—Shamshad Pasarlay, Visiting Lecturer, The University of Chicago School of Law [Editor’s Note: This is one of our biweekly ICONnect columns. For more information on our 2022 columnists, see here.] Constitutional theorists have long debated a puzzling question: why do political officeholders choose to impose limits on their power and authorize apex courts to enforce
Polexit is Coming or is it Already Here? Comments on the Judicial Independence Decisions of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal
—Agnieszka Bień-Kacała, Nicolaus Copernicus University The COVID-19 crisis changed the dynamics of the deterioration of Polish constitutionalism; it has relocated and refocused legal arguments to an extent that could lead us to Polexit. The argument based on the sovereignty of Poland is no longer considered as a mere electoral campaign tool, but has now become
Dissenting from the Venice Commission on Dissenting Opinions
—Maxime Saint-Hilaire, Université de Sherbrooke, Canada & Léonid Sirota, AUT University, New Zealand The topic of separate – concurring or dissenting – judicial opinions is sure to generate attention, and some controversy. There is a substantial academic literature on the subject, to which judges have often contributed, but discussion of judicial expressions of disagreement with
Informal Networks and Judicial Institutions: Comparative Perspectives–A New Special Issue in The International Political Science Review
—Björn Dressel, Australian National University, Raul A. Sanchez Urribarri, La Trobe University, Alexander Stroh, University of Bayreuth We are pleased to share with the scholarly community the publication of a special issue of the International Political Science Review – Informal Networks and Judicial Institutions: Comparative Perspectives (Vol. 39, No 5, 2018). Throughout the world, judicial institutions –
When Court Criticism Threatens the Rule of Law: A Three-Part Test
—Brian Christopher Jones, Lecturer in Law, University of Dundee. Email: b.c.jones@dundee.ac.uk. Criticism of the courts, although essential to the operation of democracy, has recently been tested on a number of fronts, leading to a host of allegations that such criticism may violate the rule of law. But one of the major problems in relation to this
Understanding Turkey’s Restructured System for Judicial Appointments and Promotions
—Dr. Ali Dursun Ulusoy, Professor of Law at Ankara University, Former Justice of Turkish Council of State (Danistay), Visiting Scholar, UCLA Law[*] In some countries including Turkey, a special board of judges (and prosecutors) is in charge of nationwide appointments (for everything from regional to apex courts), reshuffles, reassignments, removals and disciplinary procedures of judges
Introduction to I-CONnect Symposium: The Slovak Constitutional Court Appointments Case
[Editor’s Note: I-CONnect is pleased to feature a special symposium on the recent Slovak Constitutional Court Appointments Case. The symposium will feature five parts, including this introduction. We are grateful to Simon Drugda for partnering with us to organize this symposium.] —Simon Drugda, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford Late last year, on December 6, the Constitutional
In Defence of Constitutionalism
—Dr. Rohit De, Assistant Professor at Yale University, and Dr. Tarunabh Khaitan, Associate Professor at the Universities of Oxford and Melbourne On the 12th of January 2018, four of the five senior-most judges of the Indian Supreme Court who constitute its ‘collegium’ held an unprecedented joint press conference. They released an open letter they had written
Crosspost: Is the GOP Tax Law Unconstitutional?
[Editor’s Note: This piece originally appeared here in the San Francisco Chronicle on December 21, 2017.] —Stephen Gardbaum, UCLA School of Law; Member of the ICON-S Governing Council Now that the Republican tax bill is law, is the matter settled, at least until November or, more likely, 2020? Not necessarily, because the courts may yet
The Polish Revolution: 2015-2017
—Anna Sledzinska-Simon, University of Wroclaw Today’s revolutions do not need violence to bring about a deep change of political structures. Instead, they may occur by a gradual overtake of all public powers, including the judiciary, by the winning majority. The Polish Revolution did not happen overnight, but through a series of acts taking place under
