What’s New in Public Law

—Sandeep Suresh, Faculty Member, Jindal Global Law School, India

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 of Germany found that a regional public broadcaster must air campaign advertisements of the far-right National Democratic Party for European elections. The Court held that there was no evidence to prove that the content of the advertisement was racially motivated and amounted to hate speech.
2. The Supreme Court of India upheld the constitutionality of a legislation passed by Karnataka state that granted reservation for promotions of government staff members who fall in the category of scheduled caste and scheduled tribes.
3. The UK Supreme Court held that decisions of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal are subject to judicial review in the High Court based on its supervisory jurisdiction over lower courts and tribunals.
4. The Supreme Court of Canada will conduct a sitting in the Manitoba Court of Appeals, Winnipeg, in September 2019. This will be the first sitting of the Supreme Court outside Ottawa.
5. The Constitutional Court of Guatemala ruled that Thelma Aldana, former Attorney General with a strong anti-corruption agenda, cannot run for the presidential election in June 2019.

In the News

1. For the first time in its history, the Ukrainian Constitutional Court confirmed the early dismissal of a sitting Chairperson of the court,  Judge Stanislav Shevchuk, for gross neglect of duties.
2. Justice Madan Lokur, former judge of the Indian Supreme Court, was appointed to the Fiji Supreme Court’s non-resident panel.
3. Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a law that would extensively limit the Supreme Court’s judicial review powers.
4. A court in Northern Cyprus acquitted two journalists who were accused of defaming Turkish President Erdogan by circulating a cartoon that portrayed a Greek statute urinating on Erdogan’s head.
5. Senegal adopted a constitutional amendment to abolish the post of Prime Minister and make the country’s governance system fully presidential.
6. The Parliament of Taiwan passed a law that legalizes same-sex marriage. This move comes after the decision of the Constitutional Court in 2017 regarding the same.

New Scholarship

1. Jordan Perkins, Thinking Institutionally About Judicial Review: Originalism, Judicial Supremacy, and the Concept of Law (2019) (examining the origin and interpretation of originalism as a judicial philosophy in America)
2. Juan C. Herrera, Judicial Dialogue and Transformative Constitutionalism in Latin America: The Case of Indigenous Peoples and Afro-descendants, Revista Derecho del Estado (2019) (describing the transformative nature of jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Constitutional Court of Colombia on rights of indigenous peoples and afro-descendants)
3. Mario Iannella, Balanced Budget Objectives and the Role of Executives: The cases of Italy, Spain and US states, Rivista AIC (2019) (arguing that the introduction of balanced budget objective and vertical integration of national and supranational levels after the financial crisis to increase the role of the executive)
4. Matteo Laruffa, The Institutional Defenses of Democracy, Democrazia e Diritto (2018) (assessing the institutional defenses in democracies to fight against political pressure)
5. Stuart Wallace, The Application of the European Convention on Human Rights to Military Operations (2019) (examining the challenges to the integrity and universality of rights under the European Convention on Human Rights at the time when the Convention is increasingly applied to military operations)
6. Tom Flynn, The Triangular Constitution: Constitutional Pluralism in Ireland, the EU and the ECHR (2019) (using the case of Ireland to demonstrate a national constitution can no longer be understood on its own, in isolation from the EU legal order or the European Convention on Human Rights)

Call for Papers and Announcements

1. The Colombia Chapter of ICON-S invites submissions for its conference at the Universidad de Caldas in Manizales, Colombia, on October 24-25, 2019.
2. The Indonesian Constitutional Court invites paper submissions for its 3^rd International Symposium on “Constitutional Court and Protection of Social and Economic Rights,” which will be held in Bali, on November 4-8, 2019. Interested participants must submit full-length papers (8000-10,000 words) by August 18, 2019. Selected articles from the Symposium will be published in the special issue of the Court’s academic publication – Constitutional Review Journal.
3. The Laureate Program in Comparative Constitutional Law, at Melbourne Law School invites applications from junior scholars, post-doctoral fellows, and leading senior scholars for the “Melbourne Institute of Comparative Constitutional Law,” which will meet on December 9-11, 2019. The initiative aims to develop the study of comparative constitutional law through exchange between leading and emerging scholars in the field. The deadline for applications is August 11, 2019.
4. The Democratic Decay Resource (DEM-DEC), which has been renamed Democratic Decay & Renewal (DEM-DEC), released its tenth Global Research Update on democratic decay (May 2019 – available here), containing new research worldwide from April and early May 2019; items suggested by DEM-DEC users; a rapidly expanding list of forthcoming research; and a list of new resources added to the Links section. A post introducing the Update will be published on the IACL-AIDC Blog on Monday 20 April, and will shortly be published on Verfassungsblog.
5. The Forum Transregionale Studien and Democracy Reporting International invite applications for fellowships on “re:constitution: Exchange and Analysis on Democracy and the Rule of Law in Europe.” This paid fellowship is aimed at young scholars of constitutional law from EU member states and will last from October 1, 2019, until July 31, 2020. Interested participants should apply by June 1, 2019.
6. The University of Bologna, King’s College, London, and the University of Strasbourg invite applications for the 19^th edition of the Summer School on “The Protection of Fundamental Rights in Europe,” which will be held in Bertinoro, on June 23-28, 2019. The deadline for applications is June 12, 2019.
7. Loyola University Chicago School of Law invites submissions for its 10^th Annual Constitutional Law Colloquium, to be held on November 8-9, 2019. The deadline for the submission of abstracts is June 21, 2019.

Elsewhere Online

1. Dushyant Dave, Collegium – Thy name is Reciprocity, Bar & Bench
2. Yaniv Roznai, Constitutional Paternalism: The Israeli Supreme Court as Guardian of the Knesset, IACL-AIDC Blog
3. Idris Fassassi, France: The Yellow Vests, the Right to Protest and the Conseil Constitutionnel, ConstitutionNet
4. Dominika Bychawska-Siniarska, Offence Intended – Virgin Mary With a Rainbow Halo as Freedom of Expression, Verfassungsblog
5. B Aloka Wanigasuriya, Ten Years Later: Seeking Justice for Wartime Atrocities in Sri Lanka, Justice in Conflict
6. Gautam Bhatia, The Supreme Court and Memes, Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy
7. Paolo Cavaliere, Facebook, defamation and free speech: a pending CJEU case, EU Law Analysis
8. Ronan Ó Fathaigh and Dirk Voorhoof, Kablis v. Russia: prior restraint of online campaigning for a peaceful, but unauthorised demonstration violated Article 10 ECHR, Strasbourg Observers
9. Brian Christopher Jones, How the US Constitution Failed to Restrain Donald Trump, The Conversation