Explaining constitutional garrulity

Constitutions differ dramatically in length although they serve very similar functions everywhere. This paper tries to identify some determinants of constitutional length. It contains a new dataset spelling out the length of 135 constitutions in words. It turns out that a common law legal origin significantly increases the length of the constitution, whereas countries in the Middle East and North Africa have significantly shorter constitutions. Further, having been a British or Spanish colony is correlated with longer constitutions, a higher share of Protestants with shorter constitutions.     

对宪法适用问题的再思考——与童之伟教授商榷

宪法适用就是国家机关依照法定职权和程序,应用宪法规范处理具体案件或纠纷的专门活动。中国全国人大及其常委会制定或者修改法律的活动,国务院规定行政措施、制定行政法规,发布决定和命令的活动,都不属于宪法适用。不论从权力来源方面看,还是从人民法院审理案件的实体法依据来看,中国宪法第126条中的“法律”都是包括宪法在内的广义的法律,中国多元多级的立法体制,为人民法院对从属性造法机关所制定的规范性文件进行违宪审查,留下一定的空间。     

Uganda: constitutional law

The implementation of international humanitarian law (IHL) is a continuous and evolving process. As such, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) co-operates closely with the Commonwealth Secretariat with the aim to advise and support Commonwealth states on developments in IHL and to assist them in meeting their IHL treaty obligations. The present update highlights some of the key issues and recent developments in IHL that are of interest to Commonwealth states.     

Psychology's influence on constitutional interpretation

When organized psychology files amicus briefs with the Supreme Court and other courts, it does so for a variety of reasons and seeks to advance a number of policy objectives. The thesis of this article is that pursuit of some of those objectives is improper and that their pursuit threatens to defeat other objectives. Psychology's expertise is not in constitutional analysis; it is in the study of human behavior. As a practical matter, to pretend to do the former is to weaken our effectiveness in describing the latter. In public interest cases, when acting as a true friend of the court, APA's obligation is to share with the court what empirical research and theory tell us about human behavior, and not to argue for any particular outcome of the case before the court.     

法治政府的宪政诉求与宪政途径

法治政府建设是我国人民政治生活中的一件大事，法治政府的终极归宿在于维护民权，保障民生，顺乎民意，法治政府所体现的“民本”思想与完政理念完全契合，宪法作为根本大法对法治政府建设具有支配和指导作用，构建法治政府必须遵循宪法精神，反映完政诉求，在完政的框架之内运行。     

Freedom and choice in constitutional law

The constitutional rights of children, the mentally ill, and other legally incompetent persons have been the subject of much litigation in the past twenty years. In this Article, Professor Garvey develops a general theory to explain the different ways in which persons of diminished capacity can be said to enjoy constitutional protections. He first notes that, of the various constitutional provisions, only one kind - freedom, which protect the right to make choices - pose serious difficulties when applied to persons of diminished capacity. He then proposes a hierarchy of ways in which we can attribute freedoms to such persons: the laissez-faire notion that all persons (including incompetents) are to be treated identically, the instrumental idea that granting freedoms to incompetents achieves extrinsic goals such as training, and the surrogate notion that persons who cannot make choices for themselves should be able to have those closest to them choose on their behalf. Professor Garvey concludes that, when these options fail and the state takes an incompetent person under its control, the state owes to the incompetent the full package of duties owed by other guardians to those under their control, including treatment in the case of the mentally ill or education in the case of children.     

Immigration Act medical inadmissibility provision survives constitutional challenge

In a decision issued on 27 June 2002, the Federal Court of Canada ruled that the medical inadmissibility provision of the Immigration Act did not infringe sections 7 or 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Although the Immigration Act was repealed effective 28 June 2002 with the coming into force of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA), the court's reasons are relevant to some HIV-positive people seeking admission to Canada under the new legislation.     

The dangers of constitutional identity

This article purports to expose the dangers of the concept of constitutional identity – a doctrine shaped by apex state courts to shield areas of the national legal systems from the influence of European law. First, the article overviews the use of the concept of constitutional identity in the case law of national and supranational courts, mapping the growing expansion of this doctrine. Second, the article seeks to reconstruct the genealogy of the concept of constitutional identity, tracing its legal origins. Third, the article advances a normative criticism of the concept of constitutional identity, explaining how the doctrine suffers from an incurable lack of determinacy, which inevitably results in arbitrariness in its use. Moreover, the article points out how the practical use of a defensive concept such as constitutional identity is poised to weaken, if not undermine tout court, the process of European integration.     

India: constitutional challenge to anti-sodomy law

On 7 December 2001, the Naz Foundation India Trust filed a petition with the Delhi High Court alleging that the prohibitions on sodomy in Indian law are unconstitutional.     

Juridical and constitutional implications of CARICOM treaty practice

In a case involving a CARICOM member state in relation to the Agreement Establishing the Council for Legal Education (CLE), several law students of one member state party to the Agreement were denied their entitlement to pursue professional studies in a school of law established for the purpose in another member state because the second member state had not implemented the relevant provision of the CLE Agreement. The CLE in the member state concerned pleaded the absence of an enacting provision in the Legal Profession Act as the ground for not observing the provisions of the Agreement. No action was brought at the international level by the state of the students aggrieved to vindicate their rights and the action brought by the students themselves at the municipal level did not and could not succeed. Following an overview of CARICOM treaty practice, this article examines the effects of unincorporated treaties in the light of dualism, to which doctrine the overriding majority of CARICOM states subscribe.     

宪法演进模式之比较

本文对宪法演进模式进行了评析 ,认为在一般意义上说 ,大陆法系的宪法演进采取的是立宪式的路径 ,英美法系宪法演进所采取的则是释宪与惯例式的路径 ,在此基础上对两种模式之优劣进行了比较分析 ,提出中国宪法演进发展的模式应当尽可能采取释宪演进方式 ,以此提高宪法的权威性、稳定性和连续性 ,从而在全体社会成员之中培养起尊重宪法、信任宪法乃至信仰宪法的传统。     

Court dismisses constitutional challenge to ban on assisted suicide

On 6 February 2001, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice dismissed a constitutional challenge by Jim Wakeford, a Toronto man with HIV/AIDS and an advocate for access to medical marijuana, to the sections of the Criminal Code that outlaw assisted suicide in Canada.     

On the constitutional foundations of Hong Kong

Hong Kong law is characterized by a mixture of legal sources and traditions, originating from the constitutional government-based structure in the mid-1800s to the new laws, which were promulgated at the beginning of the 20th century. Since Hong Kong’s return into the People’s Republic of China in 1997, the development and forms of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Laws have been influenced by the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China of 1982, the Sino-British Joint Declaration of Hong Kong issues of 1984 as well as the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of 1990. The government of China continues to undertake measures, promoting a high degree of autonomy within the Hong Kong as well as its political stability and economic prosperity. All these measures contribute to the promotion of the rule of law and unification of China.     

公民表达权之宪政审视

所谓“宪政”（constimtionalism）,是指一种使政治运作法律化的理念或理想状态,它要求政府所有权力的行使都被纳入宪法的轨道,并受宪法的制约。它是人类政治文明进步的标志,与作为宪法基本权利之一的公民表达权关系密切．公民表达权,即公民表达自由权,具有政治自由和精神自由权利的双重属性。本文分析了表达权的内涵,包括其概念、性质两方面,提出了表达权的宪政意义,文章最后简要分析了中国公民表达权的保障现状及存在的问题,并提出了相应的宪政保障举措.     

A constitutional moment: How we might reimagine platform governance

We are at a constitutional moment for the future of the internet. Nation states around the world are launching major new initiatives to regulate the internet, both directly against users and by regulating the companies that provide access to telecommunications infrastructure and content services. The giant technology companies that control the bulk of the commercial internet are themselves under unprecedented scrutiny for the policies they set, the decisions they make, and the choices that go into designing their architecture. In my new book, Lawless, I argue that in this moment of change there is a major opportunity for us all to rethink how the internet should be governed, how power is held to account, and whose values prevail.¹     

Adding constitutional depravation to untimely death: South Dakota's living will pregnancy provision

In 1991, the South Dakota Legislature enacted a living will statute. Included is a pregnancy provision that prevents pregnant women from obtaining the full benefit of the statute. A South Dakota Attorney General's opinion was released discussing the conflict of laws problems posed by the statute. That opinion, however, did not address the more important question of the constitutionality of the pregnancy provision. This comment analyzes the pregnancy provision under the Due Process, Equal Protection, and the Establishment Clauses and concludes that South Dakota's pregnancy provision is unconstitutional under all three doctrines.     

Delineating and derogating constitutional rights in Trinidad and Tobago

This article examines the approach taken by courts in Trinidad and Tobago when analysing the Parliament’s power under section 13 of the Constitution to derogate from constitutionally guaranteed rights protected under section 4. The author analyses inconsistencies in the tests applied by the courts over the years in various cases and considers a different approach that could be adopted in order to protect citizens’ rights while having due deference to the Parliament’s power to legislate.     

财产征收的宪法界限

财产权是一项重要的宪法权利,同时也是其他权利行使的基础。围绕财产权的宪法保障制度,对财产征收的法律基础、立法的内容形成功能与财产征收的界限以及经济规制与财产征收的界限做一学理的分析,具有重要的理论与实践意义。     

Democratising online content moderation: A constitutional framework

Freedom of expression is one of the cornerstones on which democracy is based. This non-exhaustive statement firmly clashes with the troubling evolution of the algorithmic society where artificial intelligence technologies govern the flow of information online according to opaque technical standards established by social media platforms. These actors are usually neither accountable nor responsible for contents uploaded or generated by the users. Nevertheless, online content moderation affects users’ fundamental rights and democratic values, especially since online platforms autonomously set standards for content removal on a global scale. Despite their crucial role in governing the flow of information online, social media platforms are not required to ensure transparency and explanation of their decision-making processes. Within this framework, this work aims to show how the liberal paradigm of protection of the right to free speech is no longer enough to protect democratic values in the digital environment, since the flow of information is actively organised by business interests, driven by profit-maximisation rather than democracy, transparency or accountability. The role of free speech is still paramount. However, the challenges raised by the algorithmic society leads to focus on enhancing the positive dimension of this fundamental right by introducing new users’ rights and transparency and accountability obligations for social media to inject democratic values in the digital environment.