Law students and law graduates in Pakistan are reporting for JURIST on events in that country impacting its legal system. Hussain Abbas is an LLB student in the University of London External Programme. He files this from Islamabad. Since the first promulgation of Pakistan’s constitution back in 1971 the country still wanders, bewildered by the [...]
Search Results for: 2015-12-08
Beyond the Declaration of Independence: Of Wisdom, Virtue, and Principles of Government
The great end of government and laws is human happiness; the rulers ought, therefore, to understand and know on what it consists; and the means of producing it. — Hon. Jesse Root, “On the Principles and End of Government” The summer of 1776 was quite productive in the annals of American intellectual and legal thought. [...]
In jurisprudential matters, whether national or international, precedent remains vitally important. When former (and possibly future) US President Donald J. Trump issued illegal pardons to selected American officials for established crimes against international law, the consequences reverberated in other countries. Now, with still-mounting Russian crimes against Ukraine – crimes of war; crimes against peace; and crimes [...]
Explainer: The Emerging 'Unconstitutional State of Affairs' Doctrine
The unconstitutional state of affairs doctrine, having its roots in a 1998 judgement of the Colombian Constitutional Court (CCC), has gained immense popularity due to the systemic, policy-based, manifestly illegal acts of executive branches of governments worldwide. Calls for recognizing the existence of an unconstitutional state of affairs have persistently been made in the Latin [...]
Nepal is a least developed, land-locked Himalayan country wedged between India and China. After a long period of instability, it adopted a new constitution in 2015, creating a multi-party federal republic. Previously Nepal had been a unitary state, albeit with a long period of political instability and insurgency. The first election under the Constitution was [...]
Kenya Auditor General details efforts to unravel public entity fraud
Kenya’s Office of the Auditor General (OAG) Tuesday published its Annual Corporate Report for 2021 through 2022. In the report, the OAG detailed how it submitted 1,617 audit reports to Parliament and relevant country assemblies for further actions. Additionally, the OAG released a framework for tracking, following up and reporting on implementations of audit recommendations, [...]
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Tuesday urged countries in Andaman Sea region to step up for helping rescue Rohingya Muslims stranded at sea. In contrast, the UNHCR welcomed Indonesian fishermen’s–in concert with local authorities’–actions which saved 58 people Sunday and 174 people Monday. UNHCR Representative to Indonesia, Ann Maymann, thanked the local communities [...]
Searching For Answers Amid Enforced Disappearances of Pakistan's Balochi People
In late August, Pakistani publisher and human rights activist Faheem Baloch was detained by unidentified plain-clothes law enforcement officers in his Karachi bookshop and ushered away. A native of the Balochistan region of Pakistan, the publisher is known to be a dedicated cultural advocate, heading up a publishing house specializing in Balochi literature, and serving [...]
How India's Regional Authorities Are Turning to Property Destruction to Silence Protestors
In June 2022, after protests over a politician’s comments on the Prophet Muhammad took a violent turn, the Municipal Corporation in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh demolished the houses of protestors allegedly linked to the movement. This was just one instance in a series of property demolitions ordered by numerous Indian state governments — [...]
Explainer: Rule of Law and De Facto Differentiation in the EU
In October 2021, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled that in the event of a conflict between the Constitution of Poland and the treaties of the European Union, the Polish Constitution will reign supreme. The Tribunal concluded that Article 4(3) of the Treaty on European Union, in conjunction with Article 279 of the Treaty on the Functioning of [...]