Brazilian dictatorial past has brought a pattern of “hyper-presidentialism,“ as a consequence, any abrupt change in people’s attitudes toward the president, as well as any sudden drop in popularity, can lead to a crisis that can put the whole political system in tension. The “winner-take-all“ model of presidentialism, combined with the history of authoritarianism in...
A Boat On The Horizon: Legislative Urgency and Weak-form Review
Weak-form systems of judicial review have been praised as a means of reconciling democratic self-governance with constitutionalism, providing for popular engagement with counter-majoritarian decisions through a democratically elected body. Central to the normative appeal of this model is the notion that the legislature will engage in deliberation and contestation regarding the desirable scope of rights-protections....
Abortion regulation in the USA and in Europe: reversed trends?
The paper deals with the issue of abortion law in a comparative perspective. Despite the scientific progress, the regulation of abortion represents an insidious field, which involves extra legal issues, such as the status recognized to the unborn, the freedom of choice of the woman and the right to life of the unborn. Moreover, since...
Accommodating Compound Peoples – Wedding Votes and Bargains
In states composed of different ethnic, religious or linguistic groups, unfettered majoritarian democracy can threaten diversity or stability or both. Minority groups risk ending up as permanent losers and have few options than to assimilate or to alienate from the state. The first option endangers the group‘s identity; the second can lead to separatism and...
Adjudicating Blasphemy : Challenging the Writ of the State in Pakistan
In the past decade, the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) has dealt with several blasphemy cases. In many cases, the person accused of blaspheming is murdered by vigilantes. In some cases, the killers appeal their sentences on the basis that avenging blasphemy is a religious duty, immune to punishment. In this paper, I examine why...
Alternatives to the Invalidation of Constitutional Amendments
It has become increasingly common for courts in constitutional democracies to invalidate constitutional amendments. Indeed it appears to be the case that the unconstitutional constitutional amendment doctrine has become a global trend in the domestic constitutional law of states. Courts anchor their use of the doctrine of unconstitutional constitutional amendment in what they regard as...
Arendt’s Phenomenology of the Political
This intervention is based on a chapter where Hannah Arendt is taken as the most representative thinker of the autonomy of the political in modern constitutional orders. What is challenged in the chapter is her idea of political action as action by plurality. The author points out that her account of plurality travels so freely...
Australian anti-terrorism law as hyper-legislation
This paper will exhibit aspects of Australia‘s anti-terrorism law as instances of the phenomenon of hyper-legislation. Although much of this law takes the form of criminal law – that is, the establishment of general legal norms prohibiting conduct on pain of punishment – careful attention to the details of the legislation, and to its interaction...
Asian Americans and Racial Justice
Exploring how colorism operates in the Asian American community yields important insights about how anti-Black prejudice is formed and deployed. As many Asian American groups arguably fall into an intermediary category labeled “Honorary White,“ under this system of pigmentocracy, inequality will actually worsen but creation of the intermediary category allows Whites to remain at the...