Constitutional protection of the environment with particular regard to the Hungarian, German, Italian and Belgian constitutional regulation

Environmental protection has become a burning issue which plays a more and more important role in the world. The aim of this study is to give a picture of the constitutional regulation of environmental protection which is the highest legal source of a nation. Besides the Hungarian Fundamental Law, the German, Italian and Belgian constitutions were examined in the study. On one hand, we looked into how environment is regulated in the constitutions, as a right (right to environment) or a state task or objective (protect the environment). On the other hand, we analysed how related regulatory subjects appear in the constitutions, such as natural resources, future generations and sustainable development.

The approach of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia towards the protection of the right to a healthy environment

This paper analyzes provisions of the Croatian Constitution related to environmental protection, as well as their application in the case law of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia. The main aim is to examine whether the Constitutional Court considers Croatian Constitution as prescribing the right to a healthy environment although it only explicitly prescribes the right to a healthy life. The paper shall also explore the Constitutional Court’s interpretation of other environmental provision that are enshrined in the Croatian Constitution. For the purposes of writing this paper, 94 decisions of the Constitutional Court containing the word ‘human environment’ were examined. However, the paper dealt in detail with only those decisions that explicitly referred to the application of environmental provisions of the Constitution. The paper ends with conclusions which can be drawn from the case law of the Constitutional Court with an important observation that the conclusion concerning the constitutional protection of the right to a healthy environment in Croatia unfortunately cannot be deduced due to the extreme lack of cases in which applicants call for protection of this right in their constitutional complaints.

Constitutional protection of land in the Slovak Republic

The significant amendment of the Slovak constitution deals with the protection of the land which it newly characterises as a non-renewable natural resource and provides additional legal protection of it. The article analyses the importance of this amendment from multiple perspectives with emphasis on legislative changes it has brought. The main topics of the article are the need for more effective legislation in the area of land protection and also the long-standing need to carry out land consolidations in the Slovak Republic.

The ‘Essential Practices’ Doctrine

This article explores how the Supreme Court of India, in applying the judicial doctrine of ‘essential practices’, has embarked on a dangerous exercise of determining whether a particular religious practice is significant enough to warrant constitutional protection under Article 25(1) or not. In tracing a string of judgments, it shows how courts have been guilty of making ill-founded observations about the validity of religious practices, thereby detrimentally affecting religious groups and minorities. Due to this constitutional transgression, the question of ‘what is essentially religious’ turned into the question of ‘what is essential in religion’. The court has neither the right nor the expertise to decide if the religious practice indeed is ‘essential’. State intervention is warranted only based on constitutionally stipulated restrictions of ‘public order’, ‘morality’ and ‘health’. The cardinal rule ought to be of limited state intervention but maximum protection.

Constitutional Protection of the Right to Self-Determination

The right to self-determination is an essential international law principle that holds an erga omnes character. Also, the right is often enshrined under domestic legislation, including constitutions. The 1995 Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Constitution (fdre Constitution) is one such constitution and, uniquely, it explicitly recognizes the right to self-determination including the right of secession as an unconditional right of the nations, nationalities, and peoples in Ethiopia. This paper selects the fdre Constitution and analyses whether such constitutional law frameworks better address some of the contentious matters concerning the right to self-determination under international law. In a comparative perspective (with international law), the article analyses, inter alia, how the fdre Constitution approach the questions of who the subjects of the right to self-determination are, and the substantive guarantees for exercising internal and external aspects of the right to self-determination with particular emphasis on secession as a legal right.

Who Decides?

The earlier book, 51 Imperfect Solutions, told stories about specific state and federal individual constitutional rights, and explained two benefits of American federalism: how two sources of constitutional protection for liberty and property rights could be valuable to individual freedom and how the state courts could be useful laboratories of innovation when it comes to the development of national constitutional rights. This book tells the other half of the story. Instead of focusing on state constitutional individual rights, it focuses on state constitutional structure. Everything in law and politics, including individual rights, eventually comes back to divisions of power and the evergreen question: Who decides? The goal of this book is to tell the structure side of the story and to identify the shifting balances of power revealed when one accounts for American constitutional law as opposed to just federal constitutional law. Who Decides? contains three main parts—one each on the judicial, executive, and legislative branches—as well as stand-alone chapters on home-rule issues raised by local governments and the benefits and burdens raised by the ease of amending state constitutions. A theme in the book is the increasingly stark divide between the ever-more-democratic nature of state governments and the ever-less-democratic nature of the federal government over time.

How Libel Law Applies to Automated Journalism

Automated journalism—the use of algorithms to translate data into narrative news content—is enabling all manner of outlets to increase efficiency while scaling up their reporting in areas as diverse as financial earnings and professional baseball. With these technological advancements, however, come serious risks. Algorithms are not good at interpreting or contextualizing complex information, and they are subject to biases and errors that ultimately could produce content that is misleading or false, even libelous. It is imperative, then, to examine how libel law might apply to automated news content that harms the reputation of a person or an organization. Conducting that examination from the perspective of U.S. law, because of its uniquely expansive constitutional protections in the area of libel, it appears that the First Amendment would cover algorithmic speech—meaning that the First Amendment’s full supply of tools and principles, and presumptions would apply to determine if particular automated news content would be protected. In the area of libel, the most significant issues come under the plaintiff’s burden to prove that the libelous content was published by the defendant (with a focus on whether automated journalism would qualify for immunity available to providers of interactive computer services) and that the content was published through the defendant’s fault (with a focus on whether an algorithm could behave with the actual malice or negligence usually required to satisfy this inquiry). There is also a significant issue under the opinion defense, which provides broad constitutional protection for statements of opinion (with a focus on whether an algorithm itself is capable of having beliefs or ideas, which generally inform an opinion).

Economic and Social Rights in Ireland

This chapter examines the law and politics of contesting economic and social rights in Ireland. Civil society mobilizations for the constitutional recognition of socio-economic rights provoke disagreement about the feasibility, legitimacy, and effectiveness of using such rights to de-commodify labour and social reproduction. The chapter situates these debates in their socio-legal context. It examines why state actors have opposed socio-economic rights in the past, and why enhanced constitutional protection of such rights will not radically alter structural inequalities today. At best, public interest litigation may prompt the political system to address the needs of minority groups in highly specific instances. Internationally, contemporary constitution-making experiments advance alternative models of socio-economic rights enforcement more decisively premised on social solidarity. Any similar realization of economic and social rights in Ireland will likely depend on civil society capacities to foster the requisite political will for social solidarity and constitutional change.

Conducting forensic and genetic examination in civil judiciary as an object of constitutional protection

The article is devoted to the study of forensic genetic examination in civil proceedings as an object of constitutional protection, due to the emergence of the concept of forensic examination in general and forensic genetic examination, entities entitled to conduct forensic examinations, analyzing the legal basis of court - genetic examination in Ukraine. Characteristics of the legal basis for recognition of paternity/mother and establishing the fact of paternity/mother are presented. The admissible and appropriate evidence bases in such cases and the place of forensic genetic examination in in the system of evidence that can be involved in the case have been clarified. The features of this examination have been studied, basis to proceed with the molecular genetic examination, the grounds for conducting a molecular genetic examination have been determined, and the issues raised before the expert carrying out the expert research have been singled out. The analysis of judicial practice of consideration of cases on recognition of paternity/maternity and the establishment of the fact of paternity/maternity which is carried out with carrying out forensic genetic examination was carried out. The article analyzes the problematic issues that arise in the process of legal regulation of forensic genetic examination and the practice of applying legislation in this area. The problems of evasion of a party from participation in forensic genetic examination, namely, non-appearance at a certain time to participate in the examination, failure to provide materials for expert research and the legal consequences of such evasion for all participants in the case. This article offers ways to solve problematic aspects of the research. The conclusions on the application by the courts of the results of forensic genetic examination during the consideration of cases on recognition of paternity/maternity, establishment of the fact of paternity/maternity were generalized and made. Forensic genetic examination is an individual identify. This type of examination allows not only to categorically exclude paternity, but also to carry out the origin of the child from both parents due to blood relationship (identification), as well as the diagnosis of hereditary diseases in the fetus in the early stages of pregnancy. Conducting such an examination is an effective mechanism of constitutional protection, because the facts established as a result of the examination form the basis of the evidence base are considered in conjunction with other evidence available in the case file.