Month: January 2013
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The Greek Austerity Measures: Remedies Under International Law
— George Katrougalos, Professor of Public Law, Demokritus University, Greece (gkatr@otenet.gr) In a prior post, I argued that the Greek austerity measures violated various provisions of the Greek Constitution, as well as treaty commitments and other instruments embodied in international law.
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The Greek Austerity Measures: Violations of Socio-Economic Rights
—George Katrougalos, Professor of Public Law, Demokritus University, Greece (gkatr@otenet.gr) Recently, the European Committee of Social Rights (the supervisory body of the European Social Charter) delivered two decisions on collective complaints, condemning Greece for violation of articles 10 and 12 of the Charter because of its austerity legislation enacted in 2010.
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Of Pirates and Caymans: Lessons from the Privy Council for Interpretation of Hong Kong’s Basic Law
–Alvin Y. H. Cheung, Barrister-at-Law, Sir Oswald Cheung’s Chambers, Hong Kong At the ceremonial opening of the legal year of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (“HKSAR”) on 14 January 2013, Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma, Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen SC and Kumar Ramanathan SC, Chairman of the Bar Association, spoke at length about protecting the independence of the Judiciary.[1]
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75% Millionaire Tax Rate Ruled Unconstitutional: Are Good Judges Bad for Democracy?
—Arthur Dyevre, Max Planck Institute Just before the turn of the year, on December 29th, the French Constitutional Council overturned the socialist government’s 75% income-tax rate for the rich, a measure the new occupant of the Elysée Palace, François Hollande, had turned into an anti-rich symbol during his presidential campaign.
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A Theory of Informal Constitutional Change in International Organizations
— Julian Arato, J.D., LL.M., NYU School of Law My thanks to Tom Ginsburg, Richard Albert, and David Landau for the opportunity to talk about my work on informal constitutional change in international organizations (IO’s) – a process sometimes called constitutional transformation, by contrast to formal constitutional amendment.
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The First Haitian Constitution
—Richard Albert, Boston College Law School As we follow Haiti’s slow march toward democracy in the news, media reports often highlight that Haiti is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere and the world’s first independent black republic. Yet what is often if not always missing is this: Haiti adopted one of the first written national constitutions in the modern era.
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Announcement: European and National Constitutional Law Closing Conference
‘The European Constitution is best perceived as a composite Constitution, comprising constitutional rules and principles developed at European level, complemented by (common) national constitutional rules and principles as well as those from other sources such as the ECHR and international law.
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The UK 3 – British Christians 1
Lorenzo Zucca King’s College London British Christians are becoming increasingly more vocal about the presence of their faith in the workplace. Four of them brought cases all the way to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg (based on Article 9 and Article 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights) to claim the right to wear crosses on their uniforms (Eweida and Chaplin) as well as the right to be exempted from assisting homosexual people in the performance of part of their job (Ladele and McFarlane).
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Toward a New European Abortion Constitutionalism?
—Ruth Rubio Marin, European University Institute Modern constitutionalism, born at the end of the 18th century with the French and American Revolutions, is a historically grounded venture. At the time, women did not enjoy civil equality, their freedom being largely dependent on their marital status, nor political citizenship–female enfranchisement not becoming a widespread reality until well after the turn of the century.
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Fiji’s Continuing Constitutional Crisis
—Richard Albert, Boston College Law School In the latest twist in Fiji’s continuing constitutional crisis, the Fijian military government has rejected the new draft constitution proposed by the Constitution Commission. It is believed that the military rejected the draft constitution because the draft proposed dramatically to curb the powers of the military.