What’s New: Week of September 28

— Niels Graaf, Assistant Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Amsterdam

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 European Court of Human Rights has declared the application in the case of Kuijt v. the Netherlands inadmissible. The case concerned the applicant’s complaint about the practice at the Supreme Court of the Netherlands by which judges who are not part of the judicial panel to which the case has been assigned may participate in the deliberations. Kuijt claimed that the potential involvement of “reservisten” in her case violated her right to a fair trial The ECHR concluded that a legal avenue had been available to the applicant at national level to raise her complaint but that she had not used it.
2. The Constitutional Court of Kosovo found that the government of Kosovo had been constituted after the expiry of the 30-day constitutional deadline. Nevertheless, it held that the Assembly’s decision of 13 September to elect the Government of Kosovo did not violate Article 95 of the Constitution.
3. The Spanish Constitutional Court has upheld the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between Spain and France, rejecting a challenge brought by the Senate at the request of the absolute majority of the Partido Popular. The Court found no constitutional objection to the treaty provision stipulating that ‘[a] member of the Government of one of the parties shall be invited to attend the Council of Ministers of the other party at least once every three months, on a rotating basis’.
4. The Belgian Constitutional Court dismissed a number of challenges to the law limiting the right to unemployment benefits in time, but finds it discriminatory that the ‘transitional arrangement’ limits the duration of entitlement to unemployment benefits for the longest-term unemployed to less than the 12 months generally provided for under the new scheme. 

In the News

1. Labour law professor Gregor Thüsing is set to be appointed as Germany’s Advocate General at the European Court of Justice. He will succeed Juliane Kokott, who has served as Advocate General for four terms.
2. The German Federal Constitutional Court will hear a case on 4 November 2026 concerning the exclusion of a member of the 21st Bundestag from the AfD parliamentary group. The applicant argues that the AfD parliamentary group’s decision of 3 March 2026 to exclude him violated his rights as a member of parliament under Article 38(1), second sentence, of the Basic Law.
3. Austria’s Constitutional Court expects to rule on a newly introduced ban on Muslim headscarves for under-14s in schools in the first half of next year.
4. On 17-18 September, the EUI Department of Law marked its 50th anniversary with a two-day conference at Villa Salviati.

New Scholarship

1. R. Á. Costello, ‘Strasbourg’s Consideration of Article 267 TFEU and the ECtHR as a Shadow Constitutional Court of the European Union’, German Law Journal, 27(4), 537–555. (This article argues that the European Court of Human Rights exercises an under-acknowledged power to shape the constitutional norms of the EU’s legal order — a power that extends beyond that court’s role in influencing the interpretation of fundamental rights).
2. Franca Maria Feisel, ‘The internal market detour’ for defending democracy’ Common Market Law Review, Volume 63, Issue 5 [pre-publication] pp. 1 – 32 (The article argues that this ‘internal market detour’ is legally sustainable, but normatively ambivalent).
3. N. de Boer, ‘Making Sense of Democracy’s Distress‘ European Constitutional Law Review, 22(2), 328–357 (This review article critically discusses three books: Democracy Unmoored by Samuel Issacharoff, Democracy Erodes from the Top by Larry Bartels, and Tyranny of the Minority by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt).
4. Stohler, S., and Ingram, M. C., ‘The effect of judges’ institutional interests on a free press’. Global Constitutionalism, 1–37. (By examining judicial decision-making through the lens of institutional self-interest, this article contributes to scholarship on judicial behavior, comparative constitutional law and freedom of expression).
5. L. S. A. Trapman, ‘The EU Regulation on the Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising‘ Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law (This article discusses the (shaky) foundation of the Regulation and the most important obligations that follow from it. It also mentions the effects of the rules and the questions that arise in their implementation, specifically with regard to the enforcement and the designation of supervisory authorities)
6. H. van Eijken, H., Vlieks, C., ‘Citizenship: The Hidden Backbone of Constitutional Identity’ in: van der Schyff, G. (eds) The Constitutional Identity of The Netherlands (T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague, 2026) (This article situates citizenship within the broader constitutional framework and highlights the impact of (changing) notions of citizenship in conceptualising the identity of Dutch constitutional law).
7. Beibit Yu. Shangirbayeva, ‘Kazakhstan‘ in André Alen and David Haljan (eds), IEL Constitutional Law, (Kluwer Law International BV, Netherlands) (IEL Constitutional Law) 1-62 (2026), and ‘Kazakhstan‘, in André Alen and David Haljan (eds), IEL Constitutional Law, (Kluwer Law International BV, Netherlands) 1-356
8. Rebecca Reingold et al, ‘Between protection and autonomy: a comparative analysis of legal approaches to abortion access for young people‘ 33 (1) Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters (2025)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. Paper proposals are invited for the Sixth Illinois-Bologna conference on Constitutional History: Comparative Perspectives on “Constitutional Moments” which will be held at the University of Illinois College of Law on March 8-9, 2027. Proposals received by October 20, 2026 will have priority and subsequent proposals will be considered if space remains.
2. The Rule of Law Clinic at the CEU Democracy Institute (Budapest) invites applications for short-term fellowships. The fellowship offers an opportunity for an experienced legal practitioner, policy expert, or researcher to tackle critical issues related to the rule of law within the European Union.
3. The Maastricht Centre for Law and Jurisprudence invites abstracts for a two day conference on ‘ECtHR jurisprudence: an incremental and progressive development or time to take a breather?’ to be held on 14-15 January 2027. Abstracts are due by 30 October 2026.
4. The programme of the third ICON-S Benelux Chapter General Conference is out. This year’s conference theme is “Trust in Transition: Public Law in a Changing World”.

Elsewhere Online

1. Naming the Harm, ‘How International Law Quietly Overlooks the Religious in Religious Persecution’, Verfassungsblog (24 september 2026).
2. Atul Kumar Dubey, The Indian Constitution’s Unfinished Argument with Its Past Int’l J. Const. L. Blog (25 september 2026)
3. Research workshop (hybrid) on Judicial Roles in 21st-Century Politics at the ILF-GERJC Institut Louis favoreu/Faculté de droit et de science politique Aix-Marseille University.