14 May 2025
Academic Vertigo
What is therefore needed is a much thicker description of the current phase of semantic destabilization. This implies to build a new questionnaire able to grasp the dynamics of contemporary legal controversies allowing to bring historical depth and socio-legal […] While there is certainly a large variety of methodologies able to address this questionnaire, […] I contend however that a socio-genetic approach is better equipped when it comes to unpack the notion of “context” and reconstitute the complex “hermeneutic space” of legal concepts that continuously move back and forth from the legal and the political fields. Continue reading >>
0 
16 April 2025
Governing in the Shadow of Indictments
Israel has been experiencing fierce conflicts between the Prime Minister and the government on the one hand and prominent public officials on the other. Two such conflicts have occupied the public discourse in recent weeks: the conflict between the government and both the Attorney General (Gali Barahav-Miara) and the head of the internal security service (Ronen Bar). In both cases, the government's attempt to remove these officials from office has run into legal difficulties, grounded in accusations concerning conflict of interest, which stem from two opposing principles within administrative law. Continue reading >>
0
05 August 2024
Taming the Shrew
On May 30th, Iraq’s Court of Cassation (CC) issued an unprecedented decision invalidating a previous ruling by the country’s highest court in the land, the Federal Supreme Court (FSC). The CC’s judicial coup and self-aggrandizement rests on a flawed doctrinal foundation and runs counter to the judicial hierarchy set out by Iraq’s constitution. Continue reading >>
0
27 July 2024
Never Again – Ever Again
The “Never Again” is the desperate evocation of something impossible. Nothing prevents people from expanding the arsenal of their crimes with ever newer, ever more artificial, more scientific methods and instruments, and from using them. Just as grass and flowers mercifully spread over the ruins of the ovens, the fields fertilized with ashes, all attempts to bear witness to the crimes, to keep memory alive as a warning, dissolve into the history of the victors, which has dominated everything else in all times of human history. Continue reading >>
0
26 July 2024
The “Never Again” Imperatives in Chinese Constitutions
This essay aims to provide a Chinese perspective on the question of traumas and the Never Again imperative. It will first place the question in the long history of constitution-making in China, taking the view that constitutional narratives are context-driven, shaped by particular historical processes, and addressing particular historical concerns of respective nation-states, each with its trauma and Never Again imperatives. This essay then brings the current 1982 constitution into focus, highlighting the trauma it is designed to address and assessing the sincerity and effectiveness of the commitment. Continue reading >>
0
23 July 2024
Never Again. And Not Quite.
Those who build new public law act with the past hovering over their shoulders. Rejecting regimes of horror explains much of the content of new constitutions. Aversive constitutionalism – in which constitutionalists overtly steer away from a country’s appalling pasts – guides how they understand these new texts. On balance, even among those who disagree over precisely how the past is memorialized as “never again” in new constitutions, evidence shows that the horrors of the past influence public law in the present much more than do the dreams of some ideal future. Continue reading >>
0
08 July 2024
The Stakes of the Unwritten Constitutional Norms and Principles Debate in the UK
Unwritten principles serve crucial purposes in the UK’s constitution. For example, they provide guardrails for judicial interpretation of legislation, and they form or give rise to substantive rules about the limits of legislative, judicial and executive power. With a growing body of research on unwritten constitutionalism, it is worth considering why these issues matter, and what is at stake in the debate. This post considers two issues which it argues can only be properly understood once regard is paid to the unwritten principles and norms in the UK’s constitution: the limits of Westminster’s legislative power, and the nature of the UK’s territorial constitution. Continue reading >>
0
18 June 2024
A New Constitutional Order in South Africa
The dominant party era in democratic South Africa is over. After winning absolute majorities in six consecutive national elections spanning thirty years, on 29 May 2024 the African National Congress (ANC) fell below 50% of the vote for the first time. The ANC remains the largest party. On the evening of 14 June, the National Assembly elected ANC leader Cyril Ramaphosa for a second term as the country’s president. But South Africa politics, and its constitutionalism, have changed fundamentally. Continue reading >>
0
21 February 2024
Autocratic (Il)legalism
It is a common myth that since the Fidesz-KDNP coalition has almost always had a two-thirds parliamentary majority since 2010, the Orbán-government could pass its illiberal legislative reforms in a legally correct manner. In reality, however, many laws that constitute the pillars of Orbán’s illiberal regime were enacted in violation of the procedural requirements of the rule of law. The European Commission’s country visit to Hungary provides an opportunity to remind the EU bodies of their responsibility to enforce all requirements of the rule of law without compromise. Continue reading >>
0
03 July 2023
A Constitution without Constitutionalism
“Digital constitutionalism” has attracted a good deal of scholarly attention in recent years, much of it enthusiastic, some more sceptical. Just what constitutionalism means, and how this meaning can be transposed into a realm of private ― albeit increasingly regulated ― interactions rather than traditional public law, is part of the debate between the enthusiasts and the sceptics. All agree, however, that it is a normatively charged idea, a shorthand reference to certain values which include ― whether or not they are limited to ― respect for certain human rights. In this post, I argue that while we can indeed think of internet regulation in constitutional terms, we must first understand what I shall call the constitution of cyberspace. A descriptive effort must precede any normative projects directed at imposing values allegedly inherent in the notion of constitutionalism onto cyberspace. And further, understanding the constitution of cyberspace should at least make us wary of digital constitutionalism’s normative ambitions. Continue reading >>
0