The Proposed Constitutional Court for Sri Lanka

Presentation made at the National Law Summit held on 30th July at Monarch Imperial Hotel. The participants exceeding 1000 consisted of Ambassadors, Party Secretaries,  Lawyers, Professors, Academicians, Members of Parliament and Civil Society Leaders. 

Some consider it as one of the most successful improvements on the traditional European, parliament-oriented concepts of democracy and the rule of law.

 

It exists in about 85 countries around the world. Out of 27 EU nations, 16 have Constitutional Courts. Became popular between 1945-56 in Austria, Germany and Italy. It is used in South Africa, Spain, Indonesia, Thailand and South Korea. Under 1972 Constitution Sri Lanka had a Constitutional Court but many have raised questions whether it was a real court with adjudicative powers.

 

Jurist and Legal Philosopher Kelson played a key role in setting up in Austria. Federalism remains a key aspect of Austrian constitutional adjudication to this day while the constitutional court continues to serve as an irreplaceable pillar of federalism in the framework of Austrian constitutional law.

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SIXTH SOUTH ASIAN PEOPLES SUMMIT DECLARATION 2007

 As a member of the drafting team, I am happy to upload a copy of this declaration.

Breaking: International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Russia's Shoigu, Gerasimov

The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced on June 25 that it has issued arrest warrants for Sergei Shoigu, secretary of Russia's Security Council, and Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian army, for war crimes against Ukraine.

Shoigu served as Russia's Defense Minister at the time of the alleged crimes. Shoigu was replaced in May by Andrei Belousov, a former economy minister with no previous military experience, after serving as defense minister since 2012.
Shoigu and Gerasimov are charged with the war crimes of "directing attacks at civilian objects," "causing excessive incidental harm to civilians or damage to civilian objects," and the "crime against humanity of inhumane acts."
The charges relate to Russian strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure between October 2022 and March 2023, the ICC said.
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Putin’s designs on a Baltic island are leading Sweden to prepare for war

Gotland has been a popular holiday destination for decades, but recently Swedish commander-in-chief, Mikael Bydén, claimed that Russian president Vladmir Putin "has his eyes" on the island. Concern was further ramped up, showing Gotland was just one part of Russia's ambitions in the Baltics, in the last few days when Russia published a document suggesting that it needed to reassess the maritime borders in the Gulf of Finland.

That draft decree by the Russian defence ministry, which has since been removed, proposed that Russia wanted to revise its borders with Finland and Kaliningrad (based on a resolution adopted by the Soviet Union's council of ministers in 1985) and expand its territorial waters.
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The legal profession in 2024: AI

Can you envision a time when clients in need of legal assistance can turn to AI, instead of lawyers, for help, at least in more routine private law matters like divorces or smaller lawsuits? Maybe the plaintiff's AI talks to the respondent's AI and to the judge's AI and the various AIs sort everything out without the humans needing to get too deeply involved. I'm half joking, but then again, did the horse and buggy manufacturers immediately understand the implications of the automobile?

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Leaked State Department Memo: Israeli Assurances 'Neither Credible Nor Reliable'

A newly leaked internal memo shows that officials at four U.S. State Department bureaus don't believe the Israeli government's assurances that it is using American weaponry in Gaza in compliance with international law, rejecting them as "neither credible nor reliable." 

The memo, first reported by Reuters on Saturday, is a joint submission from the State Department's bureaus of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; 

Population, Refugees, and Migration; Global Criminal Justice; and International Organization Affairs.

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The Supreme Court's 'Immunity Club' And The Advent Of Fascist Jurisprudence

I just watched a full hour of some very, very smart legal eagles analyzing what it means that the Supreme Court has decided to hear Donald Trump's immunity appeal. Six experts were interviewed by Nicole Wallace on MSNBC. She's good. Every one of the experts was good. The whole show did an excellent job of running through all the permutations and combinations of what it could mean that the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments of the Trump appeal on April 22, and what that could mean in terms of when they might issue a decision, and what that would mean about when the case before Judge Tanya Chutkan might come to trial.
I don't care how you cut it, this is the terrifying result you get when you elect a raving fascist lunatic like Donald Trump and he gets the opportunity – aided and abetted by right wing puppets in the Senate and their right-wing corporate puppeteers – to appoint a gaggle of starry-eyed authoritarian moonies to the highest court in the land. It takes only four justices for the Supreme Court to agree to hear a case. We learned today that four of the justices who went through the authoritarian training camp run by the Federalist Society, which is backed by a small group of fascist billionaires, got together and decided to hear Trump's case, which makes the absurdly authoritarian claim that he, and he alone, is above the law.
Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife participated in Trump's conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election, has been supported monetarily by one of the right-wing billionaires that funds the Federalist Society. Although the court didn't announce the names of the justices who voted to take the Trump case, it is a certainty that Thomas was one of them. The other three are no better, because all six of the Republican appointed justices attend Federalist Society private functions, they give speeches to Federalist Society gatherings, they hire clerks approved by the Federalist Society.
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Israel Is Terrified the World Court Will Decide It’s Committing Genocide

  Israel Is Terrified the World Court Will Decide It's Committing Genocide    
    
For nearly three months, Israel has enjoyed virtual impunity for its atrocious crimes against the Palestinian people. That changed on December 29 when South Africa, a state party to the Genocide Convention, filed an 84-page application in the International Court of Justice (ICJ, or World Court) alleging that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
South Africa's well-documented application alleges that "acts and omissions by Israel … are genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent … to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group" and that "the conduct of Israel — through its State organs, State agents, and other persons and entities acting on its instructions or under its direction, control or influence — in relation to Palestinians in Gaza, is in violation of its obligations under the Genocide Convention."
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Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America’s Ruling Class, Finally Dies

Henry Kissinger died on Wednesday at his home in Connecticut, his consulting firm said in a statement. The notorious war criminal was 100.
Measuring purely by confirmed kills, the worst mass murderer ever executed by the United States was the white-supremacist terrorist Timothy McVeigh. On April 19, 1995, McVeigh detonated a massive bomb at the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, including 19 children. The government killed McVeigh by lethal injection in June 2001. Whatever hesitation a state execution provokes, even over a man such as McVeigh — necessary questions about the legitimacy of killing even an unrepentant soldier of white supremacy — his death provided a measure of closure to the mother of one of his victims. "It's a period at the end of a sentence," said Kathleen Treanor, whose four-year-old McVeigh killed. 
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‘Truly a David and Goliath case’: Six young people take 32 countries to court in unprecedented case

The European Court of Human Rights will hear an "unprecedented" lawsuit on Wednesday, brought by six young people against 32 European countries accusing them of failing to tackle the human-caused climate crisis.
The claimants, between ages 11 and 24 and all from Portugal, will argue that they are on the frontlines of climate change and ask the court to force these countries to rapidly accelerate climate action.
It is the first climate case to be filed with the European Court of Human Rights and is the largest of a total of three climate lawsuits the court is hearing.
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India’s supreme court issues handbook against use of archaic terms for women

India's supreme court has issued a handbook for judges urging them to shun words like seductress, vamp, spinster and harlot when talking about women.

Archaic terms that disparage women and perpetuate gender stereotypes can still be routinely heard in Indian courts long after falling into disuse in other countries. It is not unusual for a wife to be described as chaste or ladylike, and sexual harassment is routinely trivialised as "Eve-teasing".

The supreme court said its Handbook on Combating Gender Stereotypes was aimed at ensuring that "legal reasoning and writing is free of harmful notions about women".

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Illinois Supreme Court upholds state’s ban on semi-automatic weapons

In a 4-3 decision Friday, the high court found that the Protect Our Communities Act does not violate the federal Constitution's guarantee of equal protection of the law nor the state constitution's bar on special legislation.
The court also decreed that state Rep. Dan Caulkins, a Decatur Republican, and like-minded gun-owners who brought the lawsuit had earlier waived their claims that the law infringes on the Second Amendment to own firearms and could not raise it before the Supreme Court.
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Israel does not have a right to self-defense for its occupation

As Israel was invading and bombing Jenin this week, AIPAC was pumping out a simple message: "Israel is right to protect its citizens from terrorism." Others echoed the same line, often including the false theory that Iran—which supports and backs Palestinian armed militant groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad—actually controls the Palestinian resistance, implying, ridiculously, that but for Iranian malfeasance, Palestinians wouldn't be fighting against Israel's occupation. 
Israel's message from its own leaders makes the same case, with slightly different language. Opposition leader Yair Lapid, for example, put it this way: ""Our children are being slaughtered, and Israel has every right on earth to defend itself, and we from the opposition support the Israeli defense forces and the Israeli government on this matter." Lapid made that statement in English, meaning it was the version of Israel's message that was meant for foreign audiences, particularly Americans.
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Harvard negotiator explains how to argue

Arguments are a necessary part of life, but they don't necessarily have to be fraught. Psychologist Dan Shapiro has identified three barriers to productive arguments: an us-versus-them identity, not showing appreciation, and a lack of affiliation. Breaking through these barriers requires us to be better listeners and to recategorize our sense of "us."

I hate arguments. I hate the way it feels when my blood pressure rises and the cortisol kicks in. I hate the frustration that comes from talking past one another or reaching an impasse on an important issue. I especially hate the awkward apologies I have to dole out the morning after — because I definitely shouldn't have said that, and yes, it was a cheap shot.

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THERAPEUTIC JURISPRUDENCE

Brothers Karamazov written by Dostoevsky in 1879  became an all time best seller  which also provides us even today many useful insights into the field of "Therapeutic Jurisprudence". Until recently there has been no general theory concerning the impact of legal processes upon participant wellbeing and its implications for attaining justice system objectives. This gap has been filled by Therapeutic Jurisprudence.

Admirers of the book include scientists such as Albert Einstein, philosophers Ludwig  Wittgenstein^] and Martin Heidegger, as well as many other famous writers.

Sigmund Freud called it "the most magnificent novel ever written" and was fascinated with what he saw as its Oedipal themes. In 1928 Freud published a paper titled "Dostoevsky and Parricide" in which he investigated Dostoevsky's own neuroses.

Dostoevsky considered the introduction of the European Jury trial and its adversarial justice and alleged discovery of truth would supplant Russia's pure, Christian attitude to truth.

The Brothers Karamazov is a message for Russians and also all of us not to accept the court as the most civil and equitable means of achieving justice. Looking into the attorney's statements, the lay and expert witnesses, the introduction of dubious expert witnesses on both sides of the trial, the judge and public response to trial, all capture well author's disillusionment with Western Judicial reforms of the nineteenth century.

The experts contradict one another, and the doctor from Moscow and Doctor Herzenstube take the case to pursue their personal vendettas against each other, overall making "the expert testimony appear ludicrous."

It is here that the value of Therapeutic jurisprudence becomes useful. TJ says that the processes used by courts, judicial officers, lawyers and other justice system personnel can impede, promote or be neutral in relation to outcomes connected with participant wellbeing such as respect for the justice system and the law, offender rehabilitation and addressing issues underlying legal disputes.

The fact that evidence can be misconstrued to deny the truth and the fact that evidence is essential to proving the truth indicates Dostoevsky's belief that "evidence…is a two edged sword that can cut either way.

At the AUGP TJ Centre, It is our desire, to be a strong proponents worldwide in adapting the use of more comprehensive, psychologically optimal, and emotionally intelligent means of dealing with conflicts.

 It is also our goal to propose new processes to be added to the range of existing processes—such as in the use of mediation in civil, criminal, and family law cases and the establishment of special intervention courts or lists to address broader issues underlying legal problems where such an intervention is consistent with other justice system principles.

Prof. Lakshman Madurasinghe