What’s New: Week of August 3

— Sumit Kumar Ganguly, Assistant Professor, The Neotia University, Diamond Harbour, India.

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 of India has reserved judgement on whether petitions challenging the constitutional validity of a 2023 law on appointments to the Election Commission should be referred to a larger bench or not. Enacted after a 2023 Supreme Court decision created a temporary appointment framework to fill a legislative gap, the law replaces the Chief Justice of India with a Cabinet Minister in the selection committee that appoints election commissioners.
2. The Supreme Court of Ghana has held the delegate system used by the political parties to elect their presidential and parliamentary candidates to be unconstitutional. In a 5-2 majority decision, the court directed political parties to replace it within a year, with a system by which all eligible party members of the party can directly participate in the selection of presidential and parliamentary candidates.
3. The Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea has upheld a constitutional amendment regarding the ‘Vote of No Confidence’ process. The court rejected challenges to Section 145 of the Constitution, thereby granting a legal victory to the incumbent Government.
4. The Caribbean Court of Justice dismissed appeals from Guyana’s opposition leader Azruddin Mohamed and his father, allowing proceedings for their extradition to the United States to move forward. Upholding decisions from the High Court and Court of Appeal, the Court of Justice examined the limits of the Minister of Home Affairs’ statutory powers and dismissed claims that the process had been influenced by apparent bias.
5. The Constitutional Court of Indonesia has ruled that the country’s Government cannot use the education budget henceforth to fund a free meals programme for schools. Under the Constitution, at least 20% of the national budget must be allocated to education and in 2026, education received 20.1% of the total expenditure. 
6. The Constitutional Court of Seychelles declared that a constitutional amendment allowing defence forces to conduct law enforcement functions even it there was no public emergency, was unconstitutional, as constitutional procedure for amendments had not been adhered to. The petitions challenging the amendments were filed by the Seychelles Human Rights Commission and others.

In the News

1. The United Kingdom’s new Prime Minister Andy Burnham has indicated his support for a written Constitution, to replace the current uncodified Constitution consisting of statutes, common law, and agreements.
2. India has criticised Pakistan for holding Legislative Assembly elections in Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir, describing them as a ‘cosmetic electoral exercise’ and accusing Pakistan of continuing human rights violations in the region. India claims the entirety of the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including areas currently administered by Pakistan, as an integral part of its territory.   
3. The Prime Minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis has called for a new Constitution that reflects contemporary concerns. His government has submitted constitutional reform proposals, including changes to judicial appointments that would allow judges to nominate judicial candidates.
4. After 34 years of having a unicameral chamber, Peru has reverted to a bicameral Parliament after consisting of a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies. The Senate consolidates legislative power, and can amend bills passed by the Chamber of Deputies.

New Scholarship

1. Samuel Vincent, The Court Is Not the Constitution: Historical Challenges to Judicial Supremacy and the Case for Coordinate Constitutional Interpretation SSRN (July 2026) (arguing that co-ordinate construction or departmentalism offers more robust support to constitutional democracy, than models of judicial supremacy).
2. Tom Sato, Runtime Constitutional Enforcement for Agentic AI: Toward Machine-readable Jurisdictional Compliance SSRN (July 2026) (arguing that the draft Constitutional AI Protocol as an alternative to licensing requirements for AI models that require human intermediaries, and proposing that this protocol provides more robust protections while enabling more AI deployment).
3. Bryan Dennis G Tiojanco, Andrew Harding. Territorial Governance in Southeast Asia International Journal of Constitutional Law (July 2026) (book review)
4. Uladzislau Belavusau, Cheng-Yi Huang, ed. Constitutionalizing Transitional Justice: How Constitutions and Constitutional Courts Deal with Past Atrocity International Journal of Constitutional Law (July 2026) (book review).
5. Stefano Osella, Rehan Abeyratne. Courts and LGBTQ+ Rights in an Age of Judicial Retrenchment, International Journal of Constitutional Law (July 2026) (book review).

Calls for Papers and Announcements:

1. The NLIU Law Review, published by the National Law Institute University, Bhopal, India, is now accepting submissions of manuscripts for publication in Volume XVI Issue I of the Journal. The submission deadline is 16th August, 2026.
2. The NLUD Journal on LABOUR, published by the National Law University, Delhi, India, is now accepting submissions for its third issue. The submission deadline is 30th September, 2026.
3. The RMLNLU Law Review, published by the Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University India, is accepting submissions for its Volume XVII. The submission deadline is 6th September, 2026.
4. The Symbiosis International (Deemed) University India, invites submissions on Law, Literature, Language, and Culture: Epistemologies of Justice. The submission deadline is 10th August, 2026.
5. The International Congress on Digital Violence (ICDV 2026) will be held in a hybrid format at the Faculty of Law, University of Valencia, Spain, on 13–14 October 2026. It welcomes submissions from legal, sociological, psychological, pedagogical, philological, computational, or multidisciplinary perspectives. The submission deadline is 20th September, 2026.

Elsewhere Online

1. Rodger Citron, Justice Kavanaugh: the great concurrer of the Roberts court?, SCOTUSBlog (30 July 2026)
2. V. Venkatesan, When relief stops short of accountability, Supreme Court Observer (29 July 2026)
3. Junko Ito, Article 9 remains Japan’s shield against US wars, East Asia Forum (3 August 2026)
4. Marion Joy, How Kenya’s Court of Appeal Allowed the Indiscriminate Arrest of Women and Healthcare Providers for Abortion, I-CONnect (30 July 2026)
5. Upendra Baxi, Statelessness and the Limits of Judicial Protection, India Legal (1 August 2026)