Blog of the International Journal of Constitutional Law

Tag: elections

  • Human rights and elections: the case of the “Semilla” party in Guatemala

    –Javier Urízar Montes de Oca, International Service for Human Rights It was nothing short of extraordinary: the small opposition party, “Semilla”, somehow managed to win the third most seats in Parliament and the presidential election, despite being a relatively unknown progressive party in a fundamentally conservative country.

  • Election Anxiety: The Other Global Pandemic

    —Andrea Scoseria Katz, Washington University in St. Louis, School of Law [Editor’s note: This is one of our biweekly I-CONnect columns. For more information about our four columnists for 2020, please click here.] On Monday, three days before Thursday’s televised encounter between U.S.

  • The Unfinished Job of Marbury v. Madison: Appointment of Judges during an Electoral Campaign Period

    — Antonios Kouroutakis, Assistant Professor, IE University, Madrid. Introduction Marbury v Madison[1] is a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court. In the words of Chief Justice Marshall the doctrine of Constitutional Supremacy was established and the power of the Courts to review and strike down acts of the legislative body, if and when ordinary legislation…

  • The Constitutional Chamber’s Recent Decisions to Enable Legislative Elections in Autocratic Venezuela

    —Raul A. Sanchez Urribarri, Senior Lecturer in Legal Studies, La Trobe University (Melbourne). Email: r.sanchezu@latrobe.edu.au. In recent weeks, the Constitutional Chamber of the Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal (Tribunal Supremo de Justicia, TSJ), issued key rulings in support of President Nicolás Maduro’s regime, in his quest to recover the control of the country’s parliament, overcome the ongoing…

  • Dominant Assumptions: Reading Between the Lines of a New South African Party Funding Decision (I-CONnect Column)

    —James Fowkes, University of Münster Faculty of Law [Editor’s note: This is one of our biweekly I-CONnect columns. Columns, while scholarly in accordance with the tone of the blog and about the same length as a normal blog post, are a bit more “op-ed” in nature than standard posts.

  • 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…

  • Margin of Appreciation at the African Court

    Our sometimes contributor Adem Kassie Abebe has a new post over at AfricLaw in which he further analyzes the recent case of the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights against Tanzania, Tanganyika Law Society and The Legal and Human Rights Centre and Reverend Christopher Mtikila v.

  • Romanian Elections: An “Original” Democracy?

    –Bianca Selejan-Guţan, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Simion Bărnuţiu Faculty of Law The long-awaited process in which Romanians were called to elect their representatives in the country’s Parliament came to an end last month. The Central Electoral Office announced the final results.

  • Five Electoral Systems that make even less sense than the Electoral College

    –Daniel Lansberg-Rodríguez and Tom Ginsburg, University of Chicago Law School [reprinted from www.foreignpolicy.com] Grousing about our arcane and nonsensical Electoral College, and calling publicly for its end, have by now become time-honored election season traditions in the United States. This year, even the Russians, themselves no paragons of functional democracy, have gotten in on the…

  • The Latest Decision on Malapportionment in Japan

    –Tokujin MATSUDAIRA, Teikyo University On October 17, 2012, the Japanese Supreme Court released a judgment from the grand bench regarding the constitutionality of the 2010 election of Sangiin (House of Councillors). In that election, the ruling DPP failed to keep its majority in the upper house, launching a period of political chaos.