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Domingo Lovera-Parmo - 15th December 2019
Chile is in the middle of constitutional upheaval as president Piñera announced — although in a vague and obscure fashion — the need to reach a social agreement in order to have a new Constitution. After almost a month of massive protests and riots, which president Piñera sought to confront by declaring a state of […]
Jonathan Heath - 10th December 2019
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, in its most recent Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine has confirmed that some 18,000 Ukrainian citizens living in Crimea have been conscripted into service with the Russian Armed Forces and that the number of conscripts from that region has increased significantly since […]
Naz Khan - 15th November 2019
In 2003 and 2008, the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) requested the U.N. Secretary-General to investigate reports of gross violations of humanitarian and human rights laws in the Darfur region of Sudan. The International Commission established that the Sudanese government, along with the Rapid Support Forces (Janjaweed militias), carried out attacks on civilians including mass rapes, […]
Joseph Chigwidden - 11th October 2019
A ‘landmark’ case currently in Australia involves one of world rugby’s biggest stars, Israel Folau, who was sacked by Rugby Australia for posting a religious text on his Instagram account. With Folau challenging the termination of his contract on the grounds of religious discrimination, the lack of clarity between freedom of speech and the freedom […]
Hala Ali Alhedeithy and Emily Nicholson - 9th October 2019
It was a “one off”. A conclusive determination on a series of seismic constitutional clashes: representative democracy versus direct democracy, the executive versus Parliament, and the role of the Court in the separation of powers. Judges examining the constitution against a seething political background. But the lions emerged from beneath the throne, unanimously, in a […]
Joelle Grogan - 7th October 2019
Writing only weeks before the (re)scheduled date of UK withdrawal from the EU, there seems little of which to be certain: it is still uncertain whether the UK will withdraw on a ‘No-Deal’ basis, or under a Withdrawal Agreement. Whatever the process of withdrawal, however, there should be no doubt that it will have a […]
Paul Craig - 9th September 2019
Litigation is often predicated on certain assumptions. These may be the result of argumentation of the parties, the reasoning of the courts or an admixture of the two. The assumptions can take on an axiomatic character, and become ‘unchallengeable’. They may be regarded as expressive of uncontroversial facts, or perceived as inherent in the nature […]
- 3rd September 2019
Just over a decade ago, large numbers of Canadians turned to Google’s search engine’s algorithm to shed light on a political crisis named after a parliamentary procedure most people had never heard of. The 2008 Canadian prorogation crisis, followed by a similar episode a year later, forced Canadians to confront normally invisible aspects of their […]
Paul Craig - 31st August 2019
The Prime Minister’s recent announcement that Parliament would be prorogued, thereby severely curtailing the opportunity for parliamentary debate, raises important issues of constitutional principle and law, and also issues concerning fact and causation. They are examined in turn. Constitutional Principle and Law We begin with constitutional principle and law. We seek to decide whether the […]
Nick Barber - 31st August 2019
The idea of constitutional hardball was introduced to the world by Mark Tushnet. The sport is played when political actors decide the stakes are so high that any lawful action is justified, no matter how constitutionally problematic: hardball stays within the confines of the law, but runs against the spirit, and sometimes the conventions, of […]
Jeremy Lam - 29th July 2019
During the recent anti-extradition movement in Hong Kong, a High Court judge participated by signing a petition against the controversial bill amendments, which was considered inappropriate by the Chief Justice. This is reminiscent of an incident involving Australian High Court Justice Michael Kirby, who called upon the government to boost funding for state schools in […]
Jackie Dugard - 31st May 2019
On 3 April 2019, the South African Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) handed down judgment in the matter of Ngomane & others v City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality & Another (Ngomane). In its judgment, the SCA declared that the destruction of the applicants’ property by the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality (Johannesburg) was unconstitutional, and […]