What’s New in Comparative Law

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–Neslihan Çetin, PhD Candidate (University Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne)

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In this weekly feature, I-CONnect publishes a curated reading list of developments in public law. “Developments” may include a selection of links to news, 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. While Indonesians go to the polls next February to vote for a president, Indonesian Constitutional Court ruling that educational institutions may be used as venues for campaigning could herald a major change in campus-based politics and impact on the important youth vote.
2. Indigenous people celebrated Thursday after Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled to enshrine their land rights, removing the imminent threat those protections could be rolled back.
3. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Friday extended a temporary block on an order restricting the ability of President Joe Biden’s administration to encourage social media companies to remove content it deemed misinformation about Covid-19 and other matters of public concern.
4. The Moldovan Constitutional Court’s judges ruled that members of the Shor Party, led by the fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor, who has been convicted of grand theft, cannot participate in any elections in the next five years.
5. Cyprus Supreme Constitutional Court upholds fine on Cyprus Telecommunications Authority for anti-competitive behavior.
6. Thai Supreme Court Bans Progressive Politician From Political Office for Life. Pannika Wanich, a former MP for the now-dissolved Future Forward Party, is accused of “ethical breaches” over Facebook posts she made more than a decade ago.
7. The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an emergency bid from Alabama, setting the stage for a new congressional map likely to include a second Black majority district to account for the state’s 27% Black population.
8. South Korea’s Constitutional Court on Tuesday struck down a 2020 law that criminalized the sending of anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets to North Korea, calling it an excessive restriction on free speech.

In the News

1. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on Tuesday that a Turkish teacher convicted in 2017 of terrorism offences had his rights violated because the case against him relied mostly on his use of an encrypted messaging application.
2. Slovaks vote this weekend in early elections following the collapse of the former centre-right government. Leading most polls is the populist SMER party of Robert Fico, who has pledged an immediate end to Slovak military support for Ukraine.
3. Israel’s Supreme Court has started hearing petitions against a new law making it harder to declare a prime minister unfit for office.
4. The Supreme Court will hear a case with a lot of ‘buts’ & ‘ifs’ over the meaning of ‘and’. Federal courts across the country disagree about whether the word, as it is used in a bipartisan 2018 criminal justice overhaul, indeed means “and” or whether it means “or.”
5. Justice Elena Kagan said on Friday that the Supreme Court should adopt a code of ethics, saying that “it would be a good thing for the court to do that.”
6. The absence of Donald Trump played a central role in the second Republican primary debate of the 2024 election season, as seven White House hopefuls tried and mostly failed to shake up a race in which the former president remains the clear frontrunner.
7. A New York judge found on Tuesday that former President Donald Trump and his business associates committed fraud by lying about the financial valuation of various business assets from as early as 2011.
8. A US federal judge in Texas ruled on Tuesday that the state’s ban on drag performances was unconstitutional and blocked it from going into effect.

New Scholarship

1. Jessica Bulman-Pozen and Miriam Seifter, The Right To Amend State Constitutions (After describing the right to amend and canvassing current threats, the essay considers practical and theoretical implications. It argues that democratic proportionality review can help courts distinguish valid regulation of the initiative process from subversion of it. And it explores the distinctive constitutional architecture to which popular amendment contributes.)
2. John Sebastian, Under-inclusive laws and constitutional remedies: an exploration of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 (The article argues that there is no support in principle or case law for the argument that under-inclusive laws are subject to lower scrutiny than over-inclusive ones. Linked to this is the question of constitutional remedies for under-inclusive laws, which the article analyses drawing on jurisprudence from India and other jurisdictions.)
3. Adrian Vermeule, The Rule of Law Without Separation of Powers: Legality in the Classical Tradition (The article explains that on the classical view, no particular institutional technology, including the separation of powers, is defined into the rule of law, so long as the constitutional order as a whole is rationally and adequately ordered to the proper end of law, the general welfare or common good.)
4. Jurisprudence, new issue is now available.
5. Constellations, new issue is now available.

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. Call for Papers: 70 Years of EU Law – Continuity and Discontinuity. The Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (MPIL) in Heidelberg is currently accepting abstract submissions for its conference, “70 Years of EU Law: Continuity and Discontinuity”, to be held on 1 -3 February 2024 in the premises of the MPIL.
2. International Law Colloquium at the Geneva Graduate Institute: The Department of International Law at the Geneva Graduate Institute has announced the Autumn 2023 edition of the International Law Colloquium. A range of speakers will be presenting and discussing in-depth their works covering different aspects of international law and from different disciplinary perspectives.
3. Re-Imagining the International Legal Order London Discussion. This discussion, prompted by the launch of the book, “Re-Imagining the International Legal Order”, will be chaired by Professor Gerry Simpson with panellists including Lady Arden of Heswall, Lord (Peter) Goldsmith KC, PC, Rt. Hon’ble Sir Mathew Thorpe KC, Professor Dr Attila Tanzi and Professor Dan Sarooshi KC.
4. Announcement: Call for Applications to Host the IACL’s 2026 World Congress. The World Congress is the most important of all activities organised by the International Association of Constitutional Law (IACL), held every 4 years to bring together constitutionalists from all regions of the world. Please note that the deadline for submitting proposals is 19 May 2023.
5. Event: Book Discussion: Diverse Voices in Public Law. The British-Irish Chapter of the International Society of Public Law is delighted to host a panel discussion on Diverse Voices in Public Law (Bristol University Press, 2023).  This important new book explores the main topics in UK public law from a range of underexplored perspectives and amplifies the voices of scholars who are underrepresented in the field.
6. Abstract submissions are still open for the ASAA 25th Biennial Conference.
7. Call for papers is still open for the Annual Workshop on the Vienna School of Jurisprudence and the Pure Theory of Law.
8. Call for papers is still open for the Constitutional Law Works in Progress Workshop.
9. Proposals are still welcome for a conference on Courts and their Interactions with Politics to be held at the University of Texas at Austin.
10. You can still register for the 2nd Graduate Conference on Constitutional Change at the University of Texas at Austin on January 11-13, 2024.

Elsewhere Online

1. Sergiu Constantin, The Legal Dimension of Territorial Autonomy: Key Features and Implications (28 September 2023)
2. Artun Mimar, Protecting the Right to Property: How Will the Turkish Constitutional Court React to the Spate of Taxation Measures? (26 September 2023)
3. Felix Schulte, Approaches to Researching Territorial Autonomy: Reflections on Methodology and Data (26 September 2023)
4. Saraphin Dhanani, India’s Justice System Is No Longer Independent: Part III (25 September 2023)
5. Hyemin Han, Docket Watch: Trump Prosecuted in the Southern District of Florida (25 September 2023)
6. Julia Kyrychenko and Olha Ivasiuk, No Voting Under Fire (25 September 2023)
7. María Salvador Martínez, Parliamentary Decisions on its own Behalf and Spanish Constitutional Law (24 September 2023)
8. Edoardo Caterina, The Political Process in Search of a Judge (23 September 2023)