Category: Analysis
-
Judicial Activism and Forced Displacement: Lessons from the Colombian Paradox
—Cesar Rodríguez-Garavito, Universidad de los Andes and Dejusticia, and Diana Rodríguez-Franco, Northwestern University and Dejusticia Forced displacement affects millions of people in the world and entails a violation of basic human rights. In many countries, given the lack of institutional capacity, the main way of addressing this issue is through international human rights law and…
-
Leaving Westminster: Constitutional Supremacy in an Independent Scotland
–Stephen Tierney, Professor of Constitutional Theory, University of Edinburgh and Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law; ESRC Senior Research Fellow, Future of the UK and Scotland programme On 16 June the Scottish Government unveiled its Scottish Independence Bill in an address by Nicola Sturgeon, Deputy First Minister of Scotland, to the Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional…
-
Time and Sequence in Changes of Constitutional Regimes
—Andrew Arato, The New School for Social Research Introduction The concept of the constituent power emerged in the revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries. Many new constitutions since then were made through variety of non-revolutionary processes. Yet, the normative link between democratic forms of constitution making and revolution, deeply embedded in the notion of…
-
Canada’s New Prostitution Bill: Don’t Assume it’s Unconstitutional
—Michael Plaxton, University of Saskatchewan [Twitter: @MichaelPlaxton] Last week, Justice Minister Peter MacKay tabled the much-anticipated Bill C-36, The Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act. The bill, which is a response to the Supreme Court of Canada’s landmark ruling in Bedford, has already been the subject of considerable criticism.
-
Is There a Protected Right to Access the Internet?
—Jason M. Tenenbaum, Barton LLP Much of the international discussion with regard to access rights to the Internet has focused on the idea of “network neutrality,” and not on whether the right to access the Internet itself is protected. On a domestic level, countries like France[1] and Greece[2] have already created constitutional provisions to protect…
-
The Indonesian General Election and the “Weak” Constitutional Court
—Stefanus Hendrianto, Santa Clara University May 2014 was quite a month in Indonesian constitutional politics. On May 19th, 2014, the Indonesian Constitutional Court stripped out its own authority to review regional election disputes involving heads of government. On the following day, the General Election Commission closed the nomination for the 2014 presidential election.
-
Australia–The High Court Upholds the Forfeiture of a Drug Offender’s Castle: Attorney-General (NT) v Emmerson
—Dr. Lael Weis, Melbourne Law School [Cross-posted from Opinions on High Court Blog] Should the state be able to seize ‘all or any’ property ‘owned or controlled by’ persons convicted of multiple drug-related offences, regardless of the connection of that property to the commission of crime?
-
How “Islamic” is Pakistan’s Constitution?
–Dawood Ahmed, University of Chicago During peace negotiations with the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) in Pakistan, Taliban leaders declared that they did not accept the Constitution of Pakistan as “Islamic” and therefore did not believe in holding peace talks under it. Indeed, they alleged that there was not a single Islamic clause in the Constitution.
-
Constitutions…in Dictatorships?
[cross posted from the Cambridge University Press blog 1584] “What is the difference,” went an old joke in the Soviet Union, “between the Soviet and U.S. Constitutions? The Soviet Constitution guarantees freedom of speech; the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom after speech.”
-
Podcast on Senate Reference
–Richard Albert, Boston College Law School Last week, we alerted to you an important advisory opinion on Senate reform scheduled to be released by the Supreme Court of Canada tomorrow. Ahead of this important day in Canadian constitutional law, the McGill Law Journal has recorded an informative podcast on the subject.