Legal policy and its effectiveness in the field of certain types of judicial proceedings

This scientific publication examines the problems associated with modern Russian legal policy and its effectiveness. In particular, the issues of both general theoretical legal nature and sectoral significance are analyzed, namely, the implementation of legal policy in the field of constitutional, criminal, civil, arbitration, administrative proceedings, as well as proceedings in cases of administrative offenses, including in the aspect of recent constitutional amendments. For researchers, teachers, postgraduates, law students, practitioners, as well as for anyone interested in modern problems of legal policy and its sectoral manifestations.

The Malaysian Election Commission: Navigating Electoral Authoritarianism and Political Change

The urgency of electoral reforms has long been identified as a key to improving democracy in Malaysia. For decades, electoral manipulation through gerrymandering, malapportionment, and issues with the electoral roll and conduct of elections have undermined democratic quality and competition. The Malaysian Election Commission (EC) has – understandably – come under scrutiny for its role in facilitating and sustaining these problems. However, what requires a greater level of attention is the question of how the EC – despite its position as a constitutional institution that exists independently from the other branches of government – has operated in ways that undermined Malaysia's democracy and maintained a dominant party regime for over six decades. This Article brings this to light by examining the structural, institutional, and political conditions that shape the EC's operation, particularly with regard to re-delineation of constituencies and the conduct of elections. It argues that flaws in constitutional design, along with subsequent constitutional amendments, have rendered the EC vulnerable to partisan capture and thus affected its ability to function as an independent constitutional institution. In addition, this Article demonstrates how changes in political imperatives and judicial restraint in reviewing the EC's decision-making have also contributed to the deficiencies in Malaysia's electoral democracy.

Comparing Experiences of Constitutional Reforms to Enshrine the Right to Water in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru: Opportunities and Limitations

In this paper we compare recent efforts towards the constitutionalization of the right to water in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru to understand the opportunities and limitations related to the attempts to enhance access to piped water to the highest normative level. Peru passed a constitutional amendment in 2017 while Brazil and Colombia have seen much right-to-water activism but have not succeeded in passing such reforms. We explore the role of the existing domestic legal frameworks on drinkable water provision and water management towards the approval of constitutional amendments. We find that all three countries have specialized laws, water governing institutions, and constitutional jurisprudence connecting access to water with rights, but the legal opportunity structures to enforce socio-economic rights vary; they are stronger in Colombia and Brazil, and weaker in Peru. We argue that legal opportunity structures build legal environments that influence constitutional reform success. Legal opportunity structures act as incentives both for social movements to push for reforms and for actors with legislative power to accept or reject them. Our findings also show that in some contexts political cost is a key element of constitutional reforms that enshrine the right to water; therefore, this is an element that should be considered when analyzing these processes.

Shaping Presidential Powers in Hungary: Convention, Tradition and Informal Constitutional Amendments

There was no tradition of a republican president in Hungary before the fall of communism, and the transitory constitution of 1989 was unclear about the exact role the President should play in the constitutional system of Hungary. Some provisions even resembled those of presidential or semi-presidential systems; some ambiguities were clarified during the first two decades after the transition. Conventions, however, were established to some extent and sometimes very quickly. This period gave rise to guidelines as to how the powers of the President should be exercised. Some other powers were concretized and interpreted foremost by the Constitutional Court. These conventions and judicial interpretations formed the character of the Presidency to the extent of informal constitutional change. Some of these elements have even been incorporated into and formalized by the new Fundamental Law of Hungary. The present contribution will point out how the originally broad competencies of the President have been narrowed in the practice, and what role the Constitutional Court and political actors played in this process.

Legal and Technical Defects of Constitutional Amendments of 2020

The quality of legal and technical elaboration of amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, approved by the all-Russian vote on July 1, 2020, does not correspond to the level of the Basic Law. Oddly enough, the constitutional legislator ignored a number of basic technical means, rules and methods of legal technique. Thus, the constitutional amendments were drafted without taking into account the requirements of the structural organization of the legal act, namely: many new norms were included in inappropriate articles, the transitional provision on "resetting the deadlines" was duplicated in the main text of the Constitution. The authors of the amendments abandoned criteria of efficiency and compactness of legislative norms, having included an identical set of restrictions in nine articles of the Constitution in relation to various categories of officials. The text does not meet the requirement for uniformity of legal regulation, legal structures, the unity, simplicity and brevity of terminology: the scope of constitutional restrictions for various categories of officials differs somewhat without any objective reasons; there is no uniformity in the issue of the possibility of establishing additional requirements for officials by laws, “bifurcation” of the titles for senators (who in Chapter 9 of the Constitution are still referred to as members of the Federation Council). Insufficient attention to the requirement of consistency of legal norms has led to the creation of a new contradiction between Art. 71 and 72 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. Amendments also have a number of other legal and technical defects. Such serious and numerous defects in the legal technique of amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation became a natural result of a steady decline in the quality of federal legislation that has lasted for a long time. Constitutional amendments clearly demonstrate an insufficient level of legal culture in our country, which sharply raises the question of a radical improvement in the quality of legal technology, and legislative technology in particular.

Annual Review of Constitution-Building: 2020

International IDEA’s Annual Review of Constitution-Building Processes: 2020 provides a retrospective account of constitutional reform processes around the world and from a comparative perspective, and their implications for national and international politics. This eighth edition covers events in 2020 and includes chapters on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and emergency legal frameworks on constitutionalism and constitution-building worldwide; the impact of the pandemic on attempted executive aggrandizement in Central African Republic, Hungary and Sri Lanka; the impact of the pandemic on peace- and constitution-building processes in Libya, Syria and Yemen; gender equality in constitution-building and peace processes, with a particular focus on Chile and Zimbabwe; constitutional amendments to enhance the recognition of customary law in Samoa and Tonga; and the establishment, functioning and outputs of the French Citizens’ Convention for Climate. Writing at the mid-way point between the instant reactions of the blogosphere and academic analyses that follow several years later, the authors provide accounts of ongoing political transitions, the major constitutional issues they give rise to, and the implications of these processes for democracy, the rule of law and peace.

RUSSIA'S 2020 CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

This article will place the 2020 amendments to the Russian Constitution in comparative perspective. Although these amendments were officially justified as strengthening the Russian state in order to tackle emerging new problems, they constitutionalise already-existing legislative trends from the last twenty years. They therefore do little to overcome existing problems of Russian state building. What was the reform process about then? It was intended to project the image of reform by involving the people in a staged process of constitutional change while further entrenching the power of the current political elite. The constitutional reforms therefore demonstrate the symbolic role that constitutional law can play in seeking to ensure the survival of mature or later-stage forms of authoritarian populism. This kind of ‘theatrical constitution-making’ is a broader reminder of how the expressive aspects of constitutional change can be (ab)used by established authoritarian regimes.