An Afrasian Entanglement

The establishment of the Phoenix Settlement and the Gandhi Development Trust (GDT) in South Africa was an experiment in self-sufficient communal living and the promotion of the values and principles of Mahatma Gandhi and South Africa’s democratic Constitution, respectively. While both entities are the result of Gandhi’s South African connection, they serve to embody, through the Mahatma, an Afrasian Entanglement. Gandhi’s time in South Africa made a remarkable impact on him and the country, transforming his political and social positions and influencing its struggle for freedom. In post-apartheid South Africa, the shared mission of both organisations is to advance a culture of nonviolence, peace and social responsibility through a range of transformative programmes. This article details Gandhi’s South African journey, his evolving ideas of passive resistance and social reconstruction there, and the resultant legacy programmes that resonate with the spirit of Ubuntu and the South African Constitution to reinforce democracy.

Emerging Hindu Rashtra and Its Impact on Indian Muslims

This article examines the impact of the gradual Hindutvaization of Indian culture and politics on Indian Muslims. The article contrasts the status of Muslims in the still secular, pluralistic, and democratic constitution of India with the rather marginalized reality of Muslims since the rise of Hindu nationalism. The article argues that successive electoral victories by Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, has precipitated political events, generated policies, and passed new laws that are eroding the democratic nature of India and undermining its religious freedoms. The article documents recent changes that are expediting the emergence of the Hindu state in India and consequently exposes the world’s largest religious minority to an intolerant form of majoritarian governance.

Decolonising legal education in South Africa: Is it time to press the reset button?

South Africa has, like many other African countries, inherited a foreign legal system. The democratic Constitution of 1996 altered the country’s legal framework such that it became reflective of societal change, while recognising plurality in South African legal culture(s). Owing to the 2015‒2016 #FeesMustFall student protests, another ideological shift in legal education is being precipitated by the changing socio‒political landscape of the country. This shift is framed as decolonisation, which entails shedding the colonial yoke of exclusive western ideologies and thinking, thereby requiring an inclusive educational approach. Such a transformed education would incorporate local African traditions, customs and ideologies that existed prior to colonial imposition. Legal thinking and culture is dependent on legal education, and legal education is consequently reliant on the legal framework. Considering this chain of influences, I argue that decolonisation cannot be achieved merely as a change in legal education alone: it requires an ideological shift in the country’s legal framework.

Significado y alcance de la inviolabilidad del Rey

El objeto del presente artículo es analizar el papel que la inviolabilidad regia desempeña en el marco del sistema democrático español y su particular régimen jurídico. Para ello, aquélla tratará de desvincularse de concepciones pretéritas que justificaban su existencia, tratando de hallarle su fundamento en el marco de una Constitución democrática, desentrañando, a partir de la misma, la función que dicho instituto ostenta en el ordenamiento español. A continuación, tratará de estudiarse su alcance, tanto en términos temporales como materiales, a efectos de comprobar si resulta compatible o no con la función que la inviolabilidad tiene asignada; todo ello a efectos de determinar si nos hallamos ante una justificable prerrogativa o ante un intolerable privilegio.The aim of this paper is to analyze both the role that the royal prerogative plays in the Spanish democratic system and its particular legal regime. For that purpose, it will be detached from past or historical conceptions which before justified its existence, trying to find its present foundation in the framework of a democratic Constitution, which will determine the function it is called to play in the Spanish legal order. Then, the paper will explore its legal scope, both in substantive and temporal terms, so as to verify whether it is compatible with the function the inviolability holds and, consequently, if we are dealing with a justifiable prerogative or an intolerable privilege.

The Oxford Handbook of Freedom of Speech

This book discusses freedom of speech, which is central to the liberal democratic tradition. Freedom of speech touches on every aspect of our social and political system and receives explicit and implicit protection in every modern democratic constitution. Moreover, it is frequently referred to in public discourse and has inspired a wealth of legal and philosophical literature. The book provides a critical analysis of the foundations, rationales, and ideas that underpin freedom of speech as a political idea, and as a principle of positive constitutional law. In doing so, it examines freedom of speech in a variety of national and supranational settings from an international perspective.

Introduction

Shortly before the end of apartheid, Nelson Mandela, on 26 June, 1990, delivered an address before the US Congress in Washington, DC in which he discussed the aspirations of black South Africans. Seeking American support in ending white minority rule, he spoke of his movement’s struggle to ‘ensure that the rights of every individual’, regardless of ‘race, colour, creed or sex’, were protected under a new democratic constitution and bill of rights. ‘To deny people their human rights’, he asserted, ‘is to challenge their very humanity.’...

From Mistrust to Understanding: Inclusive Constitution-Making Design and Agreement in Tunisia

In 2014, Tunisia’s National Constituent Assembly (NCA) almost unanimously approved the country’s first democratic constitution despite significant identity-based divisions. Drawing on the Tunisian case, the article explores the role of an inclusive constitution-making process in fostering constitutional agreement during democratization. Emerging studies that link different process modalities to democracy have so far brought only limited illumination to how inclusive processes matter, nor were these propositions systematically tested. Using process tracing, and building on original interviews gathered in Tunisia between 2014 and 2020, this article traces a causal mechanism whereby an inclusive constitution-making process allowed for a transformation of interpersonal relationships between political rivals. It demonstrates that more than two years of regular interactions allowed NCA deputies to shatter some of the prejudices that initially separated especially Islamist and non-Islamist partisans and develop cross-partisan ties, thus facilitating constitutional negotiations. However, I argue that the way these transformations contributed to constitutional settlement is more subtle than existing theories envisaged, and suggest alternative explanations. The article contributes to the debate about constitution-making processes by unpacking the understudied concept of partisan inclusion and applying it empirically to trace its effects on constitutional agreement, bringing precision and nuance to current assumptions about its benefits.