The Covid-19 crisis has turned our lives inside out. It has had a profound effect on the way we, as individuals, interact with one another and with members of our communities, and, as citizens, act in society. The crisis has also greatly impacted the way our institutions and government function. A string of emergency legislations … Continue reading Legal Actions against the State: Comparative Perspectives with reference to Ireland and France
The COVID-19 pandemic raises a crucial question for federal systems: how can the government respond quickly and coordinated if powers are spread across different levels? The question becomes even more urgent in divided states with disintegrative dynamics. Such systems easily turn into what Requejo calls ‘distrust federalism’. The fundamental distrust between the entities raises extra … Continue reading Centralized crisis management in disintegrative federations: COVID-19 policy in Belgium
Should an employee be allowed to wear a religious symbol at work? Should a religious employer be allowed to impose constraints on employees' private lives for the sake of enforcing a religious work ethos? Should an employee or service provider be allowed, on religious grounds, to refuse to work with customers of the opposite sex … Continue reading Myriam Hunter-Henin – Why Religious Freedom Matters for Democracy – Comparative Reflections from Britain and France for a Democratic “Vivre Ensemble” (Hart Publishing, Hart Studies in Comparative Public Law, 2020)
The threat posed by the coronavirus crisis is a holistic one – and so must be the response to it. Covid-19 prevention and control thus should be undertaken by all levels of government: not only national and international, but also subnational local units. Even the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the world’s largest centralist and … Continue reading Covid-19 and the Risks of Decentralisation:Crisis Management as Central-Local Risk Management in China
Federal systems divide power between a federal government and subsidiary state governments. One of the animating purposes of dividing power in this way is to protect individual liberty against the risk of tyranny and authoritarianism that necessarily attends the creation of a new State. In theory, it is the rivalry between federal and state governments … Continue reading Divided We Fall? – Division and Coordination in Federal Systems During a Time of Crisis
Proportionality is one of the most important global constitutional principles of our time, yet there has been nearly no systematic research on the actual application of the doctrine in judicial practice. The research angle of most publications on proportionality is normative in nature, evaluating the virtues and vices of the doctrine as the framework for … Continue reading Proportionality in Action: Comparative and Empirical Perspectives on the Judicial Practice (Cambridge University Press 2020)
Guillaume Tusseau is currently professor at Sciences Po Law School, a member of the Institut universitaire de France and a former member of the High Council of the Judiciary. His main fields of expertise, in which he both lectures and publishes extensively, are Legal philosophy, Constitutional law, and Comparative Law. Among his most recent publications … Continue reading Debating Legal Pluralism and Constitutionalism in the Global Age
The term methodology is conventionally defined as the set of principles that illuminate inquiry in a field. Scholars, moreover, seek to be parsimonious in discussing methodology. We prefer, however, to go back to the root of the term which lies in critically examining and re-examining the path that inquiry takes. Therefore, in the spirit of … Continue reading The Three Methodologies in Comparative Constitutional Theory (Edward Elgar 2018)
Seen from the outside the Nordic constitutional systems are often perceived as similar. The Nordic legal systems are in parts of literature even seen as a distinct legal family (Zweigert and Kötz (eds), Introduction to comparative Law, 3rd revised edn, OUP, 1998). However, does that really hold true at a closer look? In other words, … Continue reading Helle Krunke and Björg Thorarensen (eds.): The Nordic Constitutions. A Comparative and Contextual Analysis, Hart Studies in Comparative Public Law, Hart Publishing, 2018.
In the last fifteen years constitutional issues regarding the rights of gays, lesbians and same-sex couples have emerged on a global scale. The pace of recognition of their fundamental rights, both at judicial and legislative level, has dramatically increased across different jurisdictions, reflecting a growing consensus toward sexual orientation equality. Many pivotal cases have been … Continue reading Angioletta Sperti, Constitutional Courts, Gay Rights and Sexual Orientation Equality, Oxford, Hart Publishing (hardback, 1st edition, 2017; paperback, 2019).
