Vergara Ruling Poses Problems for Separation of Powers and Academic Freedom
On June 10th, handing down judgment in Vergara v. California, the California Supreme Court struck down three statutes providing tenure for primary and secondary teachers and extra job security for...
Contributions Caps and the First Amendment
On April 2nd, the United States Supreme Court struck down aggregate campaign contribution limits in federal elections in their ruling on McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission. For an overview of...
McCutcheon v FEC: The Harvest of Pernicious Seeds
The US Supreme Court very recently handed down its decision in McCutcheon v Federal Election Commission, undoubtedly the most important campaign finance ruling since its controversial 2010 judgment in Citizens...
The Criminalization of Protests: Repression and Human Rights Abuses in Venezuela
In Venezuela, anti-government protests are being brutally repressed; many demonstrators have been jailed, with some believed to have been tortured. On February 12, 2014, university students opposed to the current...
The Not-so-paramount Right to Vote
Last week, the Election Commission of India announced the time frame for the general elections to constitute the 16th Lok Sabha (“House of the People”) of the Parliament of India....
Managing Secrecy: R (Miranda) v SSHD
Much has already been written about the implications of R (Miranda) v Secretary of State for the Home Department for Schedule 7 Terrorism Act 2007. However, leaving that to one...
Prosecuting in the Public Interest: CPS Guidelines from Assisted Suicide to Social Media
Although the DPP’s consent is required before a prosecution for assisted suicide can be brought, the discretion whether to prosecute or not exists in all cases. In this post, drawn...
Indian Supreme Court Upholds the Right to Negative Voting
In late September, the Indian Supreme Court, in PUCL v. Union of India, upheld the constitutional right of citizens to cast a negative vote in elections. This judgment crystallizes an...
Ten Thousand Miles from Wall Street: Muldoon v. Melbourne City Council
Melbourne is ten thousand miles from Wall Street. And yet, as a Federal Court of Australia decision demonstrated this week, the legal ramifications of the Occupy Wall Street movement are...
HIV and Caribbean Law: Case for Tolerance
In the western hemisphere, the Anglophone Caribbean maintains some of the most regressive anti-gay laws in the world. The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago as well as Belize both have...
Think This Way: How Zimbabweans Adopt, Hold and Express Their Political Ideologies
When American jurist Ben Cardozo said that the freedom of thought is “the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom,” it was no idle talk. His...
L’écran noir: Shutting down Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (‘ERT’)
As I am writing these lines, Greece is the only state in the Council of Europe with no public broadcast media. On Tuesday 11 June 2013, the Greek Conservative-led coalition...
