It’s been a tough week for the German government. It was handed defeats by the constitutional court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) in two separate cases touching on the government’s authority to withhold information from parliament.In 2006, the German parliament — on an initiative by opposition parties — constituted a parliamentary commission to investigate allegations that the German government
The Lawrence of India (Pt 2) (the Supreme Court Sequel)
In a recent post (7/5/09), I reported and commented on the decision of the Delhi High Court in NAZ Foundation v. Government of NCT of Delhi & Ors, reading down 377 of the Indian Criminal Code, so as to apply only to “nonconsensual penile non-vaginal sex and penile non-vaginal sex involving minors” – a decision
Honduras: When Constitutions Collide?
The constitutional fracas in Honduras is attracting a good deal of attention from comparative constitutional scholars, and deservedly so. One aspect of the entire mess that appears to have largely escaped attention–but raises a number of important questions with ramifications far beyond Honduras itself–is the relationship between domestic and supranational constitutional law. Articles 19 through
Will the Bolivian Constitutional Tribunal Rise From the Ashes?
During the first days of June 2009 the last member of the Bolivian Constitutional Tribunal (BCT), Silvia Salame Farjat, resigned. Judge Salame was the only active member of the BCT since November 2007, because the other four members of the Tribunal had either resigned (some under the threat of impeachment) or left when their ten
Honduras: The Relevant Provisions
The discussion of Honduras’ constitutional crisis has focused on the military coup removing President Zelaya and installing a replacement. The coup raises intriguing issues concerning the Constitution of 1982 and its attempt to avoid the problem of extending the executive term beyond constitutional limitations. As we have frequently written about on this site, executive “overstay”
The Lawrence of India?
In Lawrence, when Justice Kennedy surveyed practices regarding the criminalization of sodomy in comparable democracies, a notable omission from his analysis was India: it was clearly an outlier, compared to other major “free” constitutional democracies, in continuing to criminalize sodomy in 2004. This week, in NAZ Foundation v. Government of NCT of Delhi & Ors,
