The development of constitutional judicial practice in Indonesia shows that the interpretation of the constitution by the Constitutional Court is not static, but experiences dynamics along with changes in the legal, political, and social context. This condition creates an urgency to examine in depth the direction and pattern of constitutional interpretation used by the Constitutional Court in its latest decisions, given its significant implications for the constitutional system and the protection of citizens' constitutional rights. This study aims to analyze the dynamics of constitutional interpretation in the recent Indonesian Constitutional Court decisions, focusing on the interpretation methods used and the form of shifting interpretation approaches that occur. This study uses a normative juridical approach with a case study method of six Constitutional Court decisions, which are collected through a documentary study of the law testing decisions and analyzed qualitatively through content analysis techniques and comparison between decisions. The results of the study show that the Constitutional Court tends to adopt a teleological and progressive interpretation in strategic matters, accompanied by variations in the application of judicial activism and judicial restraint approaches, which reflects shifts and inconsistencies in the interpretation of the constitution in certain contexts. This study concludes that the dynamics of constitutional interpretation by the Constitutional Court contribute to the evolution of constitutional law in Indonesia, while affirming the strategic role of the Constitutional Court in shaping the direction of constitutional practice through the construction of constitutional meaning

Abstract This paper examines the transformation of Craver’s (2009) mutual manipulability (MM) account into the matched interlevel experiments (MIE) framework (Craver et al., 2021) and argues that it amounts to a theoretical reduction of mechanistic constitutive relations to causal mediation. While the MIE account successfully resolves the incoherence challenge that plagued MM, it does so by eliminating the distinctive theoretical content that constitutive categories were supposed to provide. The processual reframing that enables this solution replaces hierarchical part-whole relationships with temporal causal sequences, changing what mechanistic explanations are understood to accomplish. Drawing on paradigmatic action potential experiments, I demonstrate that practices satisfying MIE’s formal requirements consistently establish causal mediation relationships without requiring constitutive interpretation. I address several theoretical defenses of constitutive categories—including interpretive objections about two types of constitution, arguments for distinctive explanatory value, and appeals to mechanistic levels—showing that none can rescue constitutive distinctiveness once constitution is explicitly identified with causal betweenness. Rather than undermining mechanistic approaches, this analysis suggests that their explanatory power derives from methodological sophistication in investigating complex, multi-scale causal structures rather than from categorically distinct constitutive relationships.

Purpose: The study examines the emergence of the Right to disconnect as a resolution to workplace digital connectivity issues. It explores the legal, constitutional, and ethical aspects of this right, comparing the standards of work-life balance. The study mainly emphasizes the legal recognition and implementation of the Right to disconnect to promote work-life balance, mental health, and the dignity of labor in a digital and remote-working environment, outlining the negative effects of constant connectivity on employee well-being. Design / Methodology: The research uses a doctrinal legal approach to focus on the statutes, court decisions, academic literature, and international legal frameworks relating to the Right to disconnect. Comparative analysis evaluates France, Germany, Italy, and Spain’s laws and policies in relation to India. A constitutional interpretation of Indian law, specifically Article 21, is used to determine whether this right can be incorporated into domestic law. Practical Implication: In a digital work culture, India requires a well-defined legislative framework to guarantee employees’ right to disconnect, supporting policy reforms that encourage work-life balance, mental health, and their impact on well-being. The study also helps policymakers, employers, and HR managers to take note of employee well-being and the framework code of work accordingly. Findings/Outcome: The research indicates that the Right to disconnect is required for preserving employees’ mental health, ensuring and increasing productivity, and work-life equilibrium in the digital era. In India, despite constitutional provisions supporting this freedom, there is a lack of clear legislation and guidelines for the corporate to disconnect the employee after leaving the workstation.

Climate change has intensified environmental risks in India, exposing gaps between legislative intent, executive action, and on-ground implementation. While India possesses an extensive framework of environmental statutes and policies, the absence of a comprehensive climate-specific law has shifted significant responsibility to the judiciary. This study examines the evolving role of Indian courts in shaping climate law and environmental governance through constitutional interpretation, public interest litigation, and rights-based reasoning. The primary objective of the research is to analyze emerging judicial trends that integrate climate concerns into environmental adjudication and to assess their implications for governance, accountability, and policy coherence. Methodologically, the study adopts a doctrinal and qualitative legal research approach, involving systematic analysis of landmark judgments of the Supreme Court and High Courts, along with statutory provisions, constitutional principles, and relevant policy instruments. Judicial reasoning is examined to identify patterns related to the application of the precautionary principle, sustainable development, intergenerational equity, and the expansion of the right to life to include environmental and climate dimensions. The findings reveal a gradual but significant judicial shift from pollution-centric environmental protection toward broader climate-responsive governance. Courts have increasingly recognized state obligations to mitigate climate risks, strengthen environmental impact assessments, and ensure participatory and transparent decision-making. However, the study also finds limits to judicial intervention, including concerns of institutional competence and policy overreach. The paper concludes that while judicial innovation has been crucial in advancing climate governance in India, long-term effectiveness requires complementary legislative action and integrated climate law frameworks to translate judicial principles into enforceable and consistent outcomes.

This article reinterprets constitutional development in Vietnam through the lens of the living constitution doctrine. While many constitutional systems recognize that constitutional meaning must evolve with social change, Vietnam’s interpretive practice remains largely formalistic and institutionally constrained. Drawing on comparative insights from the United States, Germany, and South Korea, the article shows how constitutional courts sustain the normative vitality of constitutional law by adapting constitutional principles to contemporary challenges. In contrast, the absence of constitutional adjudication in Vietnam has fostered a rigid legal culture that struggles to respond to emerging societal demands. The article advances three reform directions: establishing an independent mechanism for constitutional review, integrating dynamic interpretive approaches into legal education, and strengthening scholarly debate on constitutional meaning. It argues that constitutional effectiveness depends not on textual permanence alone, but on the capacity of constitutional interpretation to remain responsive to lived social realities. The article ultimately asks whether, and to what extent, the living constitution can serve as a viable interpretive framework for constitutional development in Vietnam in the absence of judicial review.

This study examines the criteria of disgraceful conduct in the dismissal mechanism of regional heads in Indonesia following Constitutional Court Decision No. 2/PUU-XX/2022. The decision underscores the necessity of a constitutional interpretation of the requirement “never having committed disgraceful conduct” in order to prevent abuse of power and political injustice in regional governance. Employing a normative legal research method, this study analyzes primary legal materials, including Constitutional Court decisions and statutory regulations, as well as secondary legal literature. The findings reveal that the notion of disgraceful conduct had previously functioned as a vague norm, enabling subjective and politically motivated interpretations, particularly by regional legislative bodies. The Constitutional Court, through its decision, transformed this open norm into a more limitative and objective standard by specifying concrete forms of conduct, such as gambling, intoxication, drug abuse, adultery, and other serious violations of decency. Furthermore, the Court emphasized that allegations of disgraceful conduct must be supported by clear, lawful, and verifiable evidence, in line with the principles of due process of law. This reformulation strengthens legal certainty, protects the political rights of elected regional heads, and preserves the stability of local governance. The study recommends legislative synchronization through amendments to the Regional Government Law and the issuance of judicial guidelines to ensure uniform standards of proof in dismissal proceedings, thereby reinforcing constitutional justice and the rule of law in Indonesia.

The constitutional debate during the French Revolution is based on the relationship between ‘traditions’ and ‘changes’, especially in its initial phase. The idea of an ancient-regime constitution (defended, for instance, by the monarchiens) was criticised by the “left wing” of the revolutionary men who proposed a new idea of constitution that criticised and stigmatised the ancien régime (definition “invented” during the French Revolution to underline the break between old and new). The revolutionary idea of constitution – as a limit to the power but also as a way to legitimise the power – found its ‘constituent moment’ in article 16th of the Declaration of rights of man and citizen, a manifesto of really modern constitutionalism. The idea of the separation of powers and guaranties of rights was (and is) a powerful instrument for the new regime to legitimise itself recurring to the English (invented?) tradition. However the problem was not only the interpretation of constitution, but its relationship with sovereignty and, in particular, with the new form of government. Starting from 1789, the new political and juridical subject was the nation that identified king and people of France, then, after the turn of 1793, the “empty throne” was occupied by the people. Anyway the fight during the whole revolutionary period was, in brief, based on the definition of the constitution and the people, interpreted in a continuous dialectic discourse between ‘past’ and ‘present’, ‘tradition’ and ‘change’.

Australia’s federal system of government is established by the Commonwealth Constitution which provides for a central Commonwealth government with limited powers and six state governments with plenary powers. When the Constitution was originally drafted, the framers sought, in the provi- sions and structure of the Constitution, to retain the powers of the states as much as possible. After Australia became a federation in 1901, the High Court of Australia, in its early decisions, sought, in the method of constitutional interpretation they utilised (originalism), to give effect to the framers’ intention to protect the federal nature of the Constitution. However, in 1920 in Amalgamated Society of Engineers v Adelaide Steamship Co Ltd (‘Engineers’), the High Court rejected this approach. Instead, the High Court advocated a method of constitutional interpretation (literalism) which favoured a broad interpretation of Commonwealth powers, and which compromised the federal balance there- after. This paper provides an overview and critique of the decision in Engineers, explaining its significance for Australian federalism. This paper concludes with some observations about the role of precedent in Australian constitutional interpretation and seeks to offer some suggestions as to why a decision that was so ill-founded has proven to be so enduring.

Abstract The Indian Supreme Court hears thousands of cases a year, usually deciding matters in benches of two or three judges. However, under the Indian Constitution a bench of at least five judges is required to hear a “substantial question of law as to the interpretation of th[e] Constitution.” In practice, the Court has constituted relatively few of these larger benches in recent years, raising concerns that the institution has prioritized clearing its notorious backlog over its duties of constitutional interpretation. This article claims the issue of supreme court bench size has received insufficient attention. In India, the Constituent Assembly had a broad, but underdeveloped, understanding of when constitution benches would be constituted. Since then, Indian Supreme Court jurisprudence on the topic has often been contradictory and incomplete. Yet, whether or not a supreme court constitutes a larger bench can have significant implications. This article argues that since larger benches reduce the voice of particular judges, they can improve the consistency, quality, and legitimacy of judgments. However, larger benches take more judicial resources and can also have other, less predictable, impacts. For example, smaller benches likely fostered the development of public interest litigation in India in a way larger benches would not have. The article finds that at least three types of institutional factors determine when larger benches are constituted. It argues the Indian Supreme Court should pursue reforms related to each.

Democracy goes beyond periodic elections. It is about strong and effective institutions. This paper examined the role of the judiciary in strengthening democratic governance in Sierra Leone, with a specific focus on the challenges and prospect within Freetown. The Judiciary, as the guardian of constitutionalism, plays a pivotal role in promoting accountability, transparency, and the rule of law. In post-conflict societies such as Sierra Leone, its effectiveness is crucial for consolidating democracy, particularly given the country’s history of civil war, authoritarianism, and institutional fragility. The study employed a descriptive survey design, targeting a population of 400 individuals comprising judges, magistrates, legal practitioners, civil society actors, and citizens within Freetown. A sample of 120 respondents was selected using stratified and simple random sampling. Data were collected through questionnaires, interviews, and focus group discussions, and analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The findings reveal that the Judiciary contributes to democratic governance through constitutional interpretation, adjudication of electoral disputes, and protection of citizens’ rights. However, persistent challenges undermine its effectiveness, including political interference, inadequate resources, delay in case processing, and low public trust due to perceptions of corruption and bias. Despite these obstacles, prospects for strengthening the judiciary exist, including judicial reforms, decentralization of courts, capacity- building initiatives, and greater civic engagement in judicial accountability. This paper concludes that, the judiciary in Sierra Leone has the potential to serve as a cornerstone of democratic consolidation if reforms are implemented to ensure independence, transparent judicial appointments, improved training of legal professionals, and stronger collaboration with civic society to foster accountability.

One of the most compelling and generative aspects of Jack Balkin’s Memory and Authority: The Uses of History in Constitutional Interpretation is its synthesis of constitutional theory, history, and the growing field of the “politics of memory,” and especially the concept of the “memory entrepreneur.” The book project itself is entrepreneurial, if you will, in its cultivating, connecting, and building from different disciplines, academic languages, and national narratives (in that the “politics of memory” is already such an international and interdisciplinary field itself).

<p><span>Jack Balkin’s Memory and Authority: The Uses of History in Constitutional Interpretation brings into conversation the scholarly insights of constitutional theory, history, and the growing field of “the politics of memory,” especially the concept of the “memory entrepreneur.”</span></p> <p><span>Balkin appropriately connects the memory wars in American constitutional law back to Eastern European memory wars during the World Wars and their aftermath. Prompted by Balkin, we turn to Jan Kubik and Michael Bernhard edited volume <i>Twenty Years After Communism</i> (2014), which has become even more widely influential after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and a new round of Eastern European memory wars. They propose four categories of memory entrepreneurs (“mnemonic actors”) in post-Soviet countries: “mnemonic warriors” who claim a single “true” interpretation of the past, opposed to all others who cultivate “wrong” or “false” interpretations; “mnemonic pluralists” who embrace multiple narratives and traditions; “mnemonic abnegators” who deny the significance of the past in favor of the present; and “mnemonic prospectives” who have a faith in an inevitable future (e.g., utopian Marxist historical materialists).</span></p> <p><span>We suggest this taxonomy may be a helpful guide for American constitutional politics. The “memory pluralist” category is perhaps the majority of American constitutional law professors, <i>maybe</i> even a plurality of the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal and state bench, who do not give <i>exclusive</i> weight to history, but still give substantial weight to history (e.g., Philip Bobbit’s modalities, Balkin’s “living originalism” and his “thin originalism.”).</span></p> <p><span>Some “thick originalists” are more “Memory Anti-Pluralists” than “Warriors.” We reserve the category of “Memory Warrior” for those constitutional interpreters who are consciously fighting for an exclusive, comprehensive national narrative of us vs. them. These warriors include ideological originalists (especially the ones who seem to rely on a general narrative arc rather than specific historical evidence), but they also may include the “history-and-tradition” conservatives, common-good constitutionalists, and perhaps some progressive-left memory warriors who have a more exclusive interpretation of past events than pluralists do.</span></p> <p><span>Balkin rightly criticizes originalism for its “memory entrepreneurialism” that narrows the field of who “counts” and who is excluded, exacerbating constitutional law’s democratic deficit. We think the “memory warrior” category helps sort out the more problematic approaches, and we suggest a solution: a high burden of proof about consensus and public meaning to mitigate this democratic deficit, to reduce judicial legitimacy problems, and to slow down “warrior” judicial activism.</span></p>

Constitutional law is the lodestar for law teaching in the United States and is often referred to as the supreme law of the land. But how are this and related bodies of law to be taught? And what should law students learn when ideological shifts in the Supreme Court lead to radical shifts in Constitutional interpretation? This Essay uses the Dobbs case as the epitome of the Supreme Court's retrenchment, a term that describes the Court's egregious misuse of precedents and exemplifies the radical political realignments caused by the re-emergence of Donald Trump as the leader of an antidemocratic Republican Party. As is true for the Essays that follow, Montoya employs in this Essay several Critical Race Theory methodologies. Specifically, she interrogates her own positionality, uses examples from journalism and medicine to highlight the complexity of structural racism in reproductive health, elevates the subordination faced by marginalized pregnant persons seeking abortions, and highlights self-critique and counter-storytelling. The Essay ends by acknowledging the anxiety and malaise produced by the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, but Montoya finds solace and inspiration in the words of Toni Morrison, a Black writer and activist par excellence.

This Article considers when and under what circumstances the "general law," a species of unwritten law grounded in legal customs and practices shared across different legal jurisdictions, might be used in modern constitutional interpretation. Constitutional originalists have increasingly argued that central provisions of the Constitution, such as the First and Second Amendments and the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause, incorporate various bodies of general law. This Article argues that, even if the Constitution did incorporate various bodies of general law, most of those bodies of law have now been emptied of content, and must remain empty without profound changes in the practice of federal judicial review. Because the general law requires that nonfederal judicial actors such as state courts, governors, legislatures, the President, and perhaps foreign legal systems participate in the development of public law norms and customs, a general law revival would involve eliminating, or at least curtailing, federal judicial supremacy and would therefore impliedly reject nearly a hundred years of public law precedent. For these reasons, a general law revival would entail a radical reconfiguration of our constitutional system, and it would do so on the basis of complex and often indeterminate historical evidence. No such reconfiguration is likely to happen, of course. But without it, a modern general law constitutionalism would-rather than curtailing judicial discretion, empowering democratic bodies, or promoting experimentation-mire the federal judiciary in a moralized and largely discretionary form of common law-like decision-making that is vulnerable to the characteristic pitfalls of more familiar forms of common law constitutionalism without sharing in their characteristic attractions. This is true regardless of whether unwritten bodies of law like the general law are made (as modern legal commentators often suppose) or found (as the general law constitutionalists maintain). General law constitutionalists<span> might seek to avoid these difficulties by treating the relevant constitutional provisions as static incorporations of the general law, which froze it in time at the moment it was incorporated. But the historical case for static rather than dynamic incorporation has not been made—and making it will be difficult, given that other bodies of general law (such as the law of equity and the common law) have by and large been incorporated by statutes in a dynamic matter. For this reason, among others, we doubt the historical record supplies any ready escape valve for the conceptual and normative difficulties that would attend any thorough attempt to revive putatively constitutionalized and now moribund bodies of general law.</span><span></span>

In this symposium Essay, I explore the hypothesis that as constitutional politics have become more assertive, historical methods of interpretation have become more prominent. In other words, the claim I would like to test is that the intensification of constitutional politics and the prominence of historical argument are correlated. Moreover, the relationship between the two appears to be linear. As arguments become bolder, they are more likely to deploy history as a method of interpretation. That proposition may seem counterintuitive, and it is intriguing.

Workers’ welfare constitutes an integral part of state objectives and constitutional rights as mandated by the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia. However, constitutional norms governing the role of the state in ensuring workers’ welfare are formulated in general and declarative principles, resulting in normative ambiguity in their implementation. This ambiguity has led to inconsistencies in labor policies, a shift in the state’s orientation from welfare guarantor to labor market facilitator, and weakened legal certainty for workers in claiming their welfare rights. This study aims to analyze the role of the state in guaranteeing workers’ welfare under the 1945 Constitution and to examine the implications of constitutional normative ambiguity on labor policy and protection. The research employs a normative juridical method using statutory, conceptual, and case approaches. The findings indicate that normative ambiguity allows the reduction of state obligations in labor and social security policies, causing workers’ welfare to be compromised by economic efficiency considerations. Therefore, strengthening constitutional interpretation that affirms the state as the guarantor of workers’ welfare and harmonizing labor policies with the social justice values of the 1945 Constitution are essential.

The judiciary plays a central role in safeguarding human rights within constitutional democracies. In Pakistan, the superior judiciary has historically functioned as a guardian of fundamental rights, particularly during periods of political instability and weak democratic governance. This research examines the evolving role of the Pakistani judiciary in the protection of human rights through constitutional interpretation, judicial activism, and public interest litigation. Using a qualitative doctrinal research methodology, the study analyzes constitutional provisions, landmark judicial decisions, and secondary academic literature. The findings reveal that judicial intervention has significantly expanded access to justice and strengthened the enforcement of civil, political, and socio-economic rights. However, challenges such as inconsistent implementation of judgments, political pressure, and institutional limitations continue to undermine the long-term effectiveness of judicial protection. The study concludes that a strong, independent, and balanced judiciary is essential for sustainable human rights protection and democratic consolidation in Pakistan.

ABSTRACT This paper examines the application of environmental restorative justice within constitutional frameworks, addressing both ecological degradation and historical injustices experienced by the Sámi People in Finland. It investigates the intersection of Sámi rights and environmental regulation, proposing a model of justice that respects Indigenous autonomy while safeguarding ecological integrity and contributing to long-term sustainability. Through the study of the Finnish environmental legal framework, including recent case law, legislative reforms, and the growing relevance of international instruments, this research highlights the evolving ecological perspective of the Finnish Parliamentary Committee of Constitutional Affairs. The study also evaluates how constitutional interpretation has shifted towards a more rights-based and ecological understanding of Sámi cultural practices, especially with regard to land use and traditional livelihoods. Ultimately, the paper argues that environmental restorative justice advances the fulfilment of Sámi rights within their Homeland by reconnecting ecological restoration with social healing, democratic participation, and respect for cultural continuity across generations.

India’s pursuit of rapid economic growth has raised complex legal challenges in balancing development with environmental protection amid accelerating industrialisation and urbanisation. Indian environmental law has responded by embedding sustainable development as a guiding principle through constitutional interpretation and statutory frameworks. This article analyses how courts, legislation, and governance mechanisms mediate between developmental imperatives and ecological concerns through landmark cases and environmental principles. It argues that while India’s environmental jurisprudence is conceptually progressive, its effectiveness ultimately depends on consistent and robust implementation.

Climate change constitutes a multidimensional environmental and constitutional challenge that demands coherent legal frameworks capable of guiding state responsibility in mitigation and adaptation efforts. This study examines Indonesia’s climate governance through the lens of climate constitutionalism, focusing on how constitutional norms, legal institutions, and policy structures shape the state’s climate obligations. Employing a normative-empirical approach, the research analyzes constitutional provisions, statutory regulations, judicial decisions, and international climate agreements, complemented by institutional reports and selected case studies. The findings reveal that although Indonesia’s Constitution recognizes the right to a good and healthy environment, fragmented legal frameworks, institutional layering, and weak inter-sectoral coordination undermine the effective realization of substantive climate rights. The absence of an explicit constitutional interpretation linking climate obligations to fundamental environmental rights further limits state accountability and constrains the integration of intergenerational and ecological justice into national policy. This study argues that strengthening climate governance does not require a formal constitutional amendment but rather a reinterpretation of constitutional duties through the lens of climate justice. By articulating climate constitutionalism as a normative and institutional pathway, this research contributes to the broader discourse on constitutional environmentalism and offers a context-sensitive model for Global South countries seeking to align domestic legal systems with climate imperatives. Future reforms should prioritize institutional coherence, enhanced judicial engagement, and meaningful public participation to ensure that constitutional environmental commitments translate into enforceable and measurable climate action.