What’s New in Public Law

---

Tina Nicole Nelly Youan, PhD Candidate at Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3 Université

Leigha Crout, PhD Candidate at King’s College London & William H. Hastie Fellow at the University of Wisconsin Law School

---

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. In South Africa, the Constitutional Court unanimously determined that the Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Act, intended to generate further recognition for leadership positions in these communities, was unconstitutional for a legislative failure to generate meaningful public participation. Parliament has been given 24 months to draft new legislation in a manner consistent with the Constitution.
2. President Tsai Ing-wen has nominated four candidates for judicial appointments to Taiwan’s Constitutional Court. If approved by the Legislative Yuan, they will replace four grand judges whose terms end in September.
3. In Malta, the Constitutional Court dismissed a case wherein NGO Repubblika alleged a violation of the right to a fair hearing when Magistrate Lia did not recuse herself from proceedings in a separate case.
4. The case arising from Giulio Regeni’s death has been referred to Italy’s Constitutional Court to determine whether proceedings can take place in the absence of the Egyptian security agents charged with his murder.
5. Guatemala’s Constitutional Court has excluded Carlos Pineda, a frontrunner, from participating in the the June 25 elections. The constitutional court ruling on Friday May 26^th essentially confirmed an earlier decision made by a lower court judge who had originally suspended Pineda due to what he cited as its noncompliance with rules governing the nomination process, such as failure to collect signatures from party delegate and file a required financial report.

In the News

1. Incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdogan has won Turkey’s 2023 presidential election in a run-off victory, defeating opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu on Sunday, May 28, 2023. He won with 52.14% of the vote. Regional experts including Bayram Balci have predicted that Erdogan may be unbeatable in the nation’s near political future.
2. President Faustin-Archange Touadera has announced that the Central African Republic will hold a referendum on removing presidential term limits in the Constitution. Last year, President Touadera organized a drafting committee to implement these changes, an effort which was later deemed unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court.
3. In Jakarta, the National Police have promised to conduct an investigation into the leak of a pending Constitutional Court decision that may significantly impact Indonesia’s electoral system.
4. The U.S. and E.U. have condemned new legislation in Poland that creates a task force for the investigation of Russian influence over political candidates. Observers have noted this may be an effort to target political opposition without due process of law.
5. Namibia’s Supreme Court has issued a new ruling recognizing same-sex marriages performed abroad.
6. Ugunda’s President Museveni has signed an extremely anti-LGBTQ+ bill into law on Monday May 29^th, 2023. This law is one of the harshest anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the world; it criminalizes sex education for the gay community and promotes conversion therapy, among other troubling provisions.

New Scholarship

1. Fabio Giglioni, The Legal Value of Informality for the General Interest: The Example of Cities. In: Ferroni, M.V., Galdini, R., Ruocco, G. (eds) Urban Informality. Springer, Cham. (2023) (Explaining the concept of the city and the place of informality in its regulation).
2. Ali Hassan, Public Law and the Protection of Constitutional Rights (2023) (The preservation and enforcement of constitutional rights within a democratic society are heavily dependent on the vital role of public law. In this paper, the author examines the intricate relationship between public law and the safeguarding of constitutional rights, shedding light on the mechanisms and institutions responsible for ensuring their protection).
3. Zhaoxin Jiang, The Untold Leader of Constitutional Review: China’s Constitutional Court (1948-1971) and Innovative Constitutionalism (2023) (Using a sociohistorical perspective, this article investigates China’s constitutional development from 1958 to 1971 in Taiwan and argues that National insistence on legal exceptionalism and its status as a victor in World War II facilitated the institutionalization of China’s Constitutional Court).
4. Maja Sahadžić et al., eds. “Accommodating Diversity in Multilevel Constitutional Orders: Legal Mechanisms of Divergence and Convergence.” (2023). (Offers insights into the legal mechanisms that are adopted in multilevel constitutional orders to accommodate the tension between contrasting interests of diversity and unity. It then investigates the converging or diverging effects they may have on the functioning of a multilevel constitutional order).
5. Khemthong Tunsakulrunruang, Review of Eugenie Merieau. Constitutional Bricolage: Thailand’s Sacred Monarchy vs. The Rule of Law (2023) (Reviewing Eugenie Merieau’s Constitutional Bricolage).

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The Section on Constitutional Law invites submissions from full-time faculty members (including fellows and VAPs) at AALS member law schools for the Section’s Works-in-Progress program to be held at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Association of the American Law Schools (AALS), on January 3-6, 2024, in Washington, D.C. Interested faculty should submit an abstract no longer than 500 words to the Section Chair, Professor Meg Penrose, at megpenrose@law.tamu.edu no later than 5:00 p.m. CST on Friday, August 25, 2023. Please indicate “Works-in-Progress – 2024 AALS Annual Meeting” both in the subject line of your email and at the top of your abstract. Abstracts should include your name, institutional affiliation, and state of your project (early formative stage, research completed, or draft completed). Abstracts may be supplemented by a statement expressing how your participation will diversify the panel discussion.
2. The Section on Constitutional Law invites submissions from full-time faculty members (including fellows and VAPs) at AALS member law schools for the Section’s Pedagogy Program on stare decisis, to be held at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Association of the American Law Schools (AALS), on January 3-6, 2024, in Washington, D.C. Entitled “Teaching Stare Decisis – From the Warren Court (and Before) to the Roberts Court (and Beyond),” this program seeks to present a robust discussion on stare decisis. The panel’s mandate is broad and seeks to discuss history, precedent, and the decisional process relating to stare decisis. Interested faculty should submit an abstract no longer than 500 words to the Section Chair, Professor Meg Penrose, at megpenrose@law.tamu.edu no later than 5:00 p.m. CST on Friday, August 25, 2023. Please indicate “Stare Decisis Submission – 2024 AALS Annual Meeting” both in the subject line of your email and at the top of your abstract. Abstracts should include your name and institutional affiliation, and may be supplemented by a statement expressing how your participation will diversify the panel discussion.
3. The Section on Constitutional Law invites submissions from full-time faculty members (including fellows and VAPs) at AALS member law schools for the Section’s Article V panel on amending the U.S. Constitution, to be held at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Association of the American Law Schools (AALS), on January 3-6, 2024, in Washington, D.C. Entitled “Reviving Article V: A Structural Approach to Defending Democracy,” this panel is the Section’s primary program. Panelists will discuss the constitutional amendment process in the United States, with a focus on whether Article V remains relevant today in our constitutional structure despite its prolonged disuse.
4. The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law is looking for authors! The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law edited by Prof. Dr. Rainer Grote, Dr. Frauke Lachenmann and Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Rüdiger Wolfrum, is inviting submissions on a closed list of topics. Some of the available keywords might be of interest for the readership of this blog: these include, but are not limited to, the entries on «jurisdiction», «territorial claims in constitutions», «incorporation of territory», «peace treaties and their influence on constitutions» and «organizational sovereignty of the state». While the analysis of these topics cannot dispense with a general overview of the relevant framework set by public international law, the focus should remain on domestic constitutional provisions dealing with fisheries and maritime boundaries and should cover an appropriate selection of relevant jurisdictions. Submissions should be around 5000 words and the ordinary deadline is 6 months from assignment. Designated authors will receive a free token giving access to a selection of Oxford University Press products for 1 year. For further information, or to receive a full list of available entries, please contact the Managing Editor at contact@mpeccol.de.
5. The Georgia State University Law Review is conducting an exclusive article review for Volume 40 of the Review. Any article submitted to the Law Review between June 5th through June 16th will be evaluated for publication by June 23rd. This is an excellent opportunity for authors who wish to ascertain a publication offer before the latter half of the summer. By submitting an article, the author agrees to accept an offer for publication, should one be extended. The author is not required to withdraw any article previously submitted for consideration elsewhere.  However, the author may not accept an offer from another journal for any article submitted to this exclusive review process unless the Review indicates that the article will not receive a publication offer. Any articles accepted through this exclusive review process will be published in the Review’s second or third issues, which are slated for publication in Spring of 2024.  If you have an article you would like to submit, please e-mail Rebecca Sohnlein and Mackenzie Miller a copy of the article and your CV at articleseditor@gsu.edu with the subject line “Volume 40 Exclusive Article Review.” If you have submitted an article to the Georgia State Law Review previously, you must resubmit your article for consideration in this exclusive review.

Elsewhere Online

1. Mahima Balaji, A Win for LGBT Rights in Namibia (May 29, 2023)
2. Ioannis Kampourakis, A Return of Mainstream Politics? (May 27, 2023)
3. Wojciech Sarduski, The Law to Take Out Tusk (May 31, 2023)