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What’s New: Week of December 1

—Dhruv Singhal, B.A. LL.B. (Hons) Candidate at National Law University, Jodhpur, India

—Miracle Okoth Okumu Mudeyi, LL.B. (Hons) University of Nairobi, L.LM Candidate at the University of Nairobi, Kenya, Advocate of the High Court of Kenya.

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 High Court of Kenya struck down key provisions of the Seed and Plant Varieties Act that criminalised saving, exchanging, and selling uncertified indigenous seeds. The decision found that the provisions disproportionately burdened smallholder farmers and undermined constitutional commitments to dignity, food security, and cultural practices. The judgment is a rare instance of a court explicitly pushing back against a commercialisation agenda in agriculture and reframing seed policy as a rights question rather than a purely technical matter.
  2. Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court ordered former President Jair Bolsonaro and several co-accused to begin serving their 27-year sentences for plotting to overturn the 2022 election, after their final appeals were exhausted, defending democratic order despite political pressure from supporters. election, after their final appeals were exhausted. The Court’s insistence on immediate incarceration, despite intense political pressure and mobilisation by Bolsonaro’s supporters, signals an unusually muscular defence of democratic order in a region where coup plotters have often evaded meaningful punishment.
  3. Indonesia’s Constitutional Court invalidated provisions that allowed active police officers to occupy civilian positions in ministries and state agencies, holding that the practice violated constitutional requirements of a professional, politically neutral police service and blurred lines between security forces and civil administration. Government responses hint at attempts to dilute implementation, illustrating how courts can articulate a constitutional boundary while leaving enforcement vulnerable to executive backsliding.
  4. Uganda’s Constitutional Court, in a closely split 3–2 decision, upheld Penal Code provisions criminalising most abortions, reasoning that they protect foetal life, family values and responsible parenthood. values and responsible parenthood. Critics note that the Court gave little weight to evidence on unsafe abortions and maternal mortality, entrenching a criminal-law approach to reproductive health and leaving rights-protective change to a political arena that has been resistant to reform.
  5. The Tokyo High Court held that Japan’s refusal to recognise same-sex marriage does not presently violate the Constitution’s provisions on family and equality, reversing a more progressive lower-court ruling, even as one of the judges warned that constitutional violations will become “inevitable” if the Diet fails to act. The decision sharpens the stakes for an expected Supreme Court review and illustrates how courts can both stabilise the status quo and gently signal that legislative inertia may soon be incompatible with constitutional equality norms.

In the News

  1. Myanmar’s National Defense and Security Council approved amendments allowing sweeping rights restrictions in areas under martial law with scant temporal or substantive limits, effectively legalising indefinite emergency as a permanent mode of rule.
  2. Ecuadorian voters rejected proposals to allow foreign military bases and expanded security-force powers, while approving stricter anti-corruption measures, signalling resistance to trading sovereignty and liberties for securitised politics.
  3. The US Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to border “metering,” which turns back asylum seekers when officials claim capacity is full, forcing a decision on whether people held just outside ports of entry can invoke statutory and constitutional protections.
  4. A South Korean special prosecutor sought a fifteen-year sentence for former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo over an alleged role in a failed attempt to declare martial law in 2024, testing whether constitutional hardball by elected leaders attracts real criminal accountability.
  5. Kenyan political leaders intensified criticism of conservatory orders as obstacles to development, underscoring how interim judicial relief in socio-economic and environmental cases is increasingly framed as an anti-growth indulgence rather than a rights-protecting tool.

New Scholarship

  1. András Jakab, ‘Constitution-Making Procedure and Legitimacy Maximisation’ 21(3) European Constitutional Law Review (2025) (arguing that no single constitution-making script can satisfy all conceptions of legitimacy and that designers must choose which dimensions, such as participation, deliberation, elite pacting, etc. to prioritise. For public-law reformers, the article is a reminder that global “best practice” checklists often smuggle in contested values rather than neutral technical advice).
  2. Anurag Bhaskar, et al ‘Report on Judicial Conceptions of Caste’ (Report prepared for the Indian Supreme Court’s Centre for Research and Planning, November 2025)  (tracking judicial language on caste, merit, and efficiency over seventy-five years of Indian constitution bench decisions and their effect on equality law and doctrine, creating a likely reference point in debates on reservations, antisubordination and institutional bias).
  3. Anurag Bhaskar, et al, ‘Appointing Law Researchers in High Courts and District Judiciary: Policy, Practice, Pathways’ (Report prepared for the Indian Supreme Court’s Centre for Research and Planning, November 2025) (surveying how Indian courts recruit and use law clerks and researchers, and recommending a more transparent, merit-based and inclusive framework)
  4. Jack Goldsmith, ‘Interim Orders, the Presidency, and Judicial Supremacy’ 139 (1) Harvard Law Review (2025) (interrogating how temporary injunctions against the US President both stabilise and destabilise the separation of powers in an age of aggressive executive action)
  5. Micah Schwartzman, Richard Schragger and Nelson Tebbe, ‘The Structure of Religious Preference’ 139 (1) Harvard Law Review (2025) (dissecting how modern Free Exercise jurisprudence systematically privileges certain religious claimants and practices while presenting itself as neutral, in a timely intervention, given ongoing disputes over religion in schools and public spaces as it offers a vocabulary for assessing when courts are quietly building hierarchical religious orders under the guise of equal liberty)
  6. Paulina Milewska, ‘The Price of Reputation: Freedom of the Press and Proportionality in Real Madrid v Le Monde: ECJ 4 October 2024, Case C-633/22, Real Madrid Club de Fútbol and AE v EE and Société Éditrice du Monde’ 21(3) European Constitutional Law Review (2025) (probing the Court of Justice’s understanding of proportionality between reputational interests and media freedom through a high-profile defamation dispute, and suggesting that even sports-branding cases can harden doctrines that either protect or chill investigative journalism, depending on how courts calibrate remedies and presumptions).
  7. Thomas Perroud, ‘Adjudication at the French Constitutional Council: The dangers of informality to regulate power distribution inside and outside the Court’ (International Journal of Constitutional Law, advance article, 19 November 2025) (dissecting how informal working practices in the Conseil constitutionnel shape who actually wields power. He shows that extra-textual conventions, opaque drafting practices and informal channels between judges and political actors can undercut formal guarantees of independence and collegiality, raising the question whether comparative constitutional analysis has been too complacent about courts whose authority rests heavily on mystique and closed procedures).

Call for Papers and Announcements

  1. The UK Constitutional Law Association invites papers for a workshop on “Economic Aspects of the Constitution,” to be held at the University of Glasgow on 16–17 April 2026. Proposals for papers are due for submission by 28 November 2025.
  2. The University of Oxford has issued a call for papers for the 3rd International Forum on Asian Laws, focusing on how Asian legal systems negotiate global norms while preserving or re-inventing local legal identities. Abstracts are due 15 January 2025.
  3. The Universities of Lausanne, Warwick, and Ottawa invite early-career scholars to apply for a new research workshop on “Open Constitutional Democracy” at the University of Lausanne on 26-27 August 2026. Abstracts should be submitted by December 19, 2025.
  4. The Digital Constitutionalism Academy invites presentations for a conference and training school on ‘Digital Regulation and Governance: The Role of Public Law and Private Law’ to be held in Florence, Italy, on 9-10 April 2026. The deadline for applications is 30 January 2026.

Elsewhere Online

  1. Zainab Malik, Shifting the Scales: How Pakistan’s 27th Amendment Undermines Judicial Independence and Cements Executive Dominance (ConstitutionNet, 28 November 2025)
  2. Karolina Kocemba, When Legal Uncertainty Violates Reproductive Rights: A.R. v. Poland and the Dynamics of Transnational Legal Mobilization (Verfassungsblog, 27 November 2025)
  3. Başak Çalı, Expert Comment: how can we turn court rulings into real climate action? (University of Oxford, 13 November 2025)

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