What’s New in Public Law

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—Nakul Nayak, Assistant Professor at Jindal Global Law School, India.

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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. The South African Constitutional Court convicted former President Jacob Zuma of contempt of court and sentenced him to 15 months’ imprisonment.
2. Ecuador’s Constitutional Court voted to decriminalize abortion in cases of rape.
3. South Korea’s Constitutional Court found that an amendment to a legislation that effectively suspended the operations of a ride-hailing service called Tada was constitutional.
4. The Turkish Constitutional Court accepted an indictment seeking the closure of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) over the party’s links to the Kurdistan Worker’s Party.
5. The Supreme Court of India held that the right to food and other basic necessities forms part of the fundamental right to life enshrined in the Constitution.
6. The Mexican Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the continued prohibition of recreational marijuana use in Mexico, clearing a path to legalization.

In the News

1. Egypt’s Parliament passed two amendments to a law regulating the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC). The amendments empower the SCC to review the constitutionality of rulings issued by foreign and international courts and tribunals.
2. The European Commission has sent a formal notice to Germany for “violation of fundamental principles of EU law” following the German Constitutional Court’s ruling on the European Central Bank scheme.
3. The European Parliament officially endorsed the Climate Law (also known as the European Green Deal).
4. The Vatican delivered a protest to Italy’s embassy over a bill criminalizing discriminatory conduct on the basis of sex, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity. The Vatican believes such criminalization “would have the effect of negatively impacting the freedoms assured to the Catholic Church.”
5. Sweden’s prime minister, Stefan Löfven, stepped down and asked the parliamentary speaker to find a new government rather than call a snap election.

New Scholarship

1. Berihun Adugna Gebeye, A Theory of African Constitutionalism, (theorizing the development and transformation of African constitutionalism from precolonial times to the present with the attendant constitutional designs and practices).
2. Bui Ngoc Son, China’s Comparative Constitution, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law (exploring comparative writings on China’s constitution).
3. Juan C. Herrera, Las cláusulas durmientes de integración latinoamericana, Orígenes, funciones y opciones para despertarlas (The Dormant Clauses of Latin American Integration: Origins, Functions, and Options for Their Awakening).
4. William Partlett, Kyrgyzstan’s 2021 Constitution: A Brief Comparative and Historical Analysis, University of Melbourne Legal Studies Research Paper Series No. 944 (arguing that the most important changes in Kyrgyzstan’s new Constitution are structural).
5. Edoardo Celeste, The Constitutionalisation of the Digital Ecosystem: Lessons from International Law, forthcoming in M. Kettemann, R. Kunz, A. Jr Golia (eds.), International Law and the Internet (examining how international law scholarship offers a theoretical toolbox to understand the multilevel phenomenon of constitutionalisation of the digital ecosystem.)
6. Sital Kalantry & Agnidipto Tarafdar, Death by Paperwork: Determination of Citizenship and Detention of Alleged Foreigners in Assam, Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper (arguing that numerous facets of Assam’s citizenship verification process contravene international treaties and constitutional law).

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The Institutum Iurisprudentiae, Academia Sinica (IIAS) will be hosting the 9th Asian Constitutional Law Forum on the theme “Asian Constitutionalism in Troubled Times”.  The Forum will be held on December 3-4, 2021 at the IIAS in Taipei, Taiwan. The deadline for abstracts and/or panel proposals is July 20, 2021.
2. Institute of European and Comparative is hosting a conference on “Good Faith in Public Law” on September 23, 2021. Interested participants may contact the organisers.
3. The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, Middlesex University London, and the Max Planck Institute of Comparative Public Law and International Law have invited submissions for a digital symposium on “International Pandemic Lawmaking: Conceptual and Practical Issues”. Deadline for abstracts is 19 July, 2021.
4. NUS Law and Melbourne Law School are currently hosting the inaugural IACL-AIDC Junior Scholars Forum. Adrienne Stone will deliver the closing keynote on July 6 on the topic Academic Freedom and Democracy: Why Universities need Democracy and Democracies need Universities. Registrations for the keynote are here.
5. ICON-S Germany will host its first “Book Spot” with Prof. Sigrid Boysen to discuss her new book “Die postkoloniale Konstellation“, a genealogy of international environmental law, with comments by Prof. Pascale Cancik (Osnabrück) and Prof. Markus Krajewski (Erlangen-Nürnberg). The online event will take place on July 13, 18.00 CEST.
6. The British Association of Comparative Law will host a webinar on The Regulation of Hate Speech Online and its Enforcement in a Comparative Perspective. The webinar will take place on August 31, 2021. Prior registration is required.
7. The IACL, University of Johannesburg Faculty of Law and the South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law (SAIFAC) will organize the first World Congress of Constitutional Law in Johannesburg, South Africa, from December 5 – 9, 2022. The theme is ‘Constitutional Transformations’.
8. Bruno Santos Cunha has started a new bi-weekly column at Portal Migalhas. The column will consider how and when the Brazilian Supreme Court deals with and cites US Supreme Court precedents in its opinions.

Elsewhere Online

1. Theunis Roux, The Global South and liberal constitutionalism: incommensurable opposites?, AUSPUBLAW.
2. Ibrahim Shehata, The Utterly Baffling Amendments to the Powers of the Supreme Constitutional Court in Egypt of June 2021, Lexology.
3. Daniel Holznagel, The Digital Services Act wants you to “sue” Facebook over content decisions in private de facto courts, Verfassungslblog.
4. Sanaa Alsarghali, The dissolution of the Palestinian Legislative Council by the Palestinian Constitutional Court: a missed opportunity for reform, IACL-AIDC Blog.
5. The Law and Other Things blog is hosting a symposium on Arvind Elangovan’s book Norms & Politics: Sir Benegal Narsing Rau in the Making of the Indian Constitution, 1935-50 (OUP, 2019).
6. The Balkinization blog is hosting a symposium on Kurt Lash’s new two volume collection, The Reconstruction Amendments: The Essential Documents (University of Chicago Press, 2021).
7. Eman M. Rashwan, The Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court’s interpretation of the Islamic Sharia as a Constitutional Check: Stalling the Radical Islamization of the Egyptian Legal System, IACL-AIDC BLOG