What’s New: Week of September 21

— Yassin Abdalla Abdelkarim. Judge at Assyut Economic Court, Egypt. LLM Leeds Beckett University, UK, Founder and Director of Cyber Jurisprudence International Initiative (CyJurII).

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 Dale Haines by his litigation guardian Barbara Ramjan v Attorney General of NSW, the High Court of Australia allowed an appeal filed on behalf of a patient under the Mental Health and Cognitive Impairment Forensic Provisions Act 2020, holding that prior decisions allowing the extension of his detention were made in error, and that statutory requirements were not satisfied to the requisite standard.
2. The High Court of Australia in EGH19 v Minister for Immigration & Citizenship disallowed an appeal, holding that a decision of a Minister’s delegate to not revoke a visa cancellation did not suffer from jurisdictional errors.
3. The Constitutional Court of Armenia decided that the obligations prescribed in the CIS Treaty for International Controlled Delivery, signed in Dushanbe on 10 October 2025, were in compliance with the Constitution.
4. The England Wales High Court in R (FNB & Anor) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2026] EWHC 2374 (Admin) rejected appeals by an Indian couple in an interfaith marriage seeking asylum in the U.K. on grounds of procedural fairness and irrationality, but allowed claims that they were unlawfully separated in detention. During the proceedings, the Secretary of State conceded the separation was unlawful and revealed that no suitable family accommodation had existed for such detention since 2020. Claims for damages, if any, were transferred to the county court for assessment.
5. The England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division), in R (TDB) v London Borough of Haringey [2026] EWCA Civ 1184 allowed an appeal filed by a young man with autism, ADHD, and complex behavioral needs, who had sought judicial review of a council social assessment of his needs under the Care Act 2014. The primary issue was whether the local authority was required to carry out a decision-specific mental capacity assessment under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 before finalizing the Care Act needs assessment. The Court of Appeal examined whether reliance on the statutory presumption of capacity was lawful where evidence raised genuine doubts regarding capacity, ultimately clarifying the required threshold for initiating capacity assessments during local authority care evaluations.

In the News

1. The Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights, along with the German Federal Court, Constitutional Court of Austria, Swiss Federal Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court of the Principality of Liechtenstein, conducted the biennial Meeting of the German-language Constitutional Courts in Liechtenstein on 13 and 14 September 2026. Topics discussed included the role of constitutional courts in protecting elections and direct democracy, developments in data protection and protecting freedom of expression and the general right of personality.
2. President Donald Trump rejected Democratic Party health care policies, stating that their proposed Medicare for All legislative framework didn’t work. He asserted that confidential drug pricing deals would be less expensive than universal health insurance.
3. The the President of the Constitutional Court of Georgia hosted a delegation of the Constitutional Court of Azerbaijan, within the framework of an official visit, on 9 September 2026. The topic of discussion at the meeting was “Dialogue and Regional Cooperation among Constitutional Courts for Strengthening the Rule of Law.”
4. Judges from Kenya participated in a capacity-building workshop in Nairobi, on human rights approaches to digital governance, on 16 to 17 July 2026. The workshop was organised by the National Council for Law Reporting (NCLR), with support from UNESCO’s Social Media for Peace initiative, and in partnership with the Kenya Judiciary Academy (KJA) and the National Coalition on Freedom of Expression and Content Moderation in Kenya (FECoMo).  

New Scholarship

1. Rawnak Miraj Ul Azam, Epidemiological causation and environmental standing under the ECHR: resolving doctrinal tensions after Cannavacciuolo and KlimaSeniorinnen 26(4) Human Rights Law Review (2026)
2. Oğuzhan Öztürk, The right to life and mandatory detention of asylum seekers: rethinking suicide under Article 6 of the ICCPR, 26(4) Human Rights Law Review (2026)
3. A Brown et al, ICD deactivation in patients approaching the end of life. Are we getting it right? 28(1) Europace (2026)
4. Panos Koliastasis and Andrew Denham, Evaluating leader-selection systems beyond the UK context: the major Greek parties since 1974, Parliamentary Affairs (2026)
5. Marco Improta and Francesco Marangoni, Confidence votes and executive dominance: the case of Italy, Parliamentary Affairs (2026)
6. Dennis L. Weisman, The commitment problem in regulatory regimes, 69(25) Journal of Regulatory Economics (2026)
7. Eleni Frantziou, ‘Internet rights and the European Court of Human Rights‘ 26(2) Human Rights Law Review (2026)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. Artificial Intelligence and Law invites submissions for an upcoming collection on ‘Argument Mining in the Legal Domain’ by 1 August 2027.
2. The European Journal of Law and Economics invites submissions on an ongoing basis for a special issue titled ‘The law and economics of accounting and auditing. A glimpse inside the black box’.
3. The European Journal of Law and Economics invites submissions on an ongoing basis for a collection titled ‘European Associations’
4. The Journal of Human Rights and Social Work invites submissions for a special issue titled ‘Social Work Despite Hostility: Hope, Human Rights, and Resistance’ The deadline for submissions is 30 September 2026.
5. The International Journal for Educational Integrity invites submissions for a collection on ‘Academic integrity and human rights: maintaining dignity and fairness for all in misconduct cases’. The deadline is 15 December 2026.

Elsewhere Online

1. UK Parliament, Joint Committee on Human Rights, Human Rights and the Regulation of AI (2026–27, HC 160 / HL Paper 56)
2. Yasmine Ouali, Artificial Intelligence and Freedom of Expression: Reshaping Criminal Liability for Digital Content in the Era of Generative Algorithms, CyJurII Research (9 July 2026)
3. Din Mashkovich, Low Earth Orbit Mega-Constellations, Civilian-Military Inseparability and The Limits of Targetability under IHL, CyJurII Insights (8 August 2026)