Blog of the International Journal of Constitutional Law

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Category: constitutional design

  • Right to Rebel in Venezuela

    This is the second country study in Tom Ginsburg and I’s ongoing project to identify the potential risks and rewards of a constitutional Right to Rebel – Venezuela has had 26 separate constitutions since independence and the most recent have included various justifications for a popular right to rebel.

  • New Hungary Constitution: New Opinions

    Our contributor Andrew Arato, along with other leading academics, submitted an amicus brief to the Venice Commission concerning the new Constitution of Hungary. It is in many ways a devastating critique of the new document on both substantive and procedural grounds.

  • Recent Commentary on the Proposed Amendments to the Egyptian Constitution

    Recently, Tom Ginsburg described in this blog some of the proposed constitutional amendments for the Egyptian Constitution and flagged Tamir Moustafa’s brief analysis of them in foreign policy. It is also worth drawing people’s attention to commentary by two other commentators with long experience watching Egyptian constitutional developments.

  • The Constitutional Right to Rebel – advice for Egypt?

    The ripple effects from Tunisia’s “Jasmine Revolution” are still making themselves felt throughout the Arab World. Earlier today, Egypt’s Mubarak stepped down after weathering large-scale protests and civil disobedience for over two weeks. Elsewhere in the region Lebanon, Algeria, Yemen, Jordan (and to a lesser extent Mauritania, Sudan, Syria, Libya, and Morocco) have also seen the citizenry rise up to demand democracy and increased self-governance.

  • Supreme Court Presidents: Administrative or Jurisprudential Influence?

    The justices of the Mexican Supreme Court (MSC) have just elected, as they do every four years, a new president. Whereas the President of the US Supreme Court can exert considerable jurisprudential influence (with, for instance, its power to assign cases to fellow justices), the president of the MSC wields considerable influence over the administration of the judiciary but very little on the actual court decisions.

  • Enacting Constitutionalism

    For readers who might be interested in a paper on the constitutional enactment of independent judicial institutions, may I suggest a paper just published entitled “Enacting Constitutionalism,” in which my coauthor and I focus on the political composition of the constituent body and its implications for the type of institutions enacted.

  • Renewing the Upper Chamber in Canada

    The Canadian Prime Minister has recently appointed a slate of five new Senators to the Upper Chamber. Two things are significant about this latest round of Senatorial appointments. First, the governing Conservative Party now holds a plurality of seats in the Senate after spending years in the wilderness of minority status.

  • Out with the old, in with the new

    The newly minted Supreme Court of the UK handed down its first decision this week, after coming to power on October 1, 2009. There is no doubt that Brits (and the rest of us) are still getting used to the idea of new branch of government in the UK.

  • Egypt’s New Chief Justice

    Over the summer a new chief justice was appointed to the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt (the SCC). The appointment of Farouk Sultan was controversial in Egypt. Justice Sultan does not have a distinguished judicial background and is widely thought to lack independence from the executive .

  • State Constitutionalism and the Comparative Project

    First, thanks to Zach Elkins and Tom Ginsburg, master scholars, impressarios of the great comparative constitutionalism project, and all-around good guys, for inviting me to guest blog on state constitutionalism and state con law. Second, by way of introduction, I am the Minerva House Drysdale Regents Chair in Law at the University of Texas, recently decamped from California, where I spent many happy years on the San Diego and Berkeley faculties.