Category: David Law
-
Pakistan Supreme Court proceedings against former President Zardari; Philippines Supreme Court and cyberspeech
–David Law, Washington University, St. Louis A couple of constitutional court news items … — The Pakistan Supreme Court and government of Pakistan appear to be finally moving toward resolution of the Court’s efforts to quash the amnesty granted to former President Zardari and others.
-
Uganda at 50 and the problem of “sham constitutions”
Today’s Sunday Monitor features a stinging but unsurprising assessment of the state of Uganda’s 1995 constitution by Busingye Kabumba, who teaches constitutional law at Makerere University in Kampala. The title says it all: “The 1995 Uganda Constitution is nothing but an illusory law.”
-
North Korea lifts ban on women wearing pants
Various news outlets report that North Korea is lifting its ban on women wearing pants in public, which was reportedly punishable by hard labor or a fine equal to a week’s salary. The lifting of the ban would certainly seem to be in the spirit of Article 71 of the North Korean constitution, which provides…
-
Happy 65th Birthday, Japanese postwar constitution …
… and here’s to the next 65. There are a number of interesting facts and longstanding myths surrounding the Nihonkoku Kenpo, which went into effect 65 years ago today: few constitutions have gone longer without being amended (true!), even though it was “imposed” by “the United States” (not true …) The Asahi Shimbun has a…
-
Will the ECtHR have its wings clipped?
The Brighton Declaration, consisting of British proposals for reform of the ECtHR and the European Convention on Human Rights itself (ECHR), has been leaked on the Internet. (The British currently hold the chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe).
-
New York Times: “We the People” Loses Appeal to People
The online version of Adam Liptak’s piece in the New York Times on the declining appeal of the U.S. Constitution as a model to foreign countries is here.
-
Justice Ginsburg to Egypt: Don’t copy the U.S. Constitution
Let’s say you’re a newly democratizing country – say, Egypt – in the market for a new constitution. What constitutions, if any, should you consider as models in drafting your own? According to Justice Ginsburg, the answer is, maybe Canada or South Africa, or constitutions written after World War II more generally.
-
Ban Ki-Moon on gay rights in Africa
It’s no secret that the treatment of gays and respect for gay rights in Africa can be spotty at best. (See, e.g., previous coverage on this blog of a particularly chilling chain of events in Uganda here, here, and here. And let’s not forget Zimbabwe either.)
-
The Declining Influence of the United States Constitution
Mila Versteeg and I have just posted to SSRN a paper that might be of interest to readers of this blog entitled “The Declining Influence of the United States Constitution“. It follows up on an earlier article, imminently forthcoming in the California Law Review, in which we took a very bird’s eye view of the…
-
A reason to draft constitutions carefully?
On the lighter side of the news: according to this report, owing to a slight omission in the drafting of North Dakota’s constitution (namely, the omission of a requirement that state officials take an oath of office), it is questionable whether North Dakota is legally a state.