What’s New in Public Law

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—Susan Achury Plaza, Texas Christian University

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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 Court

1. The Colombian Supreme Court ruled protecting the right to protest against police violence.
2. The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled against an attempt to block the subpoena to obtain President Donald Trump’s tax record after the Supreme Court ruled that the president does not have broad immunity when it comes to state grand jury subpoenas.
3. European Court of Human Rights has decided to apply Rule 39 and now calls on all States directly or indirectly involved in the conflict, including Turkey, to refrain from actions that contribute to breaches of civilians Convention rights and to respect their obligations under the Convention.
4. Canada Supreme Court to consider the constitutional rights of Native Americans with US citizenship.
5. Mexican Supreme Court to decide on the constitutionality of voting by a secret ballot on a constitutional reform that involves human rights violates freedom of expression, access to information, and political participation of the LGBT + population in Yucatán.
6. The Constitutional Court of Ecuador approved a referendum relating to mining activities, but it limited its effects to future concessions.

In the News

1. In the US, the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to begin Amy Barrett’s confirmation hearings October 12.
2. Armenia’s Constitutional Court failed to elect its new chair after the amendment calling for the gradual resignation of seven of the court’s nine judges.
3. Constitutional Court rejects appeal against Law on Criminal Enforcement
4. Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli has urged the restructuring of the Turkish Constitutional Court
5. Colombian Prosecutor’s Office critics to the Supreme Court in the case of Álvaro Uribe
6. In Chile, demand seeks to postpone the national plebiscite for COVID-19.

New Scholarship

1. Ignacio Arana Araya  Melanie M. Hughes  Aníbal Pérez‐Liñán, Judicial Reshuffles and Women Justices in Latin America, (exploring institutional disruptions as a source of the appointment of women justices and the limitations to secure path to substantive progress in gender equality).
2. Armin von Bogdandy, Jesús María Casal, Mariela Morales Antoniazzi, La resistencia del Estado democrático de Derecho en América Latina frente a la pandemia de COVID-19. Un enfoque desde el ius commune, (Examining how the ius constitutionale commune on states of emergency in Latin America, represents an essential constraint on emergency powers in times of COVID-19).
3. Jaclyn Neo, A Contextual Approach to Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments: Judicial Power and the Basic Structure Doctrine in Malaysia (adopting a contextual approach to analyzing judicial engagement with the doctrine of unconstitutional constitutional amendments, with Malaysia as a main case example).
4. Aaron Tang, Harm-Avoider Constitutionalism, California Law Review, Forthcoming (examining the US Supreme Court use of harm-avoider constitutionalism defined as a criteria of constitutional interpretation in which the court is deferent to those who had easier options for avoiding the harms of a judicial defeat).
5. Jadson Correia de Oliveira, Raíssa Fernanda Cardoso Toledo, and Natanael Lima Santos, Judicial supremacy and institutional dialogues in the Brazilian constitutional order, (criticizing how  the  judicial supremacy system in the constitutional hermeneutics it is not the most garantist for democracy and minorities in comparison to a system of shared  interpretative competence among  different institutions).
6. Michel Rosenfeld, The Role of Justice in the Constitution: The Case for Social and Economic Rights in Comparative Perspective, Cardozo Law Review Forthcoming (analyzing the potential for the US judicial indirect vindication of social and economic rights through the Due Process and Equal Protection clause).
7. Josh Blackman, What Rights are “Essential”? The 1st, 2nd, and 14th Amendments in the Time of Pandemic. Liberty & Law Center Research Paper No. 20-04, (examining how the courts have interpreted the First, Second, and Fourteenth Amendments during the time of pandemic).

Call for Papers and Announcements

1. The International Association of Constitutional Law (IACL) , has announced the Global Roundtable’ Democracy 2020: Assessing Constitutional Decay, Breakdown, and Renewal Worldwide’, (October 8).
2. The International Association of Constitutional Law (IACL) has issued a call for papers on “Roundtable of IACL – Constitutional Identity.” (Due January 11, 2021).
3. The Externado University, Colombia, has issued a call for papers on a special edition of the Revista Derecho del Estado on the 30^th anniversary of the Colombian Constitution. (January 31, 2021).
4. The American Political Science Association, has announced the 2021 Call for Proposals for the 117th APSA on “Promoting Pluralism.” (Due January 14, 2021).
5. The Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison invites submissions for its annual First Book Manuscript Workshop. (Due November 15)
6. The Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy (CSLD) invites applications for a postdoctoral fellowship in political theory. (Due January 15, 2021).

Elsewhere Online

1. Isabelle Somma de Castro, Securitisation cannot stop the COVID-19 trafficking boom at the Triple Frontier between Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina, LSE blog
2. Andrew Carico, John Marshall, Judicial Supremacy, and a Post-Ginsberg Court, Starting Points Journal
3. Berihun Adugna Gebeye, Federalism Without Constitutionalism? IACL-IADC Blog.
4. Bethany Shiner and Tanzil Chowdhury, Response to the Joint Committee of Human Rights call for evidence on the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill, Queen Mary University of London.
5. Gautam Bhatia, Executive Law-Making in Romania, Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy.
6. Renáta Uitz, Finally: The CJEU Defends Academic Freedom, Verfassungs blog
7. David R. Cameron, European Council addresses Cyprus concerns with Turkey, agrees to sanctions on Belarus, MacMillan Center’s’ Program in European Union Studies at Yale.