This Article examines rules of procedure and process that structure the Buddhist legal system in the Theravāda tradition, the dominant tradition of Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia. Drawing on important Buddhist texts written in Pāli as well as evidence from monastic legal practices in contemporary Sri Lanka, it argues that one can find within the Theravāda tradition a robust body of what H.L.A. Hart would call “secondary rules,” which determine how monks ought to apply prohibitions, manage disputes, and administer sanctions.
Judging as Crime: A Transatlantic Perspective on Criminalizing Excesses of Judicial Discretion
Drawing on over a century and a half of Germany’s experience with a statute that criminalizes (mis)judging, this Article seeks to substantiate that criminal penalties for judges were largely ineffectual, and that courts proved ill-suited to police themselves even with a judiciary-specific criminal statute in place.
The Contested Concept of Secularism and Bangladesh
Issue Section: There are different ways in which scholars comprehend secularism. According to some scholars, secularism is the phenomenon in which religion is fully separated from the state and plays no part in the public domain. This Article aims to discuss the various interpretations of secularism, create a classification of secularism models, and examine how secularism is considered in Bangladesh.
The Wuthering Heights of Constitutional Amendment: A Portrait of Contemporary Theory and Practice
Issue Section: A Symposium on Richard Albert’s Constitutional Amendments. Richard Albert is the contemporary scholar who has done the most to place constitutional amendment in the global academic spotlight and invite (and actively seek the means to generate) a broad, inclusive, and refreshing discussion on their many dimensions.
A Symposium on Richard Albert’s Constitutional Amendments: Dismemberment or Amendment?
Issue Section: A Symposium on Richard Albert’s Constitutional Amendments. “When is a constitutional amendment an amendment in name alone?”1 Richard Albert poses that question at the very start of Constitutional Amendments: Making, Breaking and Changing Constitutions…
A Symposium on Richard Albert’s Constitutional Amendments: Constitutional Amendment, Unamendability, and the Democratic Paradox
Issue Section: A Symposium on Richard Albert’s Constitutional Amendments. Richard Albert has written a very interesting book discussing various methods of constitutional amendment, which offers a sophisticated multilevel analysis of the topic.
Comparison is a key component of legal reasoning. We move merrily from like to like within the doctrine of precedent. We invoke comparison whenever we distinguish or apply a case. This Article begins by elucidating how comparison is present in law.
This Article maps the criminal law system in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia enacted a criminal procedure code in 2001, but it lacks a comprehensive penal code, relying instead on (i) identifications of certain acts as violations of the law (from public behavior to matters of the state administrative cogwheel) scattered in various pieces of legislation…
International Law and Regional Norm Smuggling: How the EU and ASEAN Redefined the Global Regime on Human Trafficking
The European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have developed fundamentally different regional regimes to address human trafficking despite both drawing on the framework established by the U.N. Palermo Protocol.
Informal Institutional Elements as Both Preconditions and Consequences of Effective Formal Legal Rules: The Failure of Constitutional Institution Building in Hungary
Institutions are made up of the interplay of three components: (i) formal rules, (ii) actual practices, and (iii) narratives (the last two are referred to jointly as informal institutional elements). However, lawyers in post-socialist countries do not see law through institutionalist lenses, but often nurture a false and simplistic idea of the law…
