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The paper is based on the concept of political culture, which is particularly important for the maintenance and functioning of a democratic political system and is closely linked with the political literacy of young people. In this paper research focus is on the two dimensions of political culture -- political values and trust. Specifically, the main research question is: what are the determinants of accepting constitutional values and the trust in political institutions of final year secondary school pupils? The paper use the data provided by research on political literacy of final year secondary school pupils. In order to provide answer to the research question the hierarchical multiple regression is used. In the first step, particular socio-demographic variables (sex, education of mother and education of father) were introduced. In the second step, the type of secondary school education was added. The third group of predictors encompassed the level of religiosity, generalized prejudices and authoritarianism. In the final step political knowledge was included. The introduced model provides certain explanation regarding constitutional values, but fails to explain distrust in political institutions. The phenomenon of low trust in political institutions is discussed in paper.

Background or Context: Public school library book challenges have garnered ample media attention in recent years as many school districts and advocacy organizations have reported record numbers of book challenges. Book challenges are not a new phenomenon, historically speaking, but they have often illuminated values clashes in communities and raise questions about the rights and freedoms of public school students. Judicial rulings and school district policies that address book challenges could provide insights for many members of school communities (including, but not limited to, school board members, students, parents, and teachers) as they experience challenges, but these aspects of the legal record and their influence on responses to book challenges remains underexamined in scholarship. Purpose, Objective, Research Question, or Focus of Study: The 1982 Supreme Court case "Island Trees School District v. Pico" remains the lasting judicial precedent for interpreting public school students' First Amendment rights as they interact with school library books. We examine the extent to which school district book challenge policies align with court precedent set in "Pico" (1982) and the implications for students' rights and democratic participation during book challenges. Research Design: Drawing on elements of the law and society framework as well as political analysis categories, this study uses qualitative methods to illuminate specific elements of district policies that govern book challenges. Specifically, we examine 29 policies in school districts that experienced a publicly reported book challenge between 2017 and 2021 to understand relationships between school district book challenge policies and the "Pico" (1982) precedent. Conclusions or Recommendations: Our findings reveal ample space between judicial rulings and school district policies we examine. In fact, we find a broader array of relevant actors in book challenge processes than conceived by the courts and raise implications for students' constitutional rights and protections related to who policies indicate may or must be involved in these processes, the settings in which book challenge decisions are made, and the limited roles for public involvement during school library book challenges.

The growth of state laws creating private school vouchers and charter schools has mounting and alarming ramifications for students' rights, and those ramifications are shaped by a complex and shifting set of legal rules. This article explains the interplay between the increase of these school-choice programs, the U.S. Supreme Court's recent free-exercise decisions, long-standing antidiscrimination laws, and the now-tenuous applicability of those legal protections for choice students. It concludes by considering the political ramifications of these changes, which will likely be very different in "blue" and "red" states.

Between 2017 and 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court examined three cases that involved states that tried to limit the use of public money to support religious-affiliated schools. The Supreme Court found a violation of the Free Exercise Clause in all three cases. Although not the focus of the Court's opinions, these cases may have created avenues for discriminatory practices in publicly funded state school voucher programs. In elevating free-exercise rights above Establishment Clause concerns, the Court's decisions may have serious implications for students' civil rights in schools. This article specifically examines whether the growth of school voucher programs in the context of these recent Supreme Court decisions creates a pathway for racial discrimination in participating voucher schools. We first explore the impact of the three Supreme Court decisions. Specifically, we argue that when the Court eliminated distinctions between policies denying funding because of religious status and policies denying funding for religious uses and when it elevated free-exercise arguments, it may have opened additional avenues for discrimination. Thus, we next address whether participating voucher schools can refuse admission to Black students. To set the context for this discussion, we provide a brief historical analysis of case law that has previously supported race-based discrimination on religious grounds. We show that although past court cases and federal tax policy have created a bulwark against such discrimination, the recent rulings favoring free exercise rights raise concerns. If free-exercise rights trump civil rights, some voucher statutes may create an alternative funding stream for modern-day "segregation academies."

Higher education in the 2020s remains deeply divided on the role of religion, or what the Council on the Advancement of Standards (CAS) in 2023 describes as "religious, secular, and spiritual identities." In two previous articles in this Journal, one 2010 article by the late Peter Magolda and one in 2014 by Perry Glanzer, detail the ways in which students and the student groups themselves should be considered in relationship with their institutions. However, ten years after those arguments, questions of how religious leadership should relate to and interact with the institution still remain. The ways in which institutions are utilizing critical religious pluralism theory are at the forefront of three relationship-minded considerations the authors wish to highlight. Initially, understanding the relationships requires reexamination of the ways interpretations of the First Amendment affect public and the private university settings for religious life. This article explores the relevance of professionalizing the relationship between religious leaders and the institution, the ways in which such a relationship can support stability of the religious communities themselves, and the importance of progressive Christian groups as a part of a more religiously diverse campus's pluralistic religious and spiritual ethos. The gaps in Magolda and Glanzer's arguments, plus the emergence of critical religious pluralism theory, offers new opportunities to consider higher education policies and practices related to "religious, secular, and spiritual" identities.

Section 28(1)(c) of the South African Constitution (1996) unequivocally affirms that children are the only vulnerable group with an explicit right to social services. Nonetheless, the practical realisation of this right remains elusive for many children, leaving them without access to vital social services. Through the theoretical framework of transformative constitutionalism, this article posits that the evolving field of social services provision within school settings presents a promising avenue to champion children's right to social services and a range of other children's rights, and facilitate and promote their access to basic education. Utilising a qualitative research approach with an exploratory case study design, this study investigates whether providing social services through a programme in Botshabelo schools in the Free State effectively promotes the realisation of children's rights. The results show that social services in schools can contribute to realising various children's rights. It is recommended that there should be a symbiotic partnership between the Departments of Social Development and Basic Education with the latter endorsing and expanding the provision of social services within schools. This integration is recommended on the basis that it not only advances crucial human rights for children, such as child protection, social security, and a safe environment, but also shows promise in enhancing the academic performance of learners grappling with challenging circumstances.

In this article, we provide an overview of the overturning of Roe v. Wade and consider its implications for communication classrooms in higher education. We assert that we as communication educators have a moral imperative to consider the role of intersectionality and reproductive justice in our teaching philosophies and implementation, and to do so, we discuss the interrelated nature of intersectionality, reproductive justice, and critical communication pedagogy.

The recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions "Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College" (2023) and "Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina et al." (2023), hereafter collectively referred to as "SFFA v. Harvard," have garnered attention, especially among higher education administrators (Schermele, 2023). This attention is, of course, justified because the decisions represent a major shift in the way the U.S. Supreme Court has approached race-conscious admissions. The court has changed direction in its willingness to accept the educational benefits of diversity as a justification for utilizing race in admissions programs. In this article, the authors take a look at the "SFFA v. Harvard" decision, offer some context for the role of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, and discuss implications for higher education practitioners.

Traditionally, administrative law cases don't make news. Instead, they make snooze. They can be exciting to a relatively small circle of 'ad. law nerds,' as we're affectionately called, but they're [...]

This publication is aimed at studying the principle of ensuring the right to appellate review of a case and, in cases specied by law, to cassation appeal as a fundamental constitutional principle of Ukrainian judicial procedure, and at identifying the issues of its interpretation and implementation within the framework of civil proceedings, and at formulating conclusions and proposals aimed at resolving the identied issues and contributing to the improvement of judicial practice. The paper 1-rst denes the signicance of this principle for achieving the tasks of civil procedure and analyzes its place in the system of other principles of civil procedure. It is found that the principle of ensuring the right to appeal a case and, in cases dened by law, to cassation appeal does not compete with other principles of civil procedure, but organically complements them, allowing to correct judicial errors made, thereby guaranteeing the principles of legality, objective truth and others. The analysis of the name of the studied principle revealed a legislative narrowing of its content, used by the indication of the possibility of appealing a «court decision», while other legislative provisions and the practice of civil procedure indicate the possibility of appealing rulings and orders of the court. The e-ectiveness of the legislative approach to the comprehensive nature of the appeal is substantiated, with the exclusivity and extraordinary nature of the cassation review of court decisions that have entered into legal force and the e-ectiveness of existing mechanisms for implementing this provision (a wide range of subjects of the appeal, limitation of the cassation appeal for certain categories of cases, mandatory preliminary appeal of the court decision, etc.). A certain problem was revealed during the analysis of the civil procedure law norm regarding the denition of the objects of appeal in the aspect of its content presentation through the prism of its consistency with the constitutional norm (64 of the Constitution of Ukraine), according to which the limitation of constitutional rights and freedoms of a person and citizen should be provided for by legal norms, therefore, through the prism of consistency with this provision, it would be more logical to establish a prohibition on appeal in relation to each individual judicial act. Legislative work aimed at eliminating certain imperfections in the legal regulation will contribute to a more e-ective implementation of the principle of ensuring the right to appeal a case and, in cases dened by law, to cassation appeal in the practice of civil proceedings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is devoted to the study of the characteristics of the theoretical and legal foundations of the information society. The research used general scientific (systemic-structural, functional, axiological) and special research methods (formal-legal, analysis of legal texts, comparative-legal). The purpose of the article is to study the legal foundations of the information society from the standpoint of constitutional and information law. The topicality of the topic determined by the development of the information society in the context of European integration. It noted that the peculiarity of the mechanism of legal regulation in the information society is due to the influence of constitutional law. Norms of information law exert a regulatory influence on social relations in a different way: in the form of establishing legal principles, regimes, values, prohibitions and permissions. The legal foundations of the information society in Ukraine are legal norms that are important for regulating interrelated and interdependent relations in various spheres of social life, which are in a state of constant development and transformation due to the role of information and knowledge. The Constitution of Ukraine is the basis for the development of effective and efficient sectoral legal regulation of the information society. A comparison of civil and information society is given. It indicated that the unity of the civil and information society manifested in the coincidence of goals and tasks. The process of formation of a civil and information society proceeds simultaneously, which reflected in the legal foundations of these societies. The norms of the current information legislation need to clarify because they do not fully correspond to the European guidelines for the regulation of public relations in the information society. The change in the social structure of life, due to the development of the information society, requires constant improvement of legal regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is devoted to the disclosure of the issue of the limitation of property rights during the legal regime of martial law and measures that can be applied to property are analyzed. The author states that one of the unresolved legal problems of today is the problem of the possibility and proper implementation of the right to property ownership of measures and methods that can limit the rights of owners to property during martial law. The author, when analyzing the limitation of the constitutional right to own, use and dispose of one’s property, emphasized the uncertainty in the legislation of the mechanism of limitation and the lack of detail in which parts of the rights of owners may be limited. In the article, the author investigated such measures during the martial law regime as forced alienation of property and confiscation of property. Considering methods of forced alienation of property or seizure of property under martial law, the author found out that forced alienation of property should take place on the condition of prior full restitution of property or with subsequent full restitution of the value of the property. Considering the issue of confiscation of property, the author notes that confiscation of property, under the conditions of the legal regime of martial law, occurs without compensation for the value of the property. In the article, the author revealed the issue of receiving compensation for forcibly alienated property, which the author proposes to divide into two types: preliminary full compensation for the value of forcibly alienated property and subsequent full compensation for forcibly alienated property. During the research, the author considered the issue of making a decision on the introduction and implementation of measures of forced alienation of property or seizure of property and the implementation of such a decision. In the article, the author pays attention to the issue of the return of forcibly alienated property, which was preserved after the abolition of the legal regime of martial law, and the legal grounds and conditions for such return of property. According to the results of the research, the author claims that the realization of the right of ownership during the operation of the legal regime is of a limited nature, since there is a temporary limited regime during which the full realization of the right of ownership is not always possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scientific article explored various aspects of limitations on human rights and freedoms, including their classification, mechanisms, and application features. The article highlighted the distinction between direct restrictions on rights and limitations on their implementation, as well as voluntary and compulsory limitations. The main principle of the study was to ensure a balance between the protection of individual rights and the state’s need to ensure security and order. Various types of limitations that may arise in times of war or emergency were analyzed in detail, taking into account their legality, proportionality, and justification. Restrictions on human rights are only temporary in nature. Human rights can be limited only if this is directly provided for by the Constitution of Ukraine and does not contradict the norms of international law. Only in this case, restrictions can be considered legitimate and legal. It is also necessary to say that from the point of view of practical application, the problem of the relationship between private rights and state activity is particularly important for constitutional law: on the one hand, the state, and on the other, a person. We mean that the state is created by people for themselves, in order to protect their rights, but again, the state arises as a response to the inability of human society to live without it, without its power and limitations, the state becomes, as it were, the highest manifestation of social organization and order, the only guarantor of security, stability and development. To date, the issue of restrictions on human and citizen rights in the rule of law by state authorities has become the most urgent. The main facts of violation of human and citizen rights are violations by the state, as well as violations by individuals. The legislation of Ukraine stipulates that the rights and freedoms of a person and a citizen can be limited only to the extent that it is necessary for the security of the state, the population and the defense of the country. Therefore, the establishment of certain prohibitions caused by the specified legal regime should be of an exclusively temporary nature. The article also discussed the classification of human rights based on their content and the possibility of limitation, providing a basis for further research in this area. Thus, important aspects of restricting human and citizen rights were revealed, contributing to an understanding of their essence and scope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is indicated that the key problem in the activity of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine is ensuring the implementation of its decisions. Without solving this issue, it is impossible to guarantee the supremacy of the Constitution, the principle of separation of powers and the existence of an independent judicial branch of government as a separate institution. Ignoring the decisions of the constitutional control body undermines the very system of checks and balances, the authority of the Basic Law and the constitutional order in the country in general. These principles underlie the implementation of decisions of constitutional courts, the purpose of which is to ensure constitutional legality. In Ukraine, the mechanism for the implementation of the decisions of the Central Committee of Ukraine has already been developed in general, but there are problems related to the non-implementation of some of its decisions for a long time. Therefore, the task of further improvement of this mechanism and its proper legislative regulation remains relevant. The authors claim that Ukraine has already developed a mechanism for implementing decisions of the Constitutional Court. However, this system is not perfect, which is evidenced by the fact of non-execution of individual court decisions. Therefore, the issue of continuing the work on improving the existing mechanism for implementing decisions of the body of constitutional jurisdiction, securing it properly at the legislative level, remains urgent. At the same time, the problem of the quality of such execution comes to the fore, for the solution of which it is necessary to develop criteria for the effectiveness of the execution of court decisions, which will allow to assess the quality of the legal acts that are introduced and the work of the responsible entities. Both outlined problems definitely need further thorough scientific research. In addition, according to the authors, it should be noted that the issues of the legal nature of the legal positions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and the criteria for the effective implementation of its decisions remain interacting categories and, therefore, require thorough scientific study. At the same time, clarifying the legal force of the Court’s legal positions is complicated by the lack of their legislative definition, by a certain difficulty in understanding the role and place of the body of constitutional jurisdiction in the system of state power. At the same time, the legal positions have a normative and mandatory character, reflected in the acts of the KSU. The need to ensure their immutability follows from the principles of legal certainty and stability of the Constitution. However, the possibility of revising some legal positions in connection with the change in the socio-political structure of the state is gaining relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its now totemic constitutional status, Magna Carta is not explicitly mentioned in Shakespeare's history play of King John. King John has been interrogated by literary scholars for references to the charter and investigated by historians for potential oversight. Yet, often overlooked are the sporadic references to Magna Carta in nineteenth-century productions of the play. During the nineteenth century, Magna Carta's legal significance waned as clauses were removed from legislation. Its political purchase is well-documented, including its use by the Chartists, and its use in nationalist-based support for wars at the start and end of the century. What is often unheeded in legal scholarship, is the shifting cultural significance of the charter. A performance history of Shakespeare's King John exposes the different treatment of Magna Carta in productions of Shakespeare's play and related theatrical representations of the charter in popular melodrama and pantomimes in the nineteenth century. This paper uses archival material of theatre productions to interrogate the status of Magna Carta through a performance history of Shakespeare's King John in nineteenth-century London. Investigating the representations of Magna Carta in theatre productions offers a complex picture of the charter's place in the history of British constitutionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 25 March 2021, the Supreme Court of India formally recognized the legal concept of indirect discrimination in Lt Col Nitisha v Union of India. This article uses Nitisha as a point of inflexion to study the development of Indian indirect discrimination law and Nitisha's contribution to this development. It shows that indirect discrimination law is more complex and contested than it appears when focusing solely on Nitisha. By zooming out and considering what Nitisha adds to pre-existing law and how it has been received in subsequent judgments, the article argues for a measured view of Nitisha's contribution and, in turn, of the state of Indian indirect discrimination law. Importantly, judicial recognition of indirect discrimination remains slow, uncertain, and unsteady. Even in the few cases where it has been recognized, the concept of indirect discrimination remains abstract and indeterminate, and questions on its adjudication remain far from resolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In federal systems, non-judicial actors can engage in constitutional reasoning. The actions taken may come in different legal forms. Some may be consistent with positive law, while others may not. Nullification and anticommandeering are prominent examples. We show that these concepts have functionally made new appearances in Canada. One significant example of this is Alberta's enactment of the 2022 Sovereignty Act. We trace how the initial proposal for the legislation resembled nullification. Over time, the proposal was reformed to adapt it to the particularities of Canadian federalism. The result was a Sovereignty Act that appears to assert existing provincial powers, particularly as a formal framework for extrajudicial constitutional interpretation via anticommandeering, although only time will tell if this remains the case in practice. In doing so, we shine a light on the contours of some of the legal and political debates that may arise as the framework is operationalized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In The Federalist, Publius makes five defective assumptions about judicial power, which underestimate and invite the danger of judicial supremacy. Contemporary judicial practice conforms to Publius's assumption that the judicial branch holds final authority in interpreting the Constitution, but contradicts his expectation that this would not lead to judicial supremacy in the political regime. This article excavates and critiques Publius's assumptions about judicial power from a close reading of The Federalist. It argues that any successful check on the judiciary requires adoption of the theory of coordinate construction. It concludes with an exploration of the institutional and normative implications of coordinate construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S. Supreme Court has turned its attention back to the law of habeas corpus, with a string of new decisions that emphasize the limited scope of federal habeas relief. But focusing one's sights on only those decisions would overlook what has transpired at the Supreme Court in recent years in state habeas cases coming directly to the Supreme Court from the state postconviction courts. Montgomery v. Louisiana, in particular, shifted the division of power between the Supreme Court and state postconviction courts for questions conventionally considered to be questions of state law. Montgomery, on the surface, is a decision about retroactivity and the effect of new Supreme Court decisions on old state-court criminal sentences. Must those new Supreme Court decisions be a basis for retrospectively invalidating final sentences, even decades later? Montgomery says yes, at least for some new Supreme Court decisions. Below the surface, Montgomery rests on an unstated assumption that where there is a violation of a constitutional right, as revealed by a new Supreme Court decision, a state postconviction court must provide a collateral remedy, at least in some circumstances. This article examines that assumption, its seeming inconsistency with the Supreme Court's recent federal habeas decisions, and its broader implications for what the Constitution has to say about constitutionally required collateral remedies in state and federal habeas courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Szeliga v. Lamone, a state trial court determined for the first time that Article III, Section 4 of the Maryland Constitution applies to restrict the Maryland General Assembly's power to adopt a plan of congressional redistricting. Using theories of constitutional interpretation including textualism, originalism, comparative constitutional law, and common law constitutional interpretation, we reject the trial court's interpretation. Instead, we suggest better techniques for interpreting the state constitution and perhaps for combating excessive partisan gerrymandering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constitutional constraints are undertheorized and overrated. Constitutions are routinely advertised as vehicles for constraining political decisions. Constitutions work when governing officials make decisions on the basis of constitutional rules rather than personal preferences. Officials protect religious liberty rather than advance what their faith teaches is the one true religion. Constitutional constraints are undertheorized because conventional accounts of constitutions as constraining mechanisms fail to explore the strategies available to unsympathetic constitutional decisionmakers bent on frustrating constitutional provisions inconsistent with what they believe to be desirable political arrangements, fundamental rights, vital interests, and cherished policies. President Trump's lawyers claimed that executive orders which Trump had described as a "Muslim ban" were designed to promote national security and not to discriminate against adherents of Islam. Constitutional constraints are overrated because even discounting disobedience, such strategies as invalidation, denial, neglect, off-the-wall interpretation, circumcision, circumvention, and capture frequently enable unsympathetic constitutional decisionmakers to frustrate constitutional provisions while maintaining nominal allegiance to the rule of law. Police officers frequently claim that evidence was "in plain sight" to frustrate implementation of the Fourth Amendment. Strong constitutional constraints work only when unsympathetic constitutional decisionmakers respect the rule of law and are compelled to interpret constitutional provisions as inconsistent with what they believe are desirable political arrangements, fundamental rights, vital interests, or cherished policies. Constitutional provisions constrain unsympathetic constitutional decisionmakers who have some respect for the rule of law only when they cannot invalidate, deny, neglect, interpret away, circumcise, capture, or circumvent the text. Constitutional reformers can preempt these strategies for frustrating constitutional constraints only by quite specific language that eschews appeals to broad values and is likely to be inflexible in response to political, social, and technological changes. One consequence of this narrowing is that constitutional constraints are poor vehicles for widescale social reform. Constitutional transformation requires empowering the faithful, not constraining the unsympathetic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On August 8 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search warrant at former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Resort. The search uncovered hundreds of documents bearing various classification and governmental markings. On June 8, 2023, Trump was indicted in the Southern District of Florida on thirty-seven counts of unlawful retention of national defense information. Almost immediately after the search, the former President and his allies advanced a theory that Trump's retention of classified documents was permissible because he had declassified the documents before leaving office on January 20, 2021. The former President has repeatedly mentioned these arguments in both civil and criminal litigation following the search, but has provided no evidentiary support for his contentions that he declassified the documents. While other aspects of the search warrant and criminal case have been adjudicated by the Eleventh Circuit and Supreme Court, no court has yet addressed the merits of the declassification defense. This note will examine the propriety of former President Trump's claims that he cannot be criminally charged with unlawful retention of national defense information because the information was declassified. First, it will examine the historical and Constitutional background of the executive classification system, including judicial precedents interpreting the scope of the power. Next, it will introduce parallel statutory frameworks that Congress has enacted to criminalize the retention of classified information, automatically classify certain types of information, and establish guidelines for the handling of Presidential records. Considering the concurrent authorities of the Executive and Legislative branches over classified information and government records, the note will then analyze the merits of former President Trump's claimed powers to declassify and retain classified documents as of right. It will conclude that a President does not have the plenary power to declassify all types of classified documents, and that any declassification must comply with established procedures to be effective. Lastly, the note will conclude that based upon publicly available information, former President Trump did not follow any such procedures that would have led to the documents being properly declassified before he left office. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the application of data protection laws to parliamentary inquiry committees in EU member states. It argues that these committees cannot claim exemption from data protection regulations simply because they are conducted by parliamentary bodies. The article also discusses the jurisdiction of a single supervisory authority to handle complaints related to the processing of personal data by inquiry committees. It provides legal analysis and case law to clarify the interpretation of relevant EU regulations and their implications for parliamentary inquiry committees. The text emphasizes the importance of respecting the constitutional structure of member states while upholding the effectiveness of EU law. [Extracted from the article]

This paper calls for a paradigm shift in the face of the remarkably common, but ultimately stereotypical and simplistic perceptions of 'Islamic' constitutions requiring all laws to conform to Shari'a. It problematizes the term 'Islamic' to describe disparate constitutions and constitutionalism(s) in Muslim majority countries demonstrating the plurality of 'Islamic' constitutions, locating this descriptor within varied socio-cultural, historical and political contexts of the Muslim world. Plural interpretations of the religious texts in Islam — i.e., the Qur'an and Sunna — and meanings of complex concepts — 'Shari'a' and 'Islamic law', are integral to Islam's (legal) traditions. In Muslimmajority countries, a variety of constitutional texts, court decisions and state practices, demonstrate this plurality. We argue that use of 'Islamic' as a descriptor for heterogeneous constitutional texts, is a product of 'realpolitik' and deployed in this manner, un-nuanced, simplistic, and reductive of the dynamic and plural nature of Shari'a [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearly half of all countries have official religions or give preference to specific religious traditions. Most countries with an official religion are majority Muslim; however, most of those with a preference for particular religious traditions are majority Christian. This paper considers empirical data related to constitutional references to specific religions as a framework for a discussion of the comparative constitutional histories of Turkey and the Republic of Ireland. Both moved from systems that preferred their majority religions to ostensive neutrality. This analysis reinforces the importance of religion in law and policy regardless of cultural context and constitutional choices. Constitutional drafters have established a number of approaches to the treatment of religion, including freedom of religion, establishment of religion, separation of religion and state, neutrality, official religion, conformity, repugnancy, and sources of law/legislation. Although these linguistic choices are significant, they may not result in consistent practices across jurisdictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Federal Constitutional Court declared § 362 No. 5 StPO unconstitutional on October 31, 2023. The debate focused on constitutional law issues and criminal law problems. The article shows why the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court can be supported from the perspective of criminal law science. The regulation allowed for the reopening of a criminal proceeding to the detriment of the acquitted person in case of new evidence. Criminological and criminalistic aspects have been neglected so far. [Extracted from the article]

What can constitutional law contribute to the justification of political power? Quite a lot, Frank Michelman argues in Constitutional Essentials. It can establish a publicly known framework for addressing the deep disagreements that are inevitable in any free society. Michelman's analysis has powerful attractions, but he overclaims the clarity with which rights can be defended within the Rawlsian framework he contemplates. The interests that courts must defend will vary from one society to another, depending on what the locals happen to value. They cannot therefore be derived abstractly from the moral powers. In John Rawls's four-stage sequence, writers of constitutions, legislatures, and courts necessarily consider contestable ideas of the good. Deep disagreement even about political fundamentals is a permanent condition of political life in a free society. Social unity is possible, but it is a more unstable unity than Rawls and Michelman imagine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can a constitution be treated as a recommendation rather than as binding and entrenched law? I argue that the answer to that question is Yes. With respect to the constitution in gross, that is, the total set of general provisions setting out both the structures of governance and the basic rights the constitution protects, the constitution as recommendation can serve as a focal point for ordinary political contestation which, because it unfolds in real time and is conducted by actors with limited time and energy for such contestation, occurs within (largely) settled institutional forms. With respect to the constitution in detail, that is, brought to ground in judicial judgments in contested cases, the answer is more complicated. Ordinarily treating judicial judgments as recommendations is a prescription for instability (and for that reason inconsistent with the idea of institutional settlement). If the target of such a judgment makes a considered judgment that instability is worth it, the target is raising questions about the continuing value of remaining in the particular polity within which the principle of institutional settlement holds sway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In January and February 2023, the University of Luxembourg hosted a series of four online seminars on Frank Michelman's then just recently published book Constitutional Essentials (CE), a book which in Frank's own words aimed to work out the implications of Rawls' theory of political liberalism for constitutional theory and debates between constitutional lawyers regarding a number of constantly recurring questions of constitutional law. Eleven of the invited contributions to the four seminars (presentations of 15–20 minutes) plus one additional contribution by Silje Langvatn, are now collected in this special issue of Philosophy & Social Criticism, followed by a response by Michelman. This introduction to the discussions between Michelman and his interlocutors begins with a brief synopsis of some of the key lines of argument that Michelman develops in CE and then moves on to survey all the arguments offered in response. The last section takes a briefly look at Michelman's replies to these responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partisan gerrymandering distorts voter preferences and undermines electoral competitiveness. Independent redistricting commissions and state constitutional litigation have curtailed partisan gerrymandering, but those reforms have proved unstable and insufficient. Single-state redistricting reform has stalled because legislators and voters alike face diminishing incentives to reallocate power to their state's minority party as partisan polarization increases. Gerrymandering remains an arms race: one party does it because the other party does it too. In the congressional redistricting context, however, interstate compacts could replace those incentives to compete with incentives to cooperate. Under a redistricting compact, the reallocation of congressional seats toward party A in state X would not occur without a corresponding reallocation in favor of party B in state Y. This incentivizes cooperation, since many voters would trade their party's in-state advantage for improved electoral competitiveness if the other party likewise surrendered redistricting advantages in the states they control. Coordination would transform redistricting from zero-sum competition to positive-sum collaboration. The Constitution's Compact Clause permits states to collaborate with each other but requires congressional consent. Yet the Constitution remains silent about which interstate agreements trigger this requirement, how Congress may provide consent, and how the Compact Clause interacts with the Elections Clause. This Comment explains how states could form redistricting compacts even without affirmative congressional approval. Courts consistently interpret the Compact Clause functionally rather than formally: compacts that neither expand compacting states' power against the federal government nor against noncompacting states do not require affirmative congressional approval. This Comment applies that functionalist doctrine to several types of redistricting compacts, concluding that--even if they count as "compacts" under the Constitution--they would pass muster because they would neither increase the compacting states' congressional representation nor diminish Congress's Elections Clause power. The Comment then sensitizes that conclusion to more formalist reinterpretations of the Compact Clause and assesses how redistricting compacts could ensure compacting states' continued commitment without requiring congressional approval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are two conventional methods for resolving separation of powers disputes: formalism and functionalism. Although both approaches have been around for decades, neither has proven capable of resolving the difficult separation of powers disputes that actually arise today. Such disputes--including over statutory removal restrictions, recognition, conduct of diplomacy, and executive privilege--do not involve instances where one branch is trying to exercise the other's exclusive power, as formalism posits. Nor is it clear how one could measure, or evaluate the effect of any one dispute on, the general balance of powers between the branches that functionalism seeks to maintain. Instead, difficult separation of powers questions involve separation of powers infringements--instances where both branches have power to act, but one branch's exercise of power infringes on or interferes with the other's exercise of power. This Article proposes a method built to resolve precisely such cases: interest balancing. Accepting that both branches might have power to act over a matter, interest balancing asks whether one branch's exercise of power has infringed upon the other's and, if so, whether such infringement is justified by a sufficiently strong interest. This mode of analysis might sound familiar, as it is the standard method of addressing infringement on constitutional entitlements in the other half of constitutional law--individual rights. When someone alleges an individual rights violation, we do not ask whether the government or individual has "exclusive power" over the matter, nor do we resolve the dispute by asking how it might affect the "general balance of power" between the individual and the government. Instead, we ask whether a right has been infringed and, if so, whether such infringement can be justified by a sufficiently strong governmental interest. Despite the long history of interest balancing in individual rights cases, scholars have failed to appreciate its utility in resolving separation of powers disputes. Yet, there is precedent for its use in the separation of powers. It was introduced in Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, continues to be the standard method of resolving executive privilege disputes, and has been used, albeit never routinely, by executive branch actors and courts of appeals in various other domains. Notwithstanding this precedent, neither courts, nor scholars, have recognized interest balancing's potential as a general framework for resolving separation of powers disputes. This Article identifies interest balancing as a coherent method of separation of powers analysis that is both conceptually and practically well suited to address the separation of powers disputes that actually arise today. It explains how interest balancing is distinct from the prevailing approaches--including formalism, functionalism, Justice Robert Jackson's Category Three analysis in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, and recent proposals for categorical deference to statutes-- --and then evaluates its strengths and weaknesses relative to such approaches. Ultimately, it concludes that interest balancing is the approach best suited to resolve the difficult cases that actually arise--those of separation of powers infringements. The Article then theoretically develops how interest balancing can be operationalized and improved going forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay responds to Geoffrey Kirsch's review essay "What's Past is Prologue: Democracy in the Age of Originalism" by evaluating how the three texts Kirsch reviews—Kermit Roosevelt, III's The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America's Story (2022), Cass R. Sunstein's How to Interpret the Constitution (2023), and D. Berton Emerson and Gregory Laski's edited collection Democracies in America: Keywords for the Nineteenth Century and Today (2023)—engage with progressive originalism. Drawing inspiration from civil rights activists including Frederick Douglass, progressive originalists seek to recast an ostensibly conservative method of constitutional interpretation grounded in what the "founding fathers" or a historical public thought or intended. Roosevelt's and Sunstein's books reveal the potential and limits of both progressive originalism and insular disciplinary conversations about constitutional interpretation. Contrastingly, the multidisciplinary Democracies in America has a more expansive conception of whose voices should matter when interpreting the Constitution through a progressive originalist lens. A comparative analysis of the three books also demonstrates the value of literature and literary historians in an age characterized by the ascendancy of historical approaches to constitutional interpretation and a revival of the "canon wars." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the classic powers of the president and heads of state is the power of amnesty. The limits and use of this authority differ from country to country. While the general amnesty eliminates all the consequences of conviction, the special amnesty is only a matter for the execution regime. In the Turkish constitutional system, the President has the authority to commute or remit the sentences imposed on persons, on grounds of chronic illness, disability or old age. When evaluated in the context of its definitions, it can be stated that the President’s power of amnesty included in the 1924, 1961 and 1982 constitutions is special amnesty. The special amnesty power of the President has a multidisciplinary nature that is within the scope of political science, public administration, constitutional law, administrative law, penal law and forensic medicine. The intense execution of the amnesty process for those convicted of terrorist crimes during the President Ahmet Necdet Sezer period drew the attention of the public to this area. The President’s special amnesty practices attract the attention of the public in cases where this process is run for people who are well known by the public. However, probably due to the multidisciplinary nature mentioned above, the subject remained in an area of relatively little academic interest. In the study, firstly, the theoretical foundations and infrastructure of the special amnesty granted to the President are discussed. Afterwards, the constitutional basis of the issue, the shape, nature and limits of the President’s power of pardon were examined in the light of the special amnesty decrees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In April 2023, the U.K. government announced that misogyny would not be categorized as a hate crime stating that this "may prove more harmful than helpful." This article argues that before and beyond hate crime, misogyny, understood as the hatred of women (from the Greek misein [hate] gynae [women]), is the foundational logic of our legal, social, and political order in the west. This constitution of hate relies on the active dehumanization, exploitation, and ownership of women's bodies by the institution of white men through making women the object of the "colonization of the everyday." This exhausting hatred is enacted through repetitive, unceasing, and everyday violence toward women. Simply put, patriarchal, colonial, capitalist democracy is only sustained through violence against women. Hating women is, therefore, not a pathology of society but rather is the necessary existence condition of our legal-political constitution, clear to see yet hiding in plain sight. Misogyny ensures the precarity of women's bodies and women's status as trespassers in everyday spaces that are deliberately always already misogynistic. Given the foundational nature of misogyny, did the government have a point in excluding endemic violence against women from hate crime as "more harmful than helpful?" Is hate crime merely constitutive of a cultural matrix of misogyny? This paper enacts a decolonial feminist prism to disrupt the cultural condition of misogyny by thinking hate crime together with legal-political constitutional and cultural change. The paper explores violence against women set against the historical emergence of misogyny from Greek dehumanization, to medieval persecution of "witches," the muzzling and banning of women from public spaces, Shakespeare's "Taming," to contemporary femicide rates. Interrogating hate crime through this prism offers nuanced routes for how to disrupt the legal-political constitution of misogyny that is neither hidden nor new. Misogyny is enduring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies suggest that the democratic system constructs a permissive environment for ethnic autonomy. This argument does not, however, fit in the case of Nepal in which the Constitution has institutionalized the democratic system and rejected the Madheshi autonomy. Nepal's constitutional position makes it imperative to examine the limits of the democratic system to address ethnic ambitions. In response, this paper has examined the following question: How did the democratic political system affect the Madheshi demand for autonomy and self-determination? It identifies that the democratic system socialized the mainstream parties to consider that democracy supports individual rights and provides all citizens with equal opportunities. In contrast, self-determination gives additional privileges to some communities over others and hurts the citizens' rights to equal treatment from the state. Due to this perception, the mainstream parties characterized self-determination as an undemocratic right and used numeric strength to refuse the Madheshi autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the concept of embedding social rights in a constitutional framework, using Colombia as a case study. The author argues that the legal and social embedding of constitutional social rights can empower citizens and improve access to justice. The article highlights the use of the tutela procedure in Colombia, which allows individuals to file claims to protect their fundamental constitutional rights. The author also compares the Colombian experience to that of the UK, where the Supreme Court has been criticized for retreating from engaging in social and economic policy debates. Overall, the article emphasizes the importance of constitutional embedding and legal mobilization in promoting social rights. [Extracted from the article]

The Article presented herein focuses on two different methods of constitutional interpretation: originalism and living constitutionalism. This Article seeks to explore the advantages and disadvantages of both methods of interpretation, while simultaneously focusing on how the gap between the two methods can be bridged. To do so, this Article evaluates the impact that an applied interpretation method can have (e.g., how cases are decided from the bench based on the way the justices interpret and understand the Constitution). To the extent that the methods of constitutional interpretation cannot be reconciled, this Article proposes solutions for how to bridge the gap between two seemingly juxtaposed methods of interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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