What’s New in Public Law

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—Eman Muhammad Rashwan, Lecturer of Public Law, Cairo University, Egypt; Visiting Lecturer of Law, Hamburg University, Germany

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In this weekly feature, I-CONnect publishes a curated reading list of developments in public law. “Developments” may include links to news, high court decisions, new or recent scholarly books, 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. Taiwan’s Constitutional Court ruled on National Health Insurance Case. The judgment was considered a win for opt-out right amidst an overall unfounded decision on Personal Data Protection Act.
2. The Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court ruled on October 15 that the competence of the ordinary judiciary courts to adjudicate on the dispute over the presidency of political parties is not inconsistent with the competence of the Conseil d’Etat to hear appeals against the decisions of the Political Parties Affairs Committee regulated by Act No. 40 of 1977.
3. The Constitutional Court of Belgium found parts of the euthanasia law unconstitutional.
4. The Constitutional Court of Montenegro remains blocked, due to a parliamentary obstruction. The Montenegrin Parliament failed to appoint several outstanding vacancies on the Constitutional Court.
5. The Supreme Court of India directed the government and police authorities to take suo motu action in cases of hate speech without waiting for formal complaints to be lodged.
6. Earlier this Spring, the Kenyan Supreme Court held that abortion care is a fundamental constitutional right, that arresting patients and clinicians in connection with abortion is illegal, and that the Parliament must act accordingly.

In the News

1. Chad’s military leader, Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, was named the nation’s transition president Saturday and will govern for a non-renewable two years transition period until elections.
2. Peru’s attorney general filed a so-called constitutional complaint against President Pedro Castillo, opening a new legal battle that opposition forces hope could lead to his ouster.
3. The Egyptian regime set free a new patch of political prisoners within the ongoing initiative of the National Dialogue.
4. The Parliament of the Netherlands voted to establish a special tribunal for Russian crimes against Ukraine.
5. The all-important 20th Congress of China’s ruling Communist Party, widely expected to endorse an unprecedented third five-year term for Xi Jinping, putting him on course to be in power for life, concluded on Saturday after electing the party’s Central Committee, a powerful body comprising top leaders.
6. As the political and economic crisis in Tunisia roars, thousands of Tunisians have demonstrated in the capital Tunis, denouncing President Kais Saied’s moves to consolidate political power and demanding accountability for the country’s long-running economic crisis.

 New Scholarship

1. Luís Roberto Barroso and Richard Albert, The 2021 International Review of Constitutional Reform (2022) (gathering jurisdictional reports written by scholars and judges, often in collaboration, on all forms of constitutional revision around the world over the past year)
2. Dhruva Gandhi, Religious Discrimination under the Indian Constitution: Unpacking the Contents of Religion, Indian Journal of Constitutional Law (2022) (answering the question, “What does ‘religion’ as a ground of discrimination mean?” The paper goes about undertaking this inquiry in two stages. The first stage involves a study of cases involving direct religious discrimination, as decided by various High Courts and the Supreme Court. The second stage identifies and studies uncommon judicial opinions that exist on the periphery)
3. Ioannis Kampourakis, Sanne Taekema, and Alessandra Arcuri, Reappropriating the Rule of Law: Between Constituting and Limiting Private Power, Jurisprudence (2022) (arguing that private power is a rule of law concern as much as public power. Through a discussion of contestations of fossil fuel policy, the article shows the critical and empowering potential of a reconfigured rule of law)
4. Anneli Albi, A Paradigm Shift in the Role of Courts? Disappearance of Judicial Review Through Mutual Trust and Other Neofunctionalist Tenets of EU Law, Juridica International (Forthcoming 2022) (submitting that EU law has profoundly been changing the role of courts in Europe, from protecting the fundamental rights of individuals – especially in the event of coercive exercise of public power – towards being seen as agents of, or obstacles to, integration, as well as towards a focus on trust, effectiveness, and enforcement, and protection of the market and of the neoliberal economic order)
5. Robert D. Cooter and Michael D. Gilbert, Public Law and Economics, Oxford University Press (2022) (extending the economic analysis of law to fundamental topics in public law, such as the separation of powers, regulation by agencies, and constitutional rights. By focusing on cases and legal doctrine, the book shows the relevance of economics to the work of lawyers and judges)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The Syria Justice and Accountability Centre (SJAC) seeks a trial monitor based in Frankfurt, Germany, to support its Trial Monitoring project.
2. The Global Summit on Constitutionalism, to be held in March 2023, invites faculty and graduate students to submit a paper and/or a fully formed panel. Free registration is available here. Registration closes this week.
3. Submissions are now open for the upcoming Human Rights Essay Award Competition with the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at American University Washington College of Law. The topic of the 2023 Award is “Equality and Human Rights: Confronting Racial Discrimination.” The deadline is on January 31, 2023.
4. The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Law, invites applications for Ph.D. Fellowships and Ph.D. Studentships 2023-24.
5. The Association of Detainees and the Missing of Sednaya Prison (ADMSP) published a report that sheds light on the inner workings of the Syrian regime’s most notorious detention facility, Sednaya Military Prison, one of the most clandestine and well-guarded places in Syria.

Elsewhere Online

1. András Jakab, Three misconceptions about the EU rule of law crisis, Verfassungsblog
2. Thomas Carothers and Benjamin Press, Stop Projecting America’s Democratic Decline Onto the World, Foreign Policy
3. Rafiah Al Talei, Sara Bazoobandi, and Nima Khorrami, Hijab in Iran: From Religious to Political Symbol, Carnegie
4. Romy Haber, Fostering a Security Architecture for Minorities in the Levant: Failed Shots, IACL Blog
5. Konanani Happy Raligilia, Politics of witchcraft and mental illness in the black communities, AfricLaw