—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
Egypt’s Amended Judicial Authority Laws
The Arab Association of Constitutional Law’s Judiciary Working Group has been engaging in a debate on the recent changes to the judiciary in Egypt. The substance of that discussion has been summarized and translated below. The main submissions came from Tarek Abdel Aal (Advocate before the Court of Cassation) and Ahmed Sisi (Counsellor at the
When Courts Decide not to Decide: Understanding the Afghan Supreme Court’s Struggle to Decide the Fate of the Dismissed Ministers
–Shamshad Pasarlay, Herat University School of Law and Political Sciences On November 12, 2016, the Wolesi Jirga, the Afghan parliament’s lower house, began a process of impeaching cabinet ministers who had not been able to spend more than 70 percent of their ministry development budget for the financial year of 2015. As part of this process,
An Explicit Constitutional Change by Means of an Ordinary Statute? On a Bill Concerning the Reform of the National Council of the Judiciary in Poland
–Piotr Mikuli, Professor and head of Chair of Comparative Constitutional Law, Jagiellonian University Towards the end of January 2017, the Polish Ministry of Justice introduced a bill reforming the current legal status of the National Council of the Judiciary. If passed as proposed, the bill would seriously undermine the independence of the judiciary in Poland. The
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
