South African President Jacob Zuma has nominated the most conservative Justice on the South African Constitutional Court to be Chief Justice. Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng unfortunately has a troubling record to lead a Court that is supposed to bring about transformation in the nation. He issued a decision as a lower court judge that substantially removed
South African Professor of Law Pierre de Vos has an excellent blog posting on a frightening piece of legislation there seeking to ensure many South African government-connected institutions classify or prevent the release of documents that have even the most tangential relationship to national security. http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/let-me-tell-you-a-secret/ Unfortunately, this is just another example of the South
This post addresses two very distinct but interesting issues. ECUADOR: First, there is a fascinating article in the New York Times regarding the problems with Ecuador’s legal system. It deals with Chevron’s attempt to resist enforcement of a large judgment by attacking the nation’s legal system. Without addressing Chevron’s underlying conduct, what is especially troubling
Two significant conflicts are taking place that implicate the South African Constitution. First, as the New York Times reported yesterday, one of the African National Congress’ most important young leaders is on trial for engaging in hate speech: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/world/africa/01southafrica.html Julius Malema used the term “Shoot the Boer” from an Apartheid protest song. My understanding is
A French chess player, and two confederates, have been found guilty of cheating at the recent world chess olympiad in a scheme that involved use of the Internet, use of a very strong computer chess program, use of a cell phone, as well as coded signals by the team captain (based on where he stood
I am about to spend a month teaching comparative constitutional rights at the Univ. Paris II Institute for Comparative Law and have been reading a lot of material related to French constitutional law, as well as about French attitudes towards U.S. constitutional law. I thought I would highlight some great new books. First, Professor Martin
President Mubarak has announced he will step down, supposedly in accordance with constitutional procedures in September. http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/02/01/egypt.protests/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1 Many protesters, however, find this to be inadequate. Meanwhile some opposition figures assert they will help develop a drafting process for a new constitution. For a provocative recent paper discussing the disadvantages of group drafting of a constitution
In November, the people of the State of Iowa voted not to retain three of their seven Supreme Court Justices. Nothing like this had ever happened before. The result received national and international attention, given the real dangers that the vote poses to separation of powers and an independent judiciary. The vote was largely caused
During my visit to South Africa in October, I heard a speech on separation of powers by the Chief Justice of their Constitutional Court, Sandile Ngcobo. The speech was at the University of Stellenbosch Law Faculty. Justice Ngcobo gave a very interesting and scholarly view of differing theories of separations of powers as applicable in
Over at Balkinization, Jason Mazzone discusses the need for more diversity on the U.S. Supreme Court. The concept of diversity can be viewed in several ways of course. It has been argued that the U.S. needs Justices from more varied law schools, that there should be more racial diversity on the Court, that the Justices
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