Karen KONG

On 4 April 2019, Children’s Day, the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal (‘CFA’) delivered the judgment of Comilang, Milagros Tecson & Anor v Director of Immigration [2019] HKCFA 10, but it was by no means a day for celebration for the children involved in this case. The combined appeals were brought by two families.

Amelia SIMPSON & Elisa ARCIONI

We are excited to introduce the new IACL research group on Membership and Exclusion under Constitutions  and to share, in this Symposium, some of its members’ current work. The research group was conceived as a focal point for scholarly inquiry into constitutional identity…

Shubhangi AGARWALLA

In Puttuswamy v Union of India 2017, a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India expressly affirmed the centrality of decisional autonomy in any discourse on privacy. The judgement recognised sexual and reproductive autonomy as fundamental choices protected by the right to privacy.

Vanessa MacDonnell

Since the 1980s, the Supreme Court of Canada has articulated a jurisprudence of “unwritten constitutional principles.” In a series of decisions dealing with constitutional questions in contexts ranging from patriation to secession, it has recognized a number of unwritten principles as constitutional, including…

Christina LIENEN

Whereas constitutional rights jurisprudence is well-established in Canada, in the United Kingdom, a traditionally rights-skeptic jurisdiction, the jurisprudential foundation and normative reach of constitutional rights remains contested. It is only recently that the UK Supreme Court has started to refer to common law concepts that are constitutional in character…

Gautam BHATIA

In a judgment delivered on 24th May (EG v Attorney-General), the High Court of Kenya upheld the criminalisation of same-sex relations under the Kenyan Constitution. At issue was the constitutionality of Sections 162 and 165 of the Kenyan Penal Code. Section 162 prohibits having “carnal knowledge…

Lynda COLLINS

Environmental law in Canada and around the world has achieved many significant victories – saving countless human lives, bringing species back from the brink of extinction and improving quality of life for millions of people. However, when assessed against the crucial parameter of sustainability…

Peter OLIVER

In recent years, unwritten constitutional principles have often found their place in Canadian constitutional law via their supposed foothold in the part of the Preamble to the Constitution Act, 1867 that refers to 'a Constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom'. Principles such as judicial independence, democracy…

Kate Glover Berger

For scholars of public law, an important open question lies at the intersection of constitutional and administrative law. The question asks about the relationship between unwritten constitutionalism and constitutional structure. Or more specifically, in what ways does the unwritten constitution make demands on institutional design within the public order?

Vanessa MACDONNELL & Se-shauna WHEATLE

On March 22, 2019, a group of scholars and practitioners convened at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law for a full-day symposium on the role of unwritten constitutional principles in contemporary constitutional law. Scholars from Canada, Jamaica and the United Kingdom presented innovative new research, a portion of which is featured in this blog symposium.

Tom Gerald DALY

Additions in the May Update include:

• ·        New research worldwide from April and early May 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

José Ignacio Hernández G.

In the last years, Constitutional Law scholars have been studying the consequences of political decay in democratic regimes that are moving towards authoritarianism. The traditional dichotomy between democracy and authoritarianism vanished, and the reality of competitive authoritarianism or hybrid regimes – illiberal democratic regimes that preserve a thick patina of constitutionality – became clearer.

Derek O’BRIEN

In a referendum held on 8th May 2019, the citizens of Belize voted by a majority of 55% (on a turnout of 65%) to approve the referral of the long-standing territorial dispute between Guatemala and Belize to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) pursuant to a Treaty signed on December 8, 2008, (the Special Agreement) between Guatemala and Belize (the State Parties). The outcome of the referendum is clearly significant in terms of future relations between Belize and Guatemala, but it also has considerable constitutional significance…

Daniela UROSA

El sistema electoral venezolano carece actualmente de las mínimas condiciones adecuadas de integridad electoral. Tales condiciones han ido mermando progresivamente en los procesos electorales de los últimos años, muy especialmente durante la fraudulenta elección presidencial de 2018.

Daniela UROSA

The Venezuelan electoral system currently lacks the minimum adequate conditions for electoral integrity. Such conditions have been getting progressively worse in recent years, especially during the fraudulent presidential election of 2018.

Yaniv ROZNAI

In 2017, the Israeli Supreme Court sitting as High Court of Justice (HCJ) has adopted two dramatic judicial decisions. Firstly, the HCJ invalidated a law based upon flaws in the legislative process for the first time in its history, and second, issued a nullification notice to a temporary Basic Law that changed – for the fifth time in a row – the annual budget rule to biennial one, by applying a doctrine of ‘misuse of constituent power.’

Rolando SEIJAS

It is three months now since Juan Guaidó assumed the office of the Presidency of the interim government of Venezuela. The interim government claims its legitimacy due to the fraudulent nature of the presidential election of 2018. The interim government has asserted that those elections could not have rendered a mandate to form a legitimate government.

Rafael MACÍA BRIEDIS

That Venezuela is currently in the midst of a serious institutional crisis is undeniable. That crisis is largely the product of constant abuses by the Maduro regime, which despite plummeting approval rates and a collapsing economy has sought to cling to power at any cost, using the constitutional structure as a façade through which to justify the concentration of all state authority in its own hands.

Surendra KUMAR

Recently two male judges have been appointed to the Supreme Court of India on recommendation of the collegium. The appointments created controversy because of the appointment one meritorious junior judge, Justice Khanna, despite 32 alternative candidates that included Chief Justices of High Courts.

Antoine BUYSE

On 10 April, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg handed down its first advisory opinion on a substantive issue under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a competence given to the Court under Protocol 16 to the Convention. The opinion, delivered upon the request of the French Court of Cassation, related to a very specific family law matter…