What’s New: August 31

— Miracle Okoth Okumu Mudeyi, LL.B. (Hons), University of Nairobi; Master of Laws Candidate at Yale Law School; Advocate of the High Court of Kenya.

In this weekly feature, I-CONnect publishes a curated reading list of developments in public law. “Developments” may include a selection of news links, High Court decisions, new or recent scholarly books and articles, and blog posts from around the public law blogosphere.

To submit relevant developments for our weekly feature on “What’s New in Public Law,” please email iconnecteditors@gmail.com.

Developments in Constitutional Courts

  1. The High Court of Kenya in Owiso & 2 others v Attorney-General & another held that Article 136(2)(a) requires a presidential election to be held on the second Tuesday in August in the fifth year after the previous election. On that reading, the next presidential election ought to fall in August 2026. The Court, however, suspended its declaration of invalidity until after the next general election, recognising the disruption that an immediate 2026 election would cause. The judgement is therefore notable both for its strict reading of the constitutional timetable and for the restraint shown in the remedy.
  2. The High Court of Kenya in Nyabuto v Kenya Academy of Sports & another found that the process used to establish Constituency Sports Academies did not meet the constitutional standard for public participation. It did not invalidate the academies, which were already operating. Instead, the Court directed the respondents to develop clear, objective, and transparent criteria for selecting future locations and to subject those criteria to meaningful public participation before adoption. The judgement shows how a court can correct a defective process without undoing an existing public programme.
  3. The Constitutional Court of South Africa, in Sustaining the Wild Coast NPC and Others v Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy and Others; Natural Justice and Another v Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy and Others, set aside the Supreme Court of Appeal’s suspension of a High Court order invalidating an exploration along the Wild Coast and its renewals. The Court held that a later renewal process could not cure all defects in the original decisions. Those defects went beyond inadequate consultation and included failures to consider climate change, marine and bird life, the communities’ spiritual, cultural and livelihood interests, and applicable statutory requirements. The judgement restored a previous setting-aside order and emphasised that remedial discretion under section 172(1)(b) must respond effectively to established unlawfulness.
  4. The Supreme Court of India in Bhumika Trust v Union of India and others modified the three-year Bar-practice requirement it had previously prescribed for entry-level judicial recruitment. For recruitment advertisements issued up to 31 March 2027, all law graduates remain eligible under a transitional scheme, with successful candidates required to complete one year of judicial-academy training and one year of structured clerkship. For advertisements issued from 1 April 2027, candidates must first show at least one year of actual practice before a district court, followed by the same post-selection training. The Court directed that the scheme remain in force for five years before it is reconsidered in light of experience.
  5. The High Court of Australia in Plaintiff S32/2026 v Minister for Immigration and Citizenshipdismissed an application for constitutional writs arising from the refusal of a protection visa after the Administrative Review Tribunal dismissed the applicant’s merits review for non-appearance and later confirmed that dismissal. The Court treated the attempt to use constitutional proceedings to bypass the available statutory review route as an abuse of process and found no jurisdictional error in the original visa decision. The case is a straightforward reminder that constitutional supervision concerns legality, not a second merits appeal.

In the News

  1. In Nairobi, Kenya, police used tear gas to disperse small-scale traders protesting a Kenya Revenue Authority increase in the customs valuation benchmark used to assess imports, which took effect on 20 August. The dispute is not only about the amount of duty collected, but also raises ordinary public-law questions about transparent revenue administration, public participation and the policing of protest.
  2. Authorities in Zambia closed the Supreme Court and Constitutional Court premises for security reasons on the final day to file challenges to the 13 August presidential election, while opposition figures sought to lodge a petition. Where electoral petitions are subject to a strict filing window, physical access to the court is not a minor procedural matter; it can determine whether a challenge is heard at all.
  3. Voters in Guinea-Bissau went to the polls on 30 August in a referendum on a new constitution that would strengthen presidential control over government, including powers to appoint and dismiss the prime minister and to dissolve Parliament. Civilian elections are scheduled for December. Because the referendum was held during a military-led transition and opposition participation remained contested, the process’s legitimacy is as important as the institutional changes on the ballot.
  4. The United States Supreme Court, with the three liberal justices dissenting, lifted one injunction blocking parts of President Trump’s executive order restricting mail-in voting ahead of the November midterm elections. Another injunction remained in place, and the Court did not decide the order’s ultimate legality. The immediate significance is practical: emergency rulings can alter election administration before the merits of a constitutional dispute are finally resolved.
  5. The minority government in France faces another difficult budget season. If Parliament does not enact the 2027 budget by year-end, options under discussion include Article 49.3, a special rollover law and, in some circumstances, a budget ordinance. Each route may preserve fiscal continuity, but each also changes the balance between executive action and Parliament’s ordinary control over taxation and expenditure.
  6. Rival political factions in Libya agreed at United Nations-led talks to a roadmap for national elections within 24 months, including further work on disputed electoral laws and reform of the national election body. In Libya’s divided political system, agreeing on a polling date is only part of the problem. The rules and institutions that will administer the vote remain central to whether the result can command broad acceptance.

New Scholarship

  1. Gavin P Phillipson, “Judicial review of royal prerogative and the case of prorogation: Process not substance; exception, not rule” International Journal of Constitutional Law (2026) (treats Miller I and Miller II as exceptional examples of judicial protection of constitutional process rather than a general licence to review the substance of prerogative decisions. Phillipson’s distinction between process-based and substantive challenges offers a narrower account of when courts are likely to intervene in the exercise of Crown powers).
  2. Lorraine Wu, “The endurance of interim constitutions” International Journal of Constitutional Law (2026) (studies forty-one interim constitutions adopted between 1990 and January 2025. Wu groups them as procedural frameworks, training wheels, first drafts, or last resorts, and uses those categories to explain why some supposedly temporary constitutional arrangements endure. The article is a useful reminder that ‘interim’ describes a constitutional design choice, not necessarily a short period of time).
  3. Stephen Gardbaum, “The case for plural executives in the age of strongmen” International Journal of Constitutional Law (2026) (makes the case for taking plural executive arrangements seriously in an age of strongman politics. Gardbaum treats single and plural executives as points on a spectrum and assesses their implications for stability, effectiveness, accountability, and representation. The article shifts attention from how to restrain a powerful chief executive to the prior question of how executive authority should be designed).
  4. Raymond A Atuguba’s “Neo-democracy: Legal empowerment and the reincarnation of democracy in Africa” 24(2) International Journal of Constitutional Law 387-394 (2026) (argues that familiar measures of democracy can miss the extent to which ordinary citizens understand, use and shape law. His idea of ‘neo-democracy’ places legal empowerment, dignity, participation, and social obligation at the center of democratic life, rather than treating elections, courts, and legislatures as sufficient indicators on their own).
  5. Angus Harrison, “Universal rights, territorial duties: reassessing Article 3 ECHR in extradition law” 26(3) Human Rights Law Review (2026) (questions the current reach of Article 3 ECHR in extradition cases. By separating the universality of the right from the territorial scope of a Convention state’s duties, Harrison argues that Soering does not require every form of treatment that would violate Article 3 within Europe automatically to bar extradition when the risk arises abroad).

Call for Papers and Announcements

  1. The National University of Singapore Faculty of Law will host Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon’s Bicentennial Lecture, ‘Evolving Conceptions of the Rule of Law: The Singapore Experience,’ on 2 September 2026.
  2. The New South Wales Chapter of the Australian Association of Constitutional Law will hold a seminar on ‘Current Issues Concerning the Implied Freedom of Political Communication’ on 8 September 2026. The programme covers recent cases, anonymous political communication, pre-existing freedoms and the use of counterfactuals in implied-freedom analysis.
  3. The Africa Regional Conference on Parliament and Legislation is accepting panel, session and round-table proposals for AFRIPAL 2027 in Gaborone, Botswana, until 11 September 2026. The conference theme is ‘African Parliaments in the Digital Age: Reimagining Possibilities for Better Performance and Networked Governance.’
  4. Constitutional Studies, jointly published by the Comparative Constitutions Project and the International Association of Constitutional Law, is accepting work through a multilingual, open-access model.

Elsewhere Online

  1. Ibrahima Niang, Constitutional Referendum in Guinea-Bissau: Another Constitutional Crossroads, ConstitutionNet (21 August 2026)
  2. Ojaswee Bhattarai, Constitution Amendment or Constitutional Rewriting? Overview of the Constitutional Reform Discourse in Nepal, ConstitutionNet (14 August 2026).
  3. Flóra Fazekas, András Kádár and Nóra Novoszádek, Temporary fixes and long-term commitments: Hungary’s 17th Amendment to the Fundamental Law, ConstitutionNet (2 August 2026)
  4. Peter Garang Geng and Joseph Geng Akech, Peace Agreement and Constitutional Amendments in South Sudan: Recent Developments, ConstitutionNet (26 July 2026)
  5. Ben Yong, The Civil Service: A Public Good, Not the Enemy Within, UK Constitutional Law Association Blog (27 August 2026)
  6. Joanna Bell, The Immigration and Asylum Bill (Part 1): a proposal to rewire the relationship between asylum appeals and the Home Office, UK Constitutional Law Association Blog (26 August 2026)

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