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 U.S. Supreme Court declined to block the execution of Wesley Ruiz, scheduled to take place on 1 February in Texas. Ruiz argued that jurors relied on anti-Hispanic stereotypes in deciding to sentence him to death.
2. The Maltese Constitutional Court rules that Malta’s assets freezing order laws are incompatible with E.U. rules.
3. The Spanish Constitutional Court rejects Sulu Sultanate self-proclaimed heirs’ appeal against annulment of arbitrator, signifying a new victory for the Malaysian government.
4. The Portuguese Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional some of the norms of the decree that regulates medically assisted death, in response to the request for preventive inspection by the President of the Republic.
5. Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) ruled that increased police powers in the northern state of Mecklenburg-Lower Pomeria were partially unconstitutional.

In the News

1. The President of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Marinko Čavara, appointed Boris Barun from the Croat people as a new judge of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Constitutional Court.
2. The President of the Constitutional Court Zühtü Arslan has been re-elected as the head of Turkey’s highest court.
3. The President Cyril Ramaphosa has nominated Justice Mahube Molemala to become the next president of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in South Africa. She will be the second woman to head the appellate court.
4. The Latvia Constitutional Court reports having initiated a case over government regulations that narrowed the average size of trees to be felled, which opened the way to cut down young forests.
5. The Montenegro Members of the Constitutional Committee had reached the agreement over the election of three candidates for judges of the Constitutional Court after the Constitutional Court interviewed 26 candidates who applied to the public call for election of four judges of the Constitutional Court.
6. The Federal Supreme Court (STF) ordered the opening of an investigation against authorities of the government of former president Jair Bolsonaro on suspicion of committing genocide and other types of crimes against indigenous communities.

New Scholarship

1. Robert Hazell and Timothy Foot. Executive Power: The Prerogative, Past, Present and Future (2022) (The book covers the whole range of prerogative powers, from going to war and ratifying treaties, appointing and dismissing ministers, regulating the civil service and public appointments, to the grant of honours and pardons and the issue of passports. Its 19 chapters provide a comprehensive guide to the operation of the prerogative – past, present, and future – together with suggestions for reform) (Use the code GLR AP3UK for UK orders and GLR AP3US for US orders to get 20% off!).
2. Vilija Velyvyte. Judicial Authority in EU Internal Market Law: Implications for the Balance of Competences and Powers (2022) (This book examines the role of the European Court of Justice in the regulation of the internal market from a competence perspective, exploring a related question: to what extent does the Court observe the constitutional limits of EU competence and its own institutional powers in the interpretation of EU internal market law laid down in the Treaties?) (Use the code GLR AP3UK for UK orders and GLR AP3US for US orders to get 20% off!)
3. Fabrício Pontin and Johannes Servan. Liberal prudence in the new market of ideas: Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill and the contemporary pitfalls of an unrestricted domain of speech. (2023) (This article argues that Mill’s defense of the “market of ideas” is not unconditional precisely because it is aligned with Adam Smith’s less familiar view of the conditions in which a market works, which, as we will see, are ultimately connected to moral sentiments and the development of positive emotions in an Aristotelian view of moral psychology).
4. José de Faria Costa, José Manuel Aroso Linhares, Maria João Antunes and Inês Godinho. Culpa e tempo. (2022) (This work brings together a set of essays that seek to bring together, around the problem of “Culpability and Time”, perspectives of Criminal Law and Philosophy of Law, which not only intersect with each other, but also cross various latitudes and longitudes, allowing a multidisciplinary reflection).
5. José Manuel Aroso Linhares, Manuel Atienza. Human Dignity and the Autonomy of Law (2022). (Offers an unusual combination of topics on concepts of human dignity and the problem of the autonomy of the law. Explores the limits of the law and the impacts of external (philosophical, political and aesthetic) challenges).
6. Dawood Ahmed and Muhammad Zubair Abbasi. Democracy under God: Constitutions, Islam and Human Rights in the Muslim World (2023) (This book presents a systematic argument and a powerful empirical lens to study the interface of religion, law, and politics in the Muslim world).

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The Center for Latin American Studies – The Ohio State University invites you for a virtual talk with Bruno Cunha on “Judicial Dialogue: The United States Supreme Court and the Federal Supreme Court of Brazil: A historical and comparative analysis”. The talk will be on 8 March 2023.
2. The University of Coimbra Institute for Legal Research (UCILeR) invites you to the event “Building’s environmental passport · Electronic Land Registry’s contribution to ecological transition” that will take place in hybrid on 17 February 2023.
3. The 18th World Consumer Law Conference of the International Association of Consumer Law (IACL) will take place in Hamburg from 19 to 21 July 2023 at the Rudolf Steiner Haus. The theme of the conference is “Challenges and Unanswered Questions of Consumer Law”.
4. The International Journal for the Semiotics of Law welcomes abstracts words for the special issue “The Legal Semiotics of Digital Face” by 15 February 2023. This issue will be published in October 2023.
5. The Chicago-Kent College of Law is now open to submissions for the Roy C. Palmer Prize on Democracy, Civil Liberties, and the Rule of Law. The final deadline is 1 July 2023.

Elsewhere Online

1. Annalena Baerbock, “Strengthening International Law in Times of Crisis” – Speech by Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in The Hague, Auswärtiges Amt
2. Adam Feldman, It’s Not Your Imagination — The Supreme Court is Less Efficient, Empirical SCOTUS
3. David Sobreira, Jurisdição Constitucional em Dieter Grimm (com Saul Tourinho), Onze Supremos Podcast
4. Onyekachi C. Okorie, Election Observation in Africa – A Critical Review As Nigeria Prepares For Elections, IACL-AIDC Blog
5. Kristina Reymann-Schneider, Rosa Parks: Icon of US civil rights movement, DW