Constitutional Law Commons^™

Daniel Pule And Others V Attorney General And Others 2017/Ccz/004 Selected Judgment No. 60 Of 2018, Elias C. Chipimo

SAIPAR Case Review

In a case brought to determine the eligibility of President Edgar Lungu to stand as a presidential candidate in 2021, having served less than three years in his first term, the Constitutional Court determined that: ‘…the presidential tenure of office that ran from January 25, 2015 to September 13, 2016 and straddled two constitutional regimes, cannot be considered as a full term.’

In doing so, the Constitutional Court effectively backdated the application of the ‘New Clauses’ to a time when there was already a law governing: (a) the eligibility of a person to stand again as a presidential candidate who …

Nelson Chamisa V Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa And Others Ccz 42/18 (August 2018), O'Brien Kaaba

SAIPAR Case Review

Zimbabwe held its first post-Mugabe general elections on 30th July 2018. On 3rd August 2018, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) declared Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa as the candidate who received the requisite ‘more than half the number of votes cast’ and declared duly elected President of Zimbabwe. Aggrieved by this development, Nelson Chamisa, the main opposition contender, challenged the validity of the election of Mnangagwa in the Constitutional Court. After hearing the case, the Constitutional Court unanimously: 1) Dismissed the application with costs; and 2) Declared Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa as duly elected President of Zimbabwe.

Rwu Law: The Magazine Of Roger Williams University School Of Law (Issue 10, 25th Anniversary Issue) (May 2019), Roger Williams University School Of Law

RWU Law

No abstract provided.

Keep Your Friends Close And Your Medical Records Closer: Defining The Extent To Which A Constitutional Right To Informational Privacy Protects Medical Records, Lauren Newman

Journal of Law and Health

The following Article discusses the extent to which the constitutional right to informational privacy protects medical data from improper acquisition or dissemination by state agents. Part I provides background on Whalen v. Roe, the Supreme Court case that has been understood to establish the right to informational privacy. Part I also discusses the variations across the circuit courts as to what medical information is afforded protection by the right. Part II analyzes the well-established approaches adopted by the Second and Third Circuits as they present opposing interpretations of Whalen, one wholly protecting medical information and the other protecting …

Clear As Mud: Constitutional Concerns With Clear Affirmative Consent, C. Ashley Saferight

Cleveland State Law Review

Rape and sexual assault laws and policies have shifted significantly in recent years, including the introduction of affirmative consent. Unfortunately, both proponents and critics tend to confuse the issues and falsely equate affirmative consent as a substantive social standard versus a procedural standard for adjudication and punishment. Although affirmative consent generally does not represent a significant change in consent law in the United States, statutes and policies requiring a further requirement that affirmative consent be clear and unambiguous (“clear affirmative consent”) are problematic and raise constitutional concerns. When clear affirmative consent policies are used as an adjudicative standard, they increase …

An Organizational Account Of State Standing, Katherine Mims Crocker

Faculty Publications

Again and again in regard to recent high-profile disputes, the legal community has tied itself in knots over questions about when state plaintiffs should have standing to sue in federal court, especially in cases where they seek to sue federal-government defendants. Lawsuits challenging everything from the Bush administration’s environmental policies to the Obama administration’s immigration actions to the Trump administration’s travel bans have become mired in tricky and technical questions about whether state plaintiffs belonged in federal court.

Should state standing cause so much controversy and confusion? This Essay argues that state plaintiffs are far more like at least one …

The Legislature At War: Bandits, Runaways And The Emergence Of A Virginia Doctrine Of Separation Of Powers, Matthew J. Steilen

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Guilt By Genetic Association: The Fourth Amendment And The Search Of Private Genetic Databases By Law Enforcement, Claire Abrahamson

Fordham Law Review

Over the course of 2018, a number of suspects in unsolved crimes have been identified through the use of GEDMatch, a public online genetic database. Law enforcement’s use of GEDMatch to identify suspects in cold cases likely does not constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment because the genetic information hosted on the website is publicly available. Transparency reports from direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing providers like 23andMe and Ancestry suggest that federal and state officials may now be requesting access to private genetic databases as well. Whether law enforcement’s use of private DTC genetic databases to search for familial relatives …

Standing For Nothing, Robert A. Mikos

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

A growing number of courts and commentators have suggested that states have Article III standing to protect state law. Proponents of such "protective" standing argue that states must be given access to federal court whenever their laws are threatened. Absent such access, they claim, many state laws might prove toothless, thereby undermining the value of the states in our federal system. Furthermore, proponents insist that this form of special solicitude is very limited-that it opens the doors to the federal courthouses a crack but does not swing them wide open. This Essay, however, contests both of these claims, and thus, …

Qualified Immunity And Constitutional Structure, Katherine Mims Crocker

Faculty Publications

A range of scholars has subjected qualified immunity to a wave of criticism— and for good reasons. But the Supreme Court continues to apply the doctrine in ever more aggressive ways. By advancing two claims, this Article seeks to make some sense of this conflict and to suggest some thoughts toward a resolution.

First, while the Court has offered and scholars have rejected several rationales for the doctrine, layering in an account grounded in structural constitutional concerns provides a historically richer and analytically thicker understanding of the current qualified-immunity regime. For suits against federal officials, qualified immunity acts as a …

A Child Litigant's Right To Counsel, Kevin Lapp

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

As the Supreme Court put it a half century ago, the right tocounsel for juveniles reflects “society’s special concern for children” and “is of the essence of justice.” In a variety of legal proceedings, from delinquency matters to child welfare proceedings to judicial bypass hearings, the law requires the appointment of counsel to child litigants. While coherent in the whole, the law regarding counsel for child litigants is a patchwork of state and federal constitutional rulings by courts and statutory grants. Legal scholarship about a child litigant’s right to counsel is similarly fragmented. Predominantly, legal scholars have examined arguments for …

Qualified Immunity And Constitutional Structure, Katherine Mims Crocker

Faculty Scholarship

A range of scholars has subjected qualified immunity to a wave of criticism—and for good reasons. But the Supreme Court continues to apply the doctrine in ever more aggressive ways. By advancing two claims, this Article seeks to make some sense of this conflict and to suggest some thoughts toward a resolution.

First, while the Court has offered and scholars have rejected several rationales for the doctrine, layering in an account grounded in structural constitutional concerns provides a historically richer and analytically thicker understanding of the current qualified-immunity regime. For suits against federal officials, qualified immunity acts as a “compensating …

A Test Of Sovereignty: Franchise Tax Board Of The State Of California V. Gilbert P. Hyatt, Timothy Dill

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

In Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt, the Supreme Court considers whether to overrule Nevada v. Hall, a 1979 Supreme Court decision. Hall permitted a State to be haled into the court of another State without its consent. In 2016, an evenly divided Supreme Court affirmed Hall 4-4 when faced with the same question, and following a remand to the Nevada Supreme Court, the Court has granted certiorari on this question once again. This Commentary contends that Hall was wrongly decided and should be overruled. The Constitution’s ratification did not alter the status of common-law State sovereign …

Apple V. Pepper: Applying The Indirect Purchaser Rule To Online Platforms, Jason Wasserman

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

Long-established antitrust precedent bars customers who buy a firm’s product through intermediaries from suing that firm for antitrust damages. In Apple Inc. v. Pepper, this “indirect purchaser rule” is brought into the smartphone age in a price-fixing dispute between technology giant Apple and iPhone users. This case will determine whether iPhone users buy smartphone applications directly from Apple through the App Store, or if Apple is merely an intermediary seller-agent of app developers. The indirect purchase rule is generally considered settled precedent. How the rule should apply to online platforms, however, differs between circuit courts, which have split on …

Two Ideas Of Economic Democracy: Contextual Analysis On Role Of Indonesian Constitutional Court As A Guardian Of Democracy, Kukuh Fadli Prasetyo

Indonesia Law Review

This study analyses the role of guardian of democracy performed by Indonesian Constitutional Court in reinterpreting the ideas of economic democracy. Although, in the 1945 Constitution, the economic democracy is well-derived from the mind’s eye of social justice which is established in Pancasila, some economic legislations tends to ignore the idea of economic democracy. Therefore, the Constitutional Court examined the disputed norms through constitutional review in order to maintain constitutional economic order. Besides, as elaborated by the Writer, the “ratio decidendi” stood behind some Constitutional Court’s verdicts used an approach which kept the two fundaments of democracy maintained. Apparently, as …

April 29, 2019: Building Cosmopolis, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “ Building Cosmopolis“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Defining Unreasonable Radius Clauses For American Music Festivals, Trevor Lane

Seattle University Law Review

Since 1969, the music festival remains a staple of American musical culture, and in order to meet consumer demands, today’s music festival promoters rely on radius clauses ancillary to the performance agreements that they use with artists. These radius clauses limit artists’ ability to perform at other music festivals and concerts within a specified temporal and geographic radius of the contracted music festival. Beginning in 2010, legal challenges have alleged that broadly defined radius clauses used by music festival promoters violate Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. This Note contends that radius clauses which limit artists from performing beyond …

Title Ix And Gender Stereotype Theory: Protecting Students From Parental Status Discrimination, Jocelyn Tillisch

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment asserts that students who experience discrimination on the basis of parental status have a cause of action under Title IX by using the gender stereotyping theory that is common in Title VII analysis as illustrated by Tingley-Kelley v. Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. Part I will first provide an overview of the applicable law surrounding Title IX and Title VII. Part II will briefly summarize application of the gender stereotype theory and the applicable case law that provides the legal framework for this proposition. Part III will detail how the Title VII framework can be followed to …

Equitable Gateways: Toward Expanded Federal Habeas Corpus Review Of State Court Criminal Convictions, Eve Brensike Primus

Articles

State prisoners who file federal habeas corpus petitions face a maze of procedural and substantive restrictions that effectively prevent almost all prisoners from obtaining meaningful review of their convictions. But it is a mistake to think that habeas litigation is just a Kafkaesque nightmare with no constructive potential. Federal courts do sometimes cut through the doctrinal morass to consider state prisoners’ claims, relying on what this Articleterms "equitable gateways" to federal habeas relief. Litigants and courts generally underestimate the potential these gateways offer, with the result that habeas litigation does not focus on them as often as it should. Here …

Legislator-Led Legislative Prayer And The Search For Religious Neutrality, Aishwarya Masrani

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

Leading a group in prayer in a public setting blurs the line between public and private. Such blurring implicates a constitutional tension between the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. This tension is magnified when the constitutionality of prayer is questioned in the context of democratic participation. Current Supreme Court precedent holds legislative prayer to be constitutional, but the relevant cases, Marsh v. Chambers and Town of Greece, NY v. Galloway, do not address the specific constitutionality of legislator-led prayer. There is currently a circuit split on the subject: in Bormuth v. County of Jackson, the United …