Blog of the International Journal of Constitutional Law

Tag: Judicial Appointments

  • A Constitutional Crisis in Portugal: The Deadlock at the Constitutional Court

    —Teresa Violante, Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg [Editor’s Note: This is one of our ICONnect columns. For more on our 2023 columnists, see here.] The politicization of judicial appointments is one of the most common threats to the rule of law nowadays. Usually, this phenomenon originated in the political branches, as the examples of Poland, Hungary, and,…

  • New Appointment to the Supreme Court of Denmark

    —Simon Drugda, PhD Candidate at the University of Copenhagen The Supreme Court (SC) of Denmark will have a new judge. The Judicial Appointments Council (JAC) has recommended Ombudsman Jørgen Steen Sørensen for the position late in June. The appointment is not final, however, as Sørensen must first prove his merit by voting with the SC…

  • Can the President of the Slovak Constitutional Court Defend It?

    —Simon Drugda, PhD Candidate at the University of Copenhagen For the fourth time since February, the Slovak Parliament failed to select candidates to replace constitutional judges whose term of office has expired. Only seven judges remain to run the most powerful court in the country.

  • 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…

  • Judicial Appointments in the Commonwealth: Is India Bucking the Trend?

    Cross-posted with permission from the UK Constitutional Law Association Blog. The original post appears here. –Dr Jan van Zyl Smit, Associate Senior Research Fellow, Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law In recent years many Commonwealth states have adopted, or at least debated, reforms to their…

  • A New Judge for the Colombian Constitutional Court: The Tensions of Transition

    —Jorge González Jácome, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Bogotá) One of the most heavily publicized processes of nomination and appointment to fill a vacancy on the Colombian Constitutional Court ended last week with the Senate’s selection of Alejandro Linares. He outvoted the other two candidates, Catalina Botero and Magdalena Correa, and became the ninth judge of the Court.

  • Judicial Supremacy, not Independence, Upheld in NJAC Judgment

    —Rehan Abeyratne, Jindal Global Law School Last week, the Supreme Court of India issued a landmark judgment holding the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) unconstitutional. As Chintan Chandrachud has explained in detail on I-CONnect, the Court held that the NJAC violated the Indian Constitution’s “basic structure” by restricting the independence of the judiciary.

  • Collaboration, Not Confrontation: The Indian Supreme Court on Judicial Appointments

    —Chintan Chandrachud, PhD Candidate at the University of Cambridge and LLM Candidate at Yale Law School Today, a five-judge bench of the Indian Supreme Court decided amongst the most significant constitutional cases in its recent history – one that had prompted a moratorium on judicial appointments to the Supreme Court and the twenty-four High Courts.

  • Video Interview: Judicial Appointments in India, Featuring Nick Robinson

    —Richard Albert, Boston College Law School In this latest installment of our new video interview series at I-CONnect, I interview Nick Robinson on the subject of judicial appointments in India. In the interview, we discuss how judicial appointment will change under 121st amendment to the Indian Constitution, which will constitutionalize the National Judicial Appointments Commission.