Blog of the International Journal of Constitutional Law

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Category: constitutional politics

  • The Top Constitutional Events Of 2014

      2014 was a landmark year for governments around the world. Here are some of the most important constitutional events of the past twelve months, brought to you by the Comparative Constitutions Project and Constitute.   Jan|Feb|Mar|May|Jun|Sept|Oct|Nov|Dec     January: Egypt Holds Constitutional Referendum On January 24, 2014, poll results showed that Egyptian voters approved…

  • Andrew Arato on “Egypt’s Transformation: Revolution, Coup, Regime Change, or All of the above?”

    Andrew Arato has kindly contributed the following post: “Egypt’s Transformation: Revolution, Coup, Regime Change, or All of the above?”: Among those who believe that in the modern world democracy is a universal value, all have been inspired, amazed and totally convinced by the Egyptian democratic movement.

  • Should He Stay or Should He Go: Negotiation as the Price of Constitutional Legality in an Egyptian Transition

    There is an ingenious device that one finds in the Egyptian constitution—one analogous to some of the “poison pills” that corporations occasionally adopt to prevent hostile takeover. If a President resigns or is otherwise removed, power will be transferred to high officials appointed to their office by the President.

  • New USIP volume on constitution-making

    Those interested in constitutional design should take a look at the new volume from the US Institue of Peace, Framing the State in Times of Transition: Case Studies in Constitution Making. The volume features 19 case studies of constitution-making, including well-known cases like Afghanistan and Iraq, and more obscure cases ranging from Albania to Zimbabwe.

  • The Iraq Judiary: A Correction and Apology

    I feel compelled to update my March 31 post about the Iraq Federal Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the meaning of “largest Council of Representatives bloc” in Article 76 of the Iraq Constitution. I maligned the Court for ruling that the phrase referred to post-election coalitions (multiple party lists that come together to form a…

  • A Step Backwards for the Iraq Judiciary

    The Iraq judiciary has made great strides in its capacity and independence since the fall of the Saddam regime, as demonstrated by brave and politically unpopular decisions made in the name of fair and impartial adjudication. In 2008 the Iraq Supreme Court vacated the Council of Representative’s decision to strip a parliamentarian’s immunity so he…

  • Is the Filibuster a Constitutional Convention?

    Jake Tapper, ABC’s Senior White House Correspondent, reported yesterday that momentum is building behind the effort to change the current United States Senate rules which authorize the use of the filibuster. The filibuster is a procedural device whose consequence is to require supermajority support in order to vote on a legislative proposal.

  • Addendum to Iraq’s Election Quandary

    The Speaker of Iraq’s Parliament acknowledge today the inevitability of a “constitutional and legislative vacuum” as a result of the unavoidable gap between the end of the current Parliament’s legislative term and the time before elections can be conducted and a new Parliament and government formed — about two months by the Speaker’s estimation.

  • Once Pinochet’s Censor, Now President of the Constitutional Court

    Even close observers of Chile’s constitutional politics were taken by surprise when an electronic newspaper (‘El Mostrador’) reported a few weeks ago that the new President of the Constitutional Court had been the director of DINACOS (an agency organized during Augusto Pinochet’s regime to implement censorship).

  • Pakistan’s constitutional war continues

    First off, these are no doubt good times for the comparative study of constitutions. A blog devoted to comparative constitutional law and courts would have been a near-fantasy merely a decade ago. More than anything else, its establishment reflects the growing interest and tremendous advancement in the comparative study of law and courts over the…