What’s New in Public Law

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–Susan Achury, Miami University

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 Turkish Constitutional Court ruled protecting journalist rights from the penalization of criticism against politics.  
2. The Canadian Supreme Court sets a revised framework for judicial review of administrative decisions in an immigration case, Vavilov.
3. Members of the US Congress urged the Supreme Court Thursday to reconsider, if not overrule, the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide.
4. Colombia’s Constitutional Court recognized victims of sexual violence within ranks of the FARC.
5. The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit released $3.6 billion for the border wall.
6. The Peruvian Constitutional Tribunal recognized that freedom of expression protects workers from complaining about the company.
7. The President of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) warned Poland over the overhaul of the judiciary.
8. The Spanish Supreme Court prevents convicted Catalan independence leader from taking a seat in EU parliament

In the News

1. Colombia’s former Constitutional Court president sentenced to prison over corruption.
2. In Peru, a prosecutor asked for 12 years in jail for Kenji Fujimori in case of alleged vote purchase.
3. Chile’s President signed off on a referendum to be held on a new constitution.
4. The Peruvian Constitutional Tribunal published a proposal to reject lawsuit against the dissolution of Congress.
5. Venezuela has two presidents: Maduro and Guaidó.
6. US House of Representatives voted to limit further military actions against Iran.
7. UK House of Commons passed Brexit deal.
8. Singapore’s opposition party made the first legal challenge to fake news law.

New Scholarship

1. Maartje De Visser, Non-Judicial Constitutional Interpretation: The Netherlands (forthcoming in 2020) (showing how executive and non-partisan bodies exercise their responsibility for evaluating the constitutionality of legislation). 
2. Yonatan Fessha and Karl Kössler, Federalism and the Courts in Africa Design and Impact in Comparative Perspective (forthcoming in 2020)(examining the design and impact of courts in African federal systems from a comparative perspective)
3. Francesco Biagi, European Constitutional Courts and Transitions to Democracy, Analisi e Diritto (2020) (examining the role of three generations of European constitutional courts in the transitions to democracy that took place in Europe in the twentieth century)
4. Samuel R. Bagenstos, Disability and Reproductive Justice, Harvard Law & Policy Review, Vol. 14, 2020, Forthcoming) (examining the legal and societal treatment of fetuses and children with disabilities alongside the legal and societal treatment of parents with disabilities)
5. Jason NE Varuhas and Shona Wilson Stark (eds.), The Frontiers of Public Law, Hart Publishing (2020) (exploring the frontiers of public law and examining cutting-edge issues at the intersection of public law and international law, indigenous peoples, criminal law and private law and public administration)
6. Aslan, Volkan, Executive Decree Authority in Turkey Before the Constitutional Amendments of 2017: In Light of the Turkish Constitutional Court’s Retreat (2019) (examining the effects of the recent inflation of executive dominance on the Court’s ability to review emergency decrees)
7. Ernst Hirsch Ballin, Gerhard van der Schyff and Maarten Stremler (eds.), Judicial Power – Safeguards and Limits in a Democratic Society in European Yearbook of Constitutional Law (2019) (examining the judicial function as a source of power in the contemporary constitutional context)
8. Matthew Groves, Janina Boughey and Dan Meagher (eds.),  The Legal Protection of Rights in Australia (2019) (showing how influences of a common law heritage, a written constitution, statutory and common law innovations and a strong dose of comparative legal influences have led to the unique patchwork of rights protection in Australia)
9. Miroslaw Granat and Katarzyna Granat (eds.), The Constitution of Poland: A Contextual Analysis (2019) (examining the institutional choices made in the Polish Constitution 1997, as well as the radical changes, in particular within the judicial branch, introduced by the new governing majority since 2015)

Call for Papers and Announcements

1. Columbia Law School welcomes submissions for the Fall 2020 Works-in-Progress Workshop: Comparative Constitutional Law in the Global South in New York on October 2^nd, 2020.
2. The Forum for Law and Social Science at the University of Oslo will host the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies–Europe will host 2020 Empirical Legal Studies and has issued a call for paper for the conference on June 11-12, 2020.
3. The National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Kyiv, Ukraine) has just issued a call for submissions for Law and Politics Journal  6/2020 issue.
4. The Central Summer University In cooperation with International IDEA, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and the African Network of Constitutional Lawyers is offering a course on Constitution Building in Africa in Budapest-Hungary (June 29-July 8 2020).
5. The Elon Law Review issues a call for papers for the 2020 Symposium – Access to the Ballot on the Eve of the 2020 Election: What Barriers Still Exist? The deadline for abstracts is Feb. 28, 2020.

Elsewhere Online

1. Adem K Abebe, In the World of Constitution Building in 2019 and 2020 Prospects, ConstitutionNet
2. Lisa Hilbink and Valentina Salas, Path to a New Constitution in Chile: How the Unthinkable Became the Inescapable, ConstitutionNet
3. Scott B. MacDonald, Bolsonaro’s first year: Balancing the economy and cultural wars, Global Americans
4. Tobias Franz and Andrei Gomez, Why is Colombia striking for change?, LSE blog
5. Scott Hofer and Jason Casellas, Donald Trump has criticized Latino judges, but they are some of the most conservative jurists on the federal bench, LSE blog
6. Andrei Dragan, The Conseil Constitutionnel’s decision on the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages – flawed, yet inevitable?, William & Mary Law School’s International and Comparative Law Blog
7. Pawel Marcisz, Discipline and Punish: New Polish Reforms of the Judiciary, Verfassungsblog