challenges to EU law and Governance in the Member States, to be held at the European University Institute Florence on 8 June 2018.

Elsewhere Online

1. Pierre De Vos, The Constitution and Land Expropriation: How Would It Work? Daily Maverick
2. Christophe Ingrain et Rémi Lorrain, Des doutes légitimes sur la constitutionnalité du délit de favoritisme, Dalloz Actualités [Article in French]
3. Ruthann Robson, SCOTUS to Hear Trump v. Hawai’I on Travel Ban 3.0, Constitutional Law Prof Blog
4. Katrien Verhesschen, POMFR: Challenges in the Field of Economic and Financial Crime in Europe and the US, European Law Blog
5. Sebastien Platon, 30 days, six months, … forever? Border control and the French Council of State, Verfassungsblog
6. Jenny Gesley, Germany: University Admission Rules for Medical Studies Partially Unconstitutional, Library of Congress
7. Sidharth Chauhan, A Cathartic Episode For The Higher Judiciary In India, Live Law India