Antonia BARAGGIA

On 11 December 2020, the European Council (EUCO) issued its conclusions on the draft Regulation of the European Parliament and Council on a general regime of conditionality for the protection of the Union Budget. They decided to postpone the enforcement of the rule of law mechanism until the Court of Justice has issued judgment on the validity of the Regulation.

Akiko EJIMA

It must be a daunting task for a court to use judicial power for the first time when there are no precedents on which to rely. This was the task facing the Supreme Court of Japan (SCJ) in 1973. The power of judicial review is clearly stated in article 81 of the Constitution of Japan (1946) in contrast to it being a matter of implication in the US Constitution, which is often seen as the role model for Japan.

Swati JHAVERI

The courts in Singapore – relative to their common law counterparts and apex constitutional courts outside of common law systems – have yet to strike down legislation for being unconstitutional…

Surabhi CHOPRA

The Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal's decision in Yau Wai Ching v Chief Executive of HKSAR (2017) 20 HKCFAR 390 is a landmark case. It marks a decisive turn away from liberal constitutionalism in Hong Kong.

César LANDA

Democracy is the bedrock of the constitutional state under the rule of law, a state whose purpose is to protect fundamental rights and maintain checks on the exercise of power. At present, however, the model of semi-presidential democracy established by the Peruvian Constitution is marked by significant tensions…

Professor Emeritus Antero Jyränki died in Helsinki on April 29, 2020, at the age of 86. He was a prominent scholar of constitutional law and legal history, an influential figure in wider society, and a critic of presidential power.

Melissa CROUCH

The idea of constitutional landmarks contains a set of basic presumptions. It presumes that courts are important and that they receive cases. It presumes that constitutional landmarks are based upon a liberal democratic conception of law. It presumes that courts offer reasons for their decisions. And it presumes that cases heard by the courts have meaning and legitimacy…

Jeong-In YUN

On 10 March 2017, all eyes were on the Grand Courtroom at the Constitutional Court of Korea. The final proceeding of the impeachment trial against President Park Geun-hye was being broadcasted live across the country…

Yaniv ROZNAI

Many of the judgments scholars consider to be ‘landmarks’, are judgments in which courts engage with constituent power – the highest authority in the constitutional order…

Eleonora BOTTINI

One year ago, this Blog hosted the first symposium in a series, launching the ‘Constitutional Landmark Judgments Project’ with posts commenting on five landmark cases from jurisdictions in the Commonwealth…The journey around the world continues with a new symposium about Asian apex courts and their most remarkable judgments.

Janet MCLEAN

Two referendum questions appeared on the ballot paper at New Zealand’s October 2020 election. Unlike previous government-sponsored referendums, these were not questions which, in New Zealand, would usually be considered of constitutional moment. Instead, they raised issues of criminal justice and health policy…

Maria CAHILL

Can the lived experience of a strong commitment to popular sovereignty make a people prima facie immune to the pressures of populism? Drawing on Irish constitutionalism, I want to suggest that an affirmative answer may be warranted.

Mathias CHAUCHAT

Il y a presque exactement deux ans, les électeurs de la Nouvelle-Calédonie, une collectivité française située dans l’océan Pacifique Sud qui compte 271,407 habitants (recensement 2019), avaient exprimé pour la première fois leur vote concernant la possibilité d’accéder à la pleine souveraineté. Le 4 novembre 2018, 56.40% des électeurs de la Nouvelle-Calédonie avaient voté Non et 43.60% Oui à l’indépendance (résultats définitifs ici).

Eoin DALY

This post is about the constitutional background to New Caledonia’s unique status within France, and the location of this constitutional status within highly contested republican concepts and traditions. Specifically, I outline certain ways in which New Caledonia’s legislative autonomy is a departure from constitutional orthodoxies that are linked with France’s republican identity.

Gerhard HOOGERS & Gohar KARAPETIAN

Named after the famous early Christian Saint Martin of Tours, on whose name day in 1493 Columbus reached the island, St. Martin is the smallest island in the world falling under the sovereignty of two different countries and the only place in the Caribbean under the sovereignty of two different EU Member States: France and the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Carine DAVID

French overseas territories are made up of twelve territorial units, spread across the planet, eleven of them being inhabited. They make the French Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) the second largest in the world, after the United States of America.

Dimitry Vladimirovich KOCHENOV

The EU (or, back then, the European Economic Community (‘EEC’)) was designed with the goal of continued colonialism in mind. Indeed, the ‘the achievement of one of [Europe’s] essential tasks, namely, the development of the African continent’ was one of the two key goals of the Schuman declaration…

Attila VINCZE, András JAKAB & Gábor SCHWEITZER

The birth of modern Austria also meant the dissolution of the former Austro-Hungarian monarchy and the end of a nearly 400 years long and very complicated relationship between these two countries. Even though they formed one empire, the two legal systems of Austria and Hungary have remained different and separate almost the entire time…

Xabier ARZOZ

Nobody would deny the general influence of the 1920 Austrian Constitution on the 1931 Spanish Constitution (and, indirectly, on the 1978 Spanish Constitution). The reading of its text immediately suggests – and contemporaries have confirmed – that the 1931 Spanish Constitution broke with nineteenth century Spanish constitutionalism…