2021 is quickly coming to an end. It has been another challenging year for many of us on multiple fronts, the impact of the global pandemic on our professional and social interactions being just one of them.   The end of 2021 is also the end of our time as co-editors of the IACL Blog. After a few years at its helm, we will step down from our role. It has not been an easy decision, because it has been truly rewarding to see the blog grow from strength to strength over these past several months, and become one of the leading international online academic hubs in the field of constituti ..read more

Harry Hobbs & George Williams University of Technology Sydney & University of New South Wales There are many ways that citizens express their dissatisfaction with the policies and outcomes delivered by government. One unusual way is to create their own nation as a means of bypassing the constitutional structures and limitations of an existing nation. This can be a vehicle for political protest as well as a means to promote legal change. One example is the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands. In 2004, a small group of LGBTQI activists landed on the small uninhabited island ..read more

Luc Heuschling University of Luxembourg From the perspective of foreign observers familiar with republican systems, European monarchies may appear as a strange, yet deliciously old-fashioned subject-matter. A totally different world, made up of pomp, legal intricacies (Bagehot’s famous distinction between the “dignified part” and the “efficient part” of the Constitution) and scandals regarding the royals’ private lives. Yet, in the so-called “Global Constitutional Law” literature, this topic is quite a blank spot. None of its handbooks dedicate a chapter or section specifically to monarchies ..read more

Karan Gupta Editors’ note: this is a slightly modified version of a post that was originally published on the Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy blog, on 1 December 2021. Earlier this week, a full Bench of the Botswana Court of Appeals (CoA) in Attorney General v Letsweletse Motshidiemang partly upheld the High Court’s (HC) judgment (analysed here) which decriminalised same-sex relations. Commending the ‘erudite’ and ‘searching’ judgment of the HC, the judgment inducts Botswana into a group of countries such as India (here), and Angola (here) which hav ..read more

Georges Baur Liechtenstein-Institut Introduction  Liechtenstein is a small-sized country (and has a very small inhabitable area of rural character [Decision of the EEA Council No 1 /95 of 10 March 1995, Declaration on free movement of persons]). As such, it is highly dependent on its relations with its neighbours and beyond. Moreover, Liechtenstein has always been integrated into larger economic areas: for example, it was integrated with Austria-Hungary, and, after its dissolution in the wake of World War I, Liechtenstein joined the Swiss customs territory. In 1995, after finding a s ..read more

Peter Bußjäger University of Innsbruck A. Introduction The Constitution of the Principality of Liechtenstein (Landesverfassung = LV) of 1921 is primarily a further development of the Constitution of 1862, specifically in the context of parliamentary powers and fundamental rights. Its concept of constitutional review was inspired by the “Austrian model” or “Kelsenian model” of a specialized constitutional court, elaborated first by the Austrian Federal Constitutional Act (B-VG) of 1920. However, there was also some orientation towards Swiss constitutional law, for example, regarding the role o ..read more

Elisa Bertolini Bocconi University In comparative constitutional scholarship, there is little discussion of the constitutional arrangements of micro states—as if there were a sort of deterministic relationship between their diminutive size and the interest they generate. Comparative scholarship would benefit significantly from an effort to address this failure to appraise the true extent of the distinctiveness of micro states. The first vital question that needs consideration is whether the micro statehood model genuinely does exist. Undoubtedly, micro states are characterised by distinctive ..read more

Arvind Kurian Abraham King’s College The landmark judgment of the High Court of Kenya in MW v AN on 14th September, 2021, was lauded for recognizing the value of the housework performed by a housewife and for stating that she should be given a share in the matrimonial property, due to her contribution to the matrimonial home. Courts in India have developed tort jurisprudence on assessing the value of housework in connection with the distribution of compensation for motor vehicle accidents. While fields of private law have attempted to recognize the value of housework, I will briefly survey ho ..read more

Melissa Crouch University of New South Wales Indonesia’s Constitutional Court has been crucial to the past two decades of reform and has consolidated the shift from authoritarian rule to constitutional democracy. Yet, it was not until 2008 that the first female judge was appointed and since then there has only ever been one female judge out of nine on the bench at any one time.  Symbolically, the Constitutional Court does not begin to meet global demands for women’s equal representation in the judiciary for the world’s third largest democracy.  So, what role do women judges play on ..read more

Oumarou Narey L’Université Abdou Moumouni de Niamey-Niger Dans un État de droit, c’est-à-dire un État qui « agit par le droit et au moyen du droit », il est nécessaire de se tourner vers la justice démocratique, celle qui « n’est pas faite pour satisfaire ses agents, ni pour produire des chiffres destinés à sa hiérarchie, mais pour garantir les droits » . C’est en effet, une des missions dévolues à la justice constitutionnelle. Mais cette mission n’est pas toujours bien perçue par les acteurs politiques. Pour illustrer cet état de fait, il suffit de se référer à l’hyper-judicia ..read more