—Michaela Hailbronner, University of Münster, Germany, and David Landau, Florida State University College of Law This mini-symposium is a joint project between the editors of the Verfassungsblog and the editors of I-Connect. We have brought together a number of prominent scholars, working on different issues, approaches, and regions of the world, and invite contributions by others,
The “C word”: Democratic Decay and the New Frontiers of Comparative Law (I-CONnect Column)
—Tom Gerald Daly, Fellow, Melbourne Law School; Associate Director, Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law [Editor’s note: This is one of our biweekly I-CONnect columns. Columns, while scholarly in accordance with the tone of the blog and about the same length as a normal blog post, are a bit more “op-ed” in nature than standard posts.
Abusive Judicial Activism and Judicial Independence in Brazil
—Juliano Zaiden Benvindo, University of Brasília When delivering his speech at the Brazilian Supreme Court on December 5 on “Public Ethics and Democracy,” Michael Sandel, Professor at Harvard University, could not foresee what was about to happen that very day just some floors above the conference room. Amid a rich debate on the role of
Abusive Impeachment? Brazilian Political Turmoil and the Judicialization of Mega-Politics
—Juliano Zaiden Benvindo, University of Brasília In 2007, Aníbal Pérez-Liñán, an Argentinian professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh, wrote that “impeachments are likely when the mass media systematically investigate and expose political scandals and when the president fails to keep tight control over Congress… When a broad social coalition takes the street
On Abusive Constitutionalism: Two Critical Impulses
—Jorge González-Jácome, Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia The relationship between constitutionalism and authoritarianism is not simple. Some might argue that they are opposing concepts but a very suggestive article by David Landau has coined the term abusive constitutionalism to refer to the use of tools of constitutional amendment and constitutional replacement used by would-be autocrats to
The Honduran Constitutional Chamber’s Decision Erasing Presidential Term Limits: Abusive Constitutionalism by Judiciary?
—David Landau, Florida State University College of Law & Brian Sheppard, Seton Hall University School of Law The recent decision of the Constitutional Chamber of Honduras annulling a series of constitutional and legal provisions that prohibited presidential reelection and made that prohibition unamendable was a troubling one. The same political forces that previously ousted ex-President
