What’s New in Public Law

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–Wilson Seraine da Silva Neto, Master Student at the University of Coimbra – Portugal; Postgraduate in Constitutional Law at Brazilian Academy of Constitutional Law

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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 Supreme Court in Cyprus has overturned the conviction of a British woman given a four-month suspended sentence for making up claims that she was gang-raped by as many as a dozen Israelis during a vacation in Cyprus in 2019, according to defence lawyers.
2. The plenary of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) decided to impose on the government and security forces of Rio de Janeiro a series of measures and criteria aimed at reducing police lethality in the state.
3. The Constitutional Court of Peru declared unfounded by a majority the lawsuit filed by the Executive against the norm that develops the exercise of the question of trust (Law 31355), promulgated by Congress last October after having approved it by insistence.
4. The Constitutional Court of Slovenia has annulled rulings by two courts that rejected borrowers’ request for annulment of contracts on loans in Swiss francs and for a refund of overpayments, in what is the first decision of Slovenia’s top court related to the issue of Swiss franc loans.
5. The Constitutional Court of Colombia accepted a judge’s motion to recuse himself from a vote on whether to decriminalize abortion, a decision that further delays that high Court’s ruling.

In the News

1. President of the United States, Joe Biden, said he will put a Black Woman on the Supreme Court.
2. The Socialist Party wins the legislative elections in Portugal and has an absolute majority.
3. Chief Justice Raymond Zondo said the Judicial Service Commission has a duty to consider white judges for the Constitutional Court of South Africa.
4. The European Court of Human Rights pointed to a “systemic dysfunction in judicial appointments procedure in Poland”, ruling that a company had been denied its right to a proper hearing due to how judges were appointed.
5. The Constitutional Court of Albania has postponed a planned session on the dismissal of President Ilir Meta to Monday (7 February), after Meta’s legal representatives requested more time to review the Court’s 70 questions.
6. Putin and Xi Pledge “No Limits” to Russia-China ties: President Xi Jinping of China on Friday offered firm support to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in the Kremlin’s showdown with the West over Ukraine

New Scholarship

1. Paul Kildea, Australia’s Same-sex Marriage Survey: Evaluating a Unique Popular Vote Process (2020) (analyzing the Australia same-sex marriage survey as a type of ‘popular vote process’).
2. Sergio Verdugo and Raul Sanchez Urribarri, Hauge Journal on the Rule of Law: Accessing the Challenges and Politics of the Chilean Constitution-Making Process (2020) (Hauge Journal issue focused on the Chilean Constitution Reform in comparative perspective)
3. Louis J. Kotzé, Rakhyun E. Kim, Catherine Blanchard, Joshua C. Gellers, Cameron Holley, Marie Petersmann, Harro van Asselt, Frank Biermann, and Margot Hurlbert, Earth System Law: Exploring New Frontiers in Legal Science (2022) (introducing Earth System Law as a shared epistemic framework for reimagining law in the Anthropocene through interdisciplinary collaboration).
4. Rodrigo Becker (org.), Suprema Corte dos Estados Unidos: Casos Históricos (2022) (analyzing the landmark cases of Supreme Court of United States in Portuguese)
5. Karoline Vitali, Climate Urgency: Challenges Of Its Juridical Operationalisation (2022) (analyzing the challenges of the juridical operationalization of environmental urgency)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. Droit Public Comparé – Comparative Public Law (DPC-CPL) welcomes papers in the field of comparative public property law. All approaches (historical, positivist, comparative, sociological) are relevant to this neglected field of comparative public law. Abstracts of no more than two pages should be sent by 31 May 2022.
2. The Australian National University College of Law has instituted an Early Career Researcher legal scholarship prize which, amongst other things, allows the prize winner to publish an open access book with ANU Press. The candidate can submit his proposal to the ANU until 9 December 2022.
3. National Law University, Jodhpur’s Comparative Constitutional Law and Administrative Law Journal is inviting submission for its Volume 6 Issue 2 by 15 February 2022.
4. The International Society of Public Law will be held 2022 Annual Conference on Global Problems and Prospects in Public Law in a hybrid format at the University of Wrocław in Poland on July 4-6, 2022. All submissions must be made by 15 March 2022.
5. The ICON-S Great Britain and Ireland Chapter welcome Papers for its conference The Constitutional Architecture of these Islands, which will take place online on 26, 27, and 28 April 2022. The papers must be submitted by 20 February 2022.

Elsewhere Online

1. Alexandra Petri, The only way to know we aren’t picking a justice for the wrong reason is to choose a White man, The Washington Post.
2. José Reinaldo de Lima Lopes, Servos da Lei?, Estado da Arte.
3. David Sobreira, #75 A Constituinte de 1988: uma conversa com Michel Temer, Onze Supremos Podcast.
4. Jamelle Bouie, Let’s Bring the Supreme Court Back Down to Earth, The New York Times.
5. Jane Mayer, Is Ginni Thomas a Threat to the Supreme Court?, The New Yorker.