Constitutional Change

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Catalan Referendum Trial

by Antoni Abat Ninet, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Copenhagen, Denmark After 500 days of pre-trial detention, and facing charges of rebellion and sedition (among others) which carries a maximum of 30 years in prison, it found guilty, former Catalan representatives and grassroots activist had finally the possibility to be heard by the Supreme Court in Madrid. A court on which there are reasonable doubts about their competence to deal with this trial.
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«Urban sprawl initiative» rejected by the Swiss voters

by Prof. Markus Kern / Tobias Egli, University of Bern Construction activity in Switzerland is intense: Every day, the equivalent of eight soccer pitches is newly covered with buildings. The increasing concern about the phenomenon of urban sprawl has already had tangible political consequences in recent years: In 2012 the so called «Second Home Initiative» was accepted on the federal level, banning the construction of second homes in municipalities with a proportion of second homes exceeding 20%. In the same year the voters of the Canton of Zurich accepted the so called «Arable Land Initiative» aiming at the protection of arable land in the canton.
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Swiss votation on November 25 2018

by Prof. Markus Kern / Nora Camenisch-Ehinger, University of Bern On November 25, 2018 three proposals were up for decision by the Swiss electorate. Two of them were pertaining to constitutional change and can be said to be situated at either of the poles of constitutional importance:
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The Law and Legitimacy of Imposed Constitutions

Edited by Richard Albert, Xenophon Contiades and Alkmene Fotiadou (Routledge 2018, 266 pages). Constitutions are often seen as the product of the free will of a people exercising their constituent power. This, however, is not always the case, particularly when it comes to ‘imposed constitutions’. In recent years there has been renewed interest in the idea of imposition in constitutional design, but the literature does not yet provide a comprehensive resource to understand the meanings, causes and consequences of an imposed constitution. The book is now available at https://www.routledge.com/The-Law-and-Legitimacy-of-Imposed-Constitutions/Albert-Contiades-Fotiadou/p/book/9781138488984
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A Constitutional Ban on Same-sex Marriage: Romania is About to Entrench its Homophobic Worldview

by Michael Hein, Postdoc Fellow, University of Göttingen, Alexander von Humboldt Chair of Comparative Constitutionalism Next weekend, on the 6th and 7th of October, 2018, the citizens of Romania will have the final say on an amendment to the Romanian Constitution of 1991. If approved, it will change Art. 48, para. 1, which defines the family as “based on a freely consented marriage by the spouses”.
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Popular vote on September 23, 2018 in Switzerland concerning the direct counter-proposal to the Bike Initiative and the Federal Popular Initiatives on Fair Food and Food Sovereignty

by Prof. Markus Kern / Antonia Huwiler, University of Bern The Swiss electorate only accepted one of the three proposals up for discussion: The direct counter-proposal to the Bike Initiative. The Fair Food Initiative and the Initiative for food sovereignty have been rejected. The voter turnout amounted to around 37%.
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The Nordic Constitutions. A Comparative and Contextual Study, Hart Publishing, Ed. Helle Krunke and Björg Thorarensen

by Professor Helle Krunke, CECS, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen How similar are the Nordic constitutional systems? Which common roots and legal-historical developments do they share? How do the Nordic constitutions regulate institutions and division of powers, judicial review of legislation, parliamentary control of the executive and human rights? Do the EU and international human rights conventions draw the Nordic constitutional systems closer to each other or further apart?
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WHEN POLITICAL CROSSROADS ARE NOT OPTING A LEGALLY ACCEPTABLE ROAD – THE MACEDONIAN CASE WITH THE “NAME DISPUTE” AS AN INTERNATIONAL LEGAL PRECEDENT

by Tanja Karakamisheva-Jovanovska, Full-time Professor of Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law “Iustinianus Primus” in Skopje, University “Sc. Cyril and Methodius”, Republic of Macedonia The well-known nebulous and irrational problem that my country, Republic of Macedonia, has with Greece for 27 years seems to have reached its zenith.
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Decisions of the majority of the Swiss Voters and of the Cantons on June 10 2018 on the popular initiative concerning the sovereign money (monetary reform) and of the majority of the Swiss voters on the referendum on the law about the risk of money games

by Thomas Fleiner, Professor Emeritus of Public Law, University of Fribourg, Former President of the Executive Committee of the IACL The voters decided to reject the popular initiative with the lowest turnout (33.7%) of the last 6 years.  At the same time, the majority of the voters adopted the law on the risk of money games. The sovereign decided on this Sunday with two decisions. One decision was on a popular initiative for sovereign or plain money, the second was a referendum on the law concerning the risk of playing games with money.  

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