What’s New in Public Law

–Monica Cappelletti, School of Law and Government, Dublin City University (DCU), Ireland

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 European Court of Human Rights rejected the Irish Government’s request to find torture in 1978 judgment against UK.
2. The European Court of Human Rights condemned Turkey of pre-trial detention of the journalists.
3. The Supreme Court of Canada set to decide whether long-term Canadian expats should be allowed to vote.
4. The Supreme Court of US ruled that a Texas death-row inmate deserves another chance at securing funds for evidence that might lead to a reconsideration of his sentence.
5. The Supreme Court of US will consider the extent of the federal government’s power to detain for deportation immigrants who have served time for criminal acts. The case will be heard in October.
6. The Supreme Court of Russia rejected encrypted messaging app Telegram’s appeal that sought to prevent the country’s Federal Security Service from gaining access to its encryption keys.
7. The Supreme Court of Spain decided to send 25 Catalan separatist leaders, including the former First Minister, Carles Puigdemont, to trial on charges of rebellion, contempt and misuse of public funds, the court confirmed in documents.
8. The Supreme Court of Israel issued a temporary injunction prohibiting a bank to provide banking services to bitcoin-related account.
9. The Austrian Constitutional Court ruled on the freedom to define one’s gender identity (third gender).
10. The Constitutional Court of Romania has partially admitted the immunity of constitutional judges.
11. The Constitutional Court of Romania ruled that the law for setting up a Hungarian-language high school was unconstitutional.

In the News

1. The Human Rights Council concluded general debate on the annual report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
2. The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers adopted 24 decisions concerning 15 member states at the end of its regular three-day meeting in Strasbourg, as well as one interim resolution related to the excessive length of legal proceedings in Hungary.
3. The Council of Europe adopted new guidelines on protection of human rights on line.
4. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights held hearing on implications of Mexico’s new internal security law.
5. A PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court of India challenging the practice of temporary marriages and polygamy under the Muslim personal law.
6. The Right Honourable the Baroness Brenda Hale of Richmond (Baroness Hale) and the Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, PC (Ms McLachlin) have been appointed as non-permanent judges from other common law jurisdictions of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal.
7. The Armenian parliament elected Hrayr Tovmasyan as head of Constitutional Court
8. The Catalan parliament failed to agree on the election of the new president.
9. The European Parliament would investigate the misuse of the personal data of millions of Facebook users by Cambridge Analytica.
10. The Chinese Parliament gave Premier Li Keqiang a second five-year term.
11. The Ukrainian Parliament is considering a bill that would require lawmakers to check their guns at the entrance.
12. The Israeli Parliament passed the first reading of a new legislation that would define Israel exclusively as “the nation-state of the Jewish people”.
13. The Peru President presented his resignation to Congress.
14. The UK Government is launching a cryptocurrency task force.
15. The Israeli Government would take legal action against Twitter for ignoring repeated requests to remove online content that was inciting or supportive of terrorism.

New Scholarship

1. Conor McCormick, Judicial Review of Administrative Action in the United Kingdom: The Status of Standards Between 1890 and 1910, (2018) 10(1) Italian Journal of Public Law (exploring the context, reach, types and frequency of judicial review in the UK from a historical perspective).
2. Sybe de Vries, Ulf Bernitz, Stephen Weatherill (eds.), The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights as a Binding Instrument. Five Years Old and Growing (2018) (providing a study of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights as a binding instrument in the last five years).
3. Caroline von Gall and Tímea Drinóczi (eds.), EU Rule-of-law enforcement – thematic issue of the Osteuropa-Recht (4/2017) (providing an analysis of the normative issues of the enforcement of the rule of law by the European Union and the Council of Europe in Hungary and Poland).
4. Catherine Dupré, The Age of Dignity. Human Rights and Constitutionalism in Europe (2018) (examining the connections among human dignity, human rights, constitutional law and democracy, and how human dignity’s varied and increasing uses point to a deep transformation of European constitutionalism).
5. Alan Greene, Permanent States of Emergency and the Rule of Law. Constitutions in an Age of Crisis (2018) (exploring the impact that oxymoronic ‘permanent’ states of emergency have on the validity and effectiveness of constitutional norms and, ultimately, constituent power).
6. Andrew Harding and Mark Sidel (eds.) Central-Local Relations in Asian Constitutional Systems (2018) (examining territorial governance in Asia in the context of central-local relations).
7. Ridwanul Hoque, Rule of Law in Bangladesh: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly? (2018), in Chowdhury Ishrak A. Siddiky (ed.), The Rule of Law in Developing Countries: The Case of Bangladesh (providing a comprehensive study of the Bangladeshi constitutionalism of human rights, judicial independence, and executive accountability).
8. Ridwanul Hoque, Inclusivity role of the judiciary in Bangladesh (2018), in Nizam Ahmed (ed.), Inclusive Governance in South Asia: Parliament, Judiciary, and Civil Service (analyzing the role of the Bangladeshi judiciary in ensuring inclusive constitutionalism, assessing three performance areas: social inclusion, participation of women, and the inclusion of the indigenous people).
9. Tamara Perišin and Siniša Rodin (eds.) The Transformation or Reconstitution of Europe. The Critical Legal Studies Perspective on the Role of the Courts in the European Union (2018) (examining he role of the Courts and the dialogue among national and European level through the lens of the American critical legal studies (CLS) perspective).
10. Lawrence Rosenthal, An Empirical Inquiry into the Use of Originalism: Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence During the Career of Justice Scalia (2018) (providing a study of originalism theory in the Fourth Amendment jurisprudence)
11. Maria Tzanakopoulou, Reclaiming Constitutionalism. Democracy, Power and the State (2018) (articulating an argument for why the constitutional phenomenon remains attached to the state – despite the recent advent of theories of global constitutionalism).

Call for Papers and Announcements

1. The School of Law in Trinity College Dublin invites applications from suitably qualified candidates for the Chair in Constitutional Governance (full professorship). The deadline for application is April 16, 2018.
2. The Faculty of Law and Political Sciences of the Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest welcomes applications for the Summer School in Corporate Social Responsibility in Legal, Economic and Moral Context on 25 June – 13 July 2018.
3. The Constitutionalists Association of Spain announces its XVI Annual Congress to be held in Malaga on 26-27 April 2018. Registrations are open.
4. The McGill University and the Research Group on Constitutional Studies invite submissions for the Fulbright Canada Research Chair in Political and Constitutional Theory, the visiting faculty fellowship 2019-2020. The deadline for submission is August 1, 2018.
5. The South Asian Journal of Law and Human Rights (SAJLHR) invites Articles, Short Notes, Book Reviews Case Commentaries and other such for its Volume 5 which will be published tentatively in June 2018. The deadline for paper submissions is May 5, 2018.
6. On the occasion of the 14th European Society of International Law (ESIL) Annual Conference in Manchester, the Interest Group (IG) on International Human Rights Law (IHRL) invites submissions for a pre-conference roundtable on ‘The Universality Challenge to Human Rights Law: a Sword, a Shield, or Neither?’. Abstract should be submitted before May 1, 2018.
7. The Northwestern University Law Review announces its first annual issue dedicated to empirical legal scholarship, to be published in spring 2019. The deadline for paper submission is Apr. 15, 2018.
8. The Institute of International and European Law of the University of Göttingen and the Minerva Center for Human Rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Faculty of Law welcomes submission of abstract by June 1, 2018 for the Unpacking Economic and Social Rights: International and Comparative Dimensions Conference.
9. The Government and Law Research Group of the University of Antwerp invites submission of abstract for the Law-Making in multi-level settings – federalism, Europe, and beyond Conference. The deadline for submission is April 9, 2018.
10. The Loyola University Chicago School of Law is organizing its Ninth Annual Constitutional Law Colloquium and welcomes abstract submission by June 18, 2018.
11. The University of Cincinnati organizes the Transatlantic Approaches to Racial Equality Conference on April 12-13, 2018.

Elsewhere Online

1. David R. Cameron, Putin landslide in “pseudo-competitive” Russian presidential election, Yale Macmillan Centre
2. Pieter Cannoot, New Belgian Gender Recognition Act: shouldn’t self-determination also include non-binary people?, Blog of the IACL, AIDC
3. Paul Craig, European Union (Withdrawal) Bill: Legal Status and Effect of Retained Law, UK Constitutional Law Association Blog
4. Ming-Sung Kuo, ‘The Place of the Constitution Is Empty’: Chinese Political Aesthetics of Commanding Constitutional Faith, Verfassungsblog
5. Sara Lembrechts, K. v. Greece – Implementing children’s rights in legal proceedings following an international parental abduction, Strasbourg Observers
6. Nicola McEwen, A Continuing Source of Disagreement, Centre on Constitutional Change Blog
7. Michael O’Boyle, Can the ECtHR provide an effective remedy following the coup d’état and declaration of emergency in Turkey?, EJIL: Talk!
8. Ronan Ó Fathaigh and Dirk Voorhoof, Conviction for performance-art protest at war memorial did not violate Article 10, Strasbourg Observers
9. Steve Peers, Citizens’ Rights after Brexit: A Personal Perspective, EU Law Analysis Blog
10. Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang, A Constitutional Court Silencing its Critics, Verfassungsblog
11. Sam Wice, How House Republicans Could Allow President Trump to Make Recess Appointments, Yale Journal of Regulation Blog