Julia Kyrychenko, Sujit Choudhry
To defend Ukraine is to defend constitutional democracy and the rule of law. But the defence of Ukraine must occur through constitutional democracy and the rule of law. The Verkhovna Rada is a central institution in the Ukrainian constitutional order. The Verkhovna Rada’s legislative authority continues to exist during armed conflict and states of emergency. Indeed, the Verkhovna Rada plays a vital role in such situations. However, the routine operations of the Verkhovna Rada in these extraordinary circumstances have been very challenging.
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Sujit Choudhry, Asanga Welikala
The multilateral response should focus on the constitutionality of the Tatmadaw’s actions. Myanmar’s state of emergency is a military coup d’état, and is flagrantly unconstitutional. The international community should support Myanmar’s democratically elected government by insisting that the constitution be followed, and civilian authority restored immediately.
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Sujit Choudhry
Tom Ginsburg and Aziz Huq’s "How to Save a Constitutional Democracy" is a terrific book. In this comment, I address three issues: the important moment the book marks on the value of the comparative method to the study of American constitutionalism; the insights offered by this method to the risk of democratic erosion in the United States and how those risks might be mitigated; and the need to give greater weight than Ginsburg and Huq do to the role of federalism to counter democratic erosion.
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Sujit Choudhry
Let us make a plea for modesty. Constitutional democrats need to be clear-eyed and realistic about what good constitutional design can do. We need to steer a middle course between constitutional idealism and nihilism. Constitutional idealists argue that thoughtful and intelligent constitutional design can largely eliminate the risk posed by populism; constitutional nihilists respond by arguing that there is little, if anything, that constitutional design can do in the face of the populist challenge that secures victory at the ballot box and captures the state from within.
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