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 Supreme Court of India ruled that the Constitution guarantees the right to dress, eat and love and that must be protected by the judiciary.
2. The Constitutional Court of Germany ruled unconstitutional the current property tax regime because the assessment violates the fundamental right to equal treatment.
3. The Supreme Court of Pakistan ruled on requirement for Parliament’s elections.
4. The Trinidad and Tobago Constitutional Court ruled buggery law unconstitutional.
5. Massachusetts’s Supreme Judicial Court refused to block Exxon climate fraud investigation.

In the News

1. Ivory Coast inaugurated its first Senate.
2. The Constitutional Court of Spain denied a second appeal for Jordi Sanchez, Catalan political activist.
3. The UK government will challenge Scotland’s Brexit Bill in Supreme Court.
4. France signed protocol number 16 to the European Convention of Human Rights thus bringing the instrument into force within the member States.
5. The Constitutional Court of Jordan and the Supreme Court of Egypt signed a Memorandum of Understanding to enhance cooperation in accordance with the laws and regulations of the countries.

New Scholarship

1. Three handbooks on “The Right to Liberty and Security”, “Freedom of Expression” and “Freedom of Assembly and Association” were published under the Joint Project of the European Union and the Council of Europe on “Supporting the Individual Application to the Constitutional Court in Turkey”.
2. Elisa Arcioni, We, What People? Constitutional identity in Australia, This Century’s Review, Vol. 2, 34-36, 2017 (examining the link between constitution and the nation through the example of the Australian Constitution)
3. John Vlahoplus, Natural Born Citizen: A Response to Thomas H. Lee, American University Law Review Forum (Forthcoming), (Responding and disputing Thomas H. Lee’s conclusion)
4. Luke Beck, Religious Freedom and the Australian Constitution: Origins and Future, Routledge 2018, (examining the origins of Australia’s constitutional religious freedom provision) (20% discount code FLR40)
5. Francesco Palermo, Karl Kossler, Comparative federalism, Constitutional Arrangements and Case Law, Hart Publishing 2017, (exploring the subject of federalism from the perspective of comparative constitutional law)
6. Mark Elliott, Jack Williams, Alison L Young, The UK Constitution after Miller Brexit and Beyond, Hart Publishing 2018 (evaluating the decision in Miller, providing a detailed analysis of the reasoning in the judgment and its longer-term consequences for the UK constitution through the period of Brexit and beyond

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The Centre de Droit Public Compare, University of Paris II – Pantheon-Assas will hold a seminar on Internationalization of Administrative Law (L’internationalisation du droit administratif) in Paris on May 24-26, 2018
2. The Chinese Journal of Comparative Law (Oxford University Press) and the School of Law of Xi’an Jiaotong University call for papers for the inaugural Conference on Comparative Law: The Past, Present and Future to be held on June 9-10, 2018 in Xi’an, China.
3. The Faculty of Law, Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic calls for papers for a Qualitative Research in Law Conference which will be held on October 26, 2018.
4. The Wisconsin Law Review is seeking topic proposals for its annual symposium issue. The symposium will be held on September 28, 2018, and the call for topic proposals closes on May 5, 2018.
5. The Australian National University‘s Centre for Law, Arts & Humanities and its Centre for Arab & Islamic Studies call for papers for a symposium entitled After the Rule: Interpretation in Comparative and Cross-Cultural Perspective to be held on Friday, September 21, 2018.

Elsewhere Online

1. Tom Daly, An African Judicial Network: Building Community, Delivering Justice (Final Report December 2017)
2. Maxime St-Hilaire, De nombreuses infractions pénales provinciales seraient-elles invalides? Blogue a qui de droit
3. Koen de Winter and Michaël De Vroey, Belgium: Constitutional Court allows third-party opposition against arbitral awards, Lexology.com
4. Adam Liptak, Supreme Court Rules on Terrorism, Whistle-Blowers and Prisoners, The New York Times
5. Oday Talal Mahmood, Toward the Effective Judicial Review in Iraq, Jurist.org
6. Maja Sahadzic, Constitutional Asymmetry as a tool to manage diversity, 50 shades of federalism
7. Brian Christopher Jones, Wightman and How Not to Advance the Law, UK Constitutional Law Association Blog
8. Ruthann Robson, District Judge Holds Transgender Military Ban Subject to Strict Scrutiny, Constitutional Prof Blog