Month: October 2010
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Time-bar restrictions held to be reasonable and justifiable limitation of the right of access to court
In Road Accident Fund and Another v Mdeyide (CCT 10/10) [2010] ZACC 18 (30 September 2010) the South African Constitutional Court upheld an appeal against the high court’s declaration that the time-bar provision contained in the legislation regulating the affairs of the Road Accident Fund was unconstitutional.
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South African Constitutional Court Building
I spent the last few weeks giving lectures at several South African law faculties on socio-economic rights issues, and on my book “Constitutional Rights in Two Worlds: South Africa and the United States.” I will write several posts about what I learned from my South African colleagues.
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Constitutional Restrictions on the Freedom of Testation in South Africa
The Supreme Court of Appeal in South Africa in The Curators Ad Litem To Certain Potential Beneficiaries of the Emma Smith Educational Fund v The University of Kwa Zulu Natal [2010] ZASCA 136 (1st October 2010) dismissed an appeal against a judgment that set aside a racially restrictive clause limiting the beneficiaries of the Emma Smith Educational Fund to white women.
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Courting Trouble in Pakistan: the Next Chapter
The tug-of-war between the Supreme Court of Pakistan and that country’s executive continues. In 2007 Pervez Musharraf sacked the court’s chief justice and two associate justices for openly opposing the erstwhile dictator’s seizure of emergency powers. Within hours of the dismissal throngs of lawyers had taken to the streets in protest, exacerbating the crisis and precipitating Musharraf’s own fall and the restoration of Pakistani democracy.
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Call for Papers from African Network of Constitutional Lawyers
The African Network of Constitutional Lawyers has issued a call for papers for its annual conference, to be held in Rabat, Morocco 2 – 5 February 2011. The theme this year is “The Internationalization of Constitutional Law” From the call: “Constitutional law has always been subject to multiple foreign and international influences but the process has accelerated over the past two or three decades.
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American Miranda Rights in Canada
In a judgment that is certain to breed controversy, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled yesterday that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms “does not mandate the presence of defence counsel throughout a custodial interrogation” (R. v. Sinclair, 2010 SCC 35, para.
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War on Drugs and Due Process in Mexico
A few days ago, a federal judge in Mexico ordered the release of a group of local government officials from the state of Michoacán (some of them elected, others appointed) that the office of the Mexican Attorney General (Procurador General in Spanish) accused of having links with the organized crime.
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Comparative Originalism
Thank you to Tom for noting my book review! I did want to add one thing: The issue of how the courts of other countries interpret their constitutions is relatively understudied. There is a good book with single-country studies from 2007 edited by Jeffrey Goldsworthy (Monash University, Australia).
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Book review of Making Our Democracy Work
Our colleague David Fontana of George Washington University has a book review of Justice Stephen Breyer’s new book here. An excerpt: “It is hard to understand Breyer’s approach to the Constitution without first considering the alternative that he is responding to, conventionally called originalism.
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General elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina reveal ethnic frustrations
The latest general elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, held on 3 October 2010, exemplify just how troubling the ethno-democratic Constitution of the country is. This is particularly visible in the election of the members of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.