South Africa‘s President Zuma has contributed significantly to the growth and development of the country‘s constitutional jurisprudence. Since taking office in 2009, there have been numerous constitutional cases decided by various courts against him both personally and as a president. Three recent judgments are particularly worth noting since they have changed the way we understand...
Tag: <span>TUESDAY JUNE 26 2018 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM</span>
The Absence of Janus: Procedural and Substantive Limits To the Amending Power in Brazil
Contemporary constitutional democracies assume a dualistic political conception to distinguish the creation of the constitutional law from the ordinary legislation. Both procedural limits to the amending power and unamendable clauses aim to protect the constitution against its substitution or ordinary modification. However, the amending power does not fall into the same category as the original...
The Implications of Platform Speech Regulation of Disinformation
Perhaps the most comprehensive regime of speech regulation in U.S. history was enacted over the past year. It was put into place by private companies, not the government. In response to criticisms following the 2016 U.S. election, Facebook and Google have altered their algorithms, advertising policies, terms of service, and even mission statements — all...
The Institutional Competence of the NPCSC and Other Reviewers: the Possibility and Predicament of Constitutional Review in China
In the end of 2017 when the first report on the review of legal document was submitted and published by the NPCSC, constitutional review quickly drew much attention from public law scholars. Whether and how the NPCSC and other standing committees at local levels can possibly take the significant function of constitutional review can be...
The future of constitutionalism in Hungary and Poland
After two decades of democratic consolidation, two member states of the European Union, Hungary and Poland are now in the process of authoritarian backsliding. The presentation will describe the current state of affairs (from the lack of persistent and long term mobilisation on behalf of constitutionalism to the governmental attacks on the internal and external...
The European Promise: EU integration as a post-conflict constitutionalisation of fundamental rights — and why it matters today
The starting point of most histories of the European project is post-WWII, with the Schuman declaration and the establishment of the European Steel and Coal Community. Indeed, one of the main justifications for the continuity of this project — now as the European Union — is to avert the horrors of inter-European war. One could...
The Contribution of the International Economic Constitution to Authoritarian Liberalism
This paper explores the responsibility of the current international economic constitution for the authoritarian liberalist backlash against free markets and the emergence of nationalist, protectionist policies. While the authoritarian liberalist claim of unfair trade practices collapses at closer scrutiny, the structure of the international economic constitution makes societies vulnerable to such claims. Drawing on Polanyi‘s...
The challenges and opportunities China presents for the evolution of Global Constitutionalism
The presentation put things in a global perspective, discussing in particular the significance of the rise of China.
The Politics of a Contronymic Secularism in Fiji
During Fiji‘s 2012 constitution-drafting process, the Christian State debate repeated as a site of public division. Whereas the constitution commission, the military regime, liberal Christians and Hindu and Muslim Indo-Fijians argued a secular state was necessary to secure political equality and freedom to all Fiji‘s citizens, many indigenous iTaukei demanded the establishment of Christianity as...
The populist challenge to the separation of powers
Constitutionalism is in a state of flux. The concepts, structures and certainties on which the modern constitutional imagination is founded are under strain. From Poland to the United States, Latin America to Brexit Britain, there is evidence of political, social and institutional developments that challenge core tenets of constitutional government: of a loss of public...