Erika ARBAN & Tom Gerald DALY

To celebrate our one-year anniversary since re-launch, and reflecting the Blog’s vibrancy and range of coverage, we are publishing 4 Blog Symposia back-to-back as a 'Symposium Season' from today until the end of July.  The first Symposium, on crisis in Venezuela, was put together by Guest Editor Raul Sánchez-Urribarri, and starts today

Constance LEE

In many respects, Park Geun-Hye’s impeachment saga of 2016/17 is just another piece of mounting evidence that the Constitutional Court is gaining status in the political life of South Korea. However, reservations regarding the role of the Court continue to be raised. Is the ‘judiciary’ exceeding its powers in determining issues of a political nature? Or is it simply an example of government posturing to validate majority decisions?  I propose an alternative perspective.

Tom Gerald DALY

Additions in the April Update include:

• ·         New research worldwide from March and early April 2019

• ·         A significant list of additions suggested by DEM-DEC Users

• ·         A growing list of forthcoming research, and

• ·         A list of resources recently added to the DEM-DEC Links section

BUI Ngoc Son

Editor’s Note: this text is a cross-post from I·CONnect Blog where it was published on 10 April 2019. The original text can be viewed here.

On 28-29 March 2019, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law hosted a Symposium on “Global Constitutionalism: Asia-Pacific Perspectives.” The Symposium brought together a diverse group of scholars to discuss how polities in the Asia-Pacific region respond to the global spread of ideas and institutions of constitutionalism…

Durim BERISHA

Nobody seems to have expected the so-called “sui generis” process of state-building in Kosovo would result in “sui generis” events and (mis)conceptions regarding fundamental issues of constitutionality and constitutional justice. Until now, almost all authors I have read praise the so-called internationalized constitutionality and constitutional justice in Kosovo. But these articles disregard the main issues with what has happened and is happening in Kosovo.

Sergio VERDUGO

Iddo Porat and Rehan Abeyratne identify “three dimensions along which a judge may be towering – political, institutional and jurisprudential.” To become a towering figure, a judge should tower at least in one of those dimensions. They also briefly suggest that Eugenio Valenzuela – a judge that served in the Chilean Constitutional Court in the 1980s – was a political towering judge because he helped “to oust an autocratic regime.” Why does Judge Valenzuela fit that description?

William PARTLETT & Zim NWOKORA

In the ongoing drama of Brexit politics, it can be hard to know where to start with an evaluation. In this post, we want to assess a key mistake made in setting up the UK’s referendum on EU membership that took place on 23 June 2016.

Iulia MOTOC

This chapter, recently published in the edited collection Intersecting Views on National and International Human Rights Protection: Essays in Honour of Guido Raimondi, discusses the background to the case of GIEM v Italy with a focus on the relationship between the Italian Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights.

Aeyal Gross

Editors’ Note: As Israel’s general elections on 9 April draw close, this two-part post by Aeyal Gross discusses two issues: (i) the critical change in Israel’s constitutional development occasioned by two recent legislative measures  (one enacted, one still a Bill); and (ii) the gap between the discussion of constitutional changes in Israel and the elephant in the room—the occupation. Part 1 was published on 27 March and is available here. We welcome responses to these posts.

Dennis DAVIS

An appointment as the first head of a newly established Constitutional Court for a democratic South Africa may constitute a necessary but certainly is not a sufficient condition for classification as a towering judicial figure. By towering judicial figure, I mean a judge who dominates the legal field, who carves out a body of jurisprudence that shapes the law in the country for decades after his or her retirement while ensuring the institutional independence and integrity of the judiciary.

Aeyal GROSS

Editors’ Note: As Israel’s general elections on 9 April draw close, this two-part post by Aeyal Gross discusses two issues: (i) the critical change in Israel’s constitutional development occasioned by two recent legislative measures  (one enacted, one still a Bill); and (ii) the gap between the discussion of constitutional changes in Israel and the elephant in the room—the occupation. Part 2 will be published on 29 March. We welcome responses to these posts.

Jaakko HUSA

The Finnish Committee for Comparative Law held a meeting on 19 March 2019 at the Helsinki University’s Law Faculty. Traditionally the annual meeting begins with an invited lecture that concerns comparative law broadly understood. This year’s lecture was given by Professor Heikki Pihlajamäki (Helsinki University).

David LANDAU

The Colombian Constitutional Court is a somewhat unlikely place to find a “towering” justice. While the Court has been one of the most activist in the world since its creation in 1991, it is also a highly institutionalized body.

Argelia QUERALT JIMENEZ

Editors’ note: In 2017 Catalonia experienced a crisis following the independence referendum and unilateral declaration of independence from Spain (previously debated on this blog here and here). Criminal trials of Catalan separatist leaders are currently underway: we gather two diverging perspectives on these trials from Argelia Queralt Jiménez and Mireia Grau Creus.

Mireia GRAU CREUS

Editors’ note: In 2017 Catalonia experienced a crisis following the independence referendum and unilateral declaration of independence from Spain (previously debated on this blog here and here). Criminal trials of Catalan separatist leaders are currently underway: we gather two diverging perspectives on these trials from Argelia Queralt Jiménez and Mireia Grau Creus.

Mara MALAGODI

Dramatic political circumstances may give rise to a particular type of towering judicial figures. An explosive context has the potential to trigger a sort of “fight or flight” judicial response; thus, those judges who demonstrate the resilience, confidence, and moral integrity to stand their ground amidst cataclysmic events and political storms represent a subset of heroic judges.

See the full post on our Symposium Partner, the ICONnect Blog: here

Alon HAREL

Much has been written in Israel about the constitutional or, more broadly, the legal revolution instigated to a large extent by the retired, highly influential, Chief Justice Aharon Barak whose name has become identified with the new Israeli jurisprudence. In recent years however, some theorists have been talking about the counter-revolution.

Jaclyn NEO & Kevin TAN

Judges can only ‘tower’ in environs where appropriate opportunities exist for them to do so. For that reason, they are more likely to be found in common law than civil law jurisdictions. They are also more likely to emerge in younger jurisdictions where the law is less settled or where local conditions require a significant departure from the established judicial canons. On that score, a towering judge should have emerged in Singapore a long time ago…

See the full post on our Symposium Partner, the ICONnect Blog: here

Massimo FICHERA

From the outset, the current Italian government (in power since 4 March 2018) has distinguished itself for highly controversial decisions and measures – often with significant constitutional implications for the development of the Italian form of government.