What’s New in Public Law

—Maja Sahadžić, Ph.D. Researcher (University of Antwerp)

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 contact.iconnect@gmail.com.

Developments in Constitutional Courts

1. The Constitutional Court in Germany ruled that psychiatric patients cannot be restrained for more than 30 minutes without a court order.
2. The Constitutional Court in Indeonesia once again rejected a judicial review petition to strike down the 1965 Blasphemy Law.
3. The Constitutional Court in Romania ruled that the same-sex married couples have the right to move and reside freely in Romania if one of the spouses is a EU citizen.
4. The Constitutional Court in Hugary decided that the proclamation of the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court is not compatible with the Fundamental Law.
5. The Constitutional Court in Uganda ruled that the extension of the term of members of the Parliament of Uganda is unconstitutional.
6. The Constitutional Court in South Korea ordered the government to introduce civilian forms of service for conscientious objectors and upheld that the current law requiring large grocery stores to close at least two days a month is not against the nation’s highest law.
7. The Constitutional Court in Seychelles dismissed the case of the suspended Supreme Court judge on the grounds that the Constitutional Appointment Authority had no legal obligations to allow him to be heard.
8. The Constitutional Court in South Africa ruled in favor of the status of labour brokers in the employment of contract employees.
9. The Constitutional Court in Ecuador, in a landmark pollution case, rejected the Chevron’s final appeal that found the company deliberately dumped billions of gallons of toxic oil waste onto Indigenous lands in the Amazon rainforest.
10. The Constitutional Court in Italy ruled that requiring foreigners to have long-term residence to gain access to low-income rent subsidies is ”illegitimate“.
11. The Supreme Court in the United Kingdom ruled that a woman must stay in an unhappy marriage.
12. the Supreme Court in India observed that essential religious practices, if biased, can be struck down as unconstitutional if they discriminate on grounds of caste ox sex.
13. The European Court of Justice upheld that European courts can block extradition requests from Poland citing the interference in the independence of the judiciary and concerns over a fair trial.

In the News

1. The Romanian President challenged the bills changing the criminal code and the law for combating corruption, recently adopted by the Parliament, before the Constitutional Court of Romania.
2. Albania’s vetting process showed many judges in Albania are unfit for their posts thus leaving albanian courts unable to work.
3. The ex-Cataluña leader set to return to Belgium while Spain’s Constitutional Court examines appeal.
4. A parliamentary committee confirmed the appointment of three Supreme Court justices in South Korea.
5. The former South Korean President was sentenced to eight more years in prison following her involvement in a 2016 corruption scandal.
6. The president of Peru’s Supreme Court resigned over tapes scandal.
7. The president of Egypt appointed new chief for the Supreme Constitutional Court.
8. Turkey’s parliament ratified a controversial anti-terror bill, which strengthens the authorities’ powers in detaining suspects and imposing public order.
9. The poor attendance of MPs in the Malaysian parliament sparked a debate.
10. The New Zeland Parliament passed legislation which will provide victims of domestic violence with 10 days of paid leave a year.
11. The European Parliament acknowledged that cryptocurrencies can be used as another form or substitute to money.
12. The upper chamber of Poland’s parliament approved new legislation to accelerate changes in the Supreme Court.
13. The president of Venezuela announced that the national currency will be replaced with a new one that will reportedly be tied to its controversial “petro” token.
14. The International Court of Justice found that the United Arab Emirates acted against the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination when it ordered all Qatari citizens to leave the country within fourteen days in June of 2017.

New Scholarship

1. Richard Albert, Formal Amendment Rules: Functions and Design, in Routledge Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Change (Xenophon Contiades & Alkmene Fotiadou, eds., forthcoming) (interrogating the functions of formal amendment rules and critiquing existing classifications of their design).
2. Khalil Asem, Courting Economic and Social Rights in Palestine: Justiciability, Enforceability and the Role of the Supreme Constitutional Court, Journal Sharia and Law (forthcoming 2019 (discussing discuss whether economic and social rights constitute fundamental rights in Palestine as a result of their entrenchment in the constitutional text, the Basic Law of the Palestinian Authority).
3. Khalil Asem, Citizenship, in The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law (2017) (discussing the meaning and purpose of citizenship, ways to access and lose citizenship by putting forward further questions which need to be tackled by jurisdictions and courts).
4. Martin Belov (ed.), About Global Constitutionalism and Its Challenges to Westphalian Constitutional Law, (2018) (assessing the structural and functional transformations in the Westphalian constitutional tradition produced by the emergence of supranational and global constitutionalism).
5. Donal Coffey, ‘The Right to Shoot Himself’: Secession in the British Commonwealth of Nations, (The Journal of Legal History (2018) (looking at the doctrine of secession in the British Commonwealth of Nations from a comparative constitutional law context, using constitutional theory in the UK, the Irish Free State, South Africa, Burma, and India to trace the legal history of the doctrine).
6. Ian Forrester, European Union Law in the UK after Brexit, Judicial Review (2018) (considering some of the practical ways in which EU law will continue to affect UK citizens, businesses and officials after Brexit and commenting on the choices available to UK judges when resolving related controversies).
7. Mathieu Leloup, Overdaad schaadt. Is de aansprakelijkheidsvordering voor fouten begaan door de hoogste rechtscolleges een uit te putten rechtsmiddel vor het ERMH? (2018) (assesing whether or not a claim for damages for torts committed by the highest courts is a domestic remedy that has to be exhausted in accordance with the article 35 of the European Court of Human Rights?).
8. Zoran Oklopčić, Beyond the People: Social Imaginary and Constituent Imagination (2018) (questioning who is ‘the people’, how does it exercise its power, when is it entitled to exercise its rights, from where does it derive its authority, and what is the meaning of its self-government in a democratic constitutional order by exploring the ways in which theorists address the ideals of popular sovereignty, self-determination, constituent power, ultimate authority, sovereign equality, and collective self-government).
9. Christopher Forsyth, Error of Fact Revisited: Waiting for the “Anisminic Moment”, Judicial Review (2018) (looking into errors of fact made by administrative decision-makers that may lead to injustice to individuals or to public authorities).
10. Paul F. Scott, The National Security Constitution (2018) (addressing the various ways in which modern approaches to the protection of national security have impacted upon the constitutional order of the United Kingdom).
11. Stéphanie De Somer, The powers of national regulatory authorities as agents of EU law, ERA Froum (2018) (mapping the trend of ‘empowering’ National Regulatory Authorities in the field of network regulation and some of the challenges on the level of accountability that go hand in hand with it).
12. Boško Tripković, The Metaethics of Constitutional Adjudication (2018) (exploring the metaethical foundations of value-based arguments in constitutional adjudication).
13. Paul Yowell, Constitutional Rights and Constitutional Design, Moral and Empirical Reasoning in Judicial Review (2018) (exploring the institutional capacities of courts for deciding the questions of moral and political controversy, including assisted suicide, data privacy, anti-terrorism measures, marriage, and abortion).

Call for Papers and Announcements

1. The Institute of Legal and Constitutional Research welcomes submissions for „The 2019 British Legal History Conference“ on 10-13 July 2019 in St. Andrews. The proposals must be submitted no later than 15 September 2018.
2. The International Nuremberg Principles Academy invites registrations for its „Nuremberg Forum 2018“ on 19-20 October 2018 in Nurember. The registrations must be completed online.
3. The International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy invites applications for the 29th World Congress „Dignity, Democracy, Diversity“ on 7-13 July 2019 in Lucerne. The deadline for submission is 31 December 2018.
4. The Lauterpacht Centre for International Law invites applications for the seminar „On the Origins of International Legal Thought“ on 7 December 2018 in Cambridge. The proposals must be submitted no later than 31 July 2018.
5. the Editors-In-Chiefs of the Cátedra Internacional conjunta Inocencio III welcome submissions for the Fourth International Conference of the International Chair Innocent III „Migrants and refugees in the law, Historic evolution, current situation and unsolved questions“ on 12-14 December 2018 in San Antonio in Murcia. The deadline for submission is 15 September 2018.
6. Chankaya National Law University Patna organizes „The National Seminar on Feminine Jurisprudence and Gender Bias Laws in India“ on 29 September 2018. The proposals must be submitted no later than 26 August 2018.
7. The Institute of Contemporary History, CEI-IUL and CEIS20-UC NOVA FCSH, ISCTE-IUL welcome submissions for the conference „A Century of Internationalisms: The Promise and Legacies of the League of Nations“ on September 19-20 2019 in Lisbon. The deadline for submission is 7 August 2018.
8. The Department of Roman Law and Legal History at the Faculty of Law of KU Leuven invites applications for a PhD candidate in the area of European legal history. The deadline for submission is 31 October 2018. 

Elsewhere Online

1. Gilberto M. A. Rodrigues, Are cities constiutent units in Brazil’s federalism, 50 Shades of Federalism
2. Chien-Chih Lin, Undemocratic Constitutional Law in Taiwan, IACL-AIDC BLOG
3. James Segan, The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018: Ten Key Implications for UK Law and Lawyers, UK Constitutional Law Association
4. Ky Krauthamer, Albania in Search of Honest Judges, Tol
5. Christian S. Monsod, State of the PH in 2018: Perils, Pitfalls of Shifting to Federalism, Phillipine Center for Investigative Journalism
6. Cem Tecimer, The Curious Case of Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code: Insulting the Turkish President, Verfassungsblog
7. Kathy Gannon and Munir Ahmed, Fraud claims overshadow Pakistan’s vote for new parliament, The Washington Post
8. Francesco Duranti, Part I: The Italian Constitution at 70, IACL-AIDC BLOG
9. Francesco Duranti, Part II: The Italian Constitution at 70, IACL-AIDC BLOG
10. David Moya, Are National Governments Liable if They Miss Their Relocation Quota of Refugees?, Verfassungsblog
11. Roland Sturm, Cooperative federalism and the dominant role of consensus in German federalism, 50 Shades of Federalism
12. Alex Huang and Jerry Zhang, Same-Sex Marriage Quagmire Tests Taiwan’s Progressive Bona Fides, TheNewsLens
13. Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi, Pakistan Elections: How the country’s judiciary and military gagged media and influenced public opinion, FIRSTPOST.
14. Rebecca Kuperberg and Mary Nugent, An obscure British parliamentary rule was broken. Here’s why it’s a big deal., The Washington Post
15. Jeff John Roberts, How the Supreme Court Will Continue to Change the Workplace, Fortune
16. Graeme Orr, Bye-bye By-Elections, Ritual and Rhytm and Voting out of Season, AUPUBLAW
17. Scott Bomboy, The Scopes Monkey trial and the Constitution, Constitution Daily
18. Clarissa Valli Butow, Human Rights Due Diligence, An Exercise of Extraterritorial Jurisdiction?, The Völkerrechtsblog