People gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court building as news spread of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Sept. 18 death.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
A 6-3 conservative court will hear a broader range of controversial cases, shift interpretations of individual rights and put more pressure on local democracy to make policy decisions.
Voters in Nashville, Tennessee, faced long lines in March 2020.
AP Photo/Mark Humphrey
The framers of the Constitution never mentioned a right to vote. They didn’t forget. They intentionally left it out.
During a protest, federal police officials stand inside a fence at the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, July 25, 2020.
(Photo by Ankur Dholakia / AFP via Getty Images
No one involved in local government wants to see federal law enforcement agents take over their policing. But a mayor who’s also a legal scholar says there’s history and precedent for it.
Moeketsi Majoro, Lesotho’s new Prime Minister. A minor constitutional amendment enabled his ascension to power.
GCIS/Flickr
The fundamental structure of the current constitution, which is cast in classical Westminster conceptions, is unsuited for modern-day constitutionalism.
South Africa’s professional surfers have been allowed back in the water.
Brenton Geach/Gallo Images via Getty Images
Until NZ is no longer in a state of emergency, authorities have exceptional powers over people’s lives – from telling people to stay home, to potentially making vaccinations or testing mandatory.
Bernie Sanders was asked at a CNN-sponsored town hall about socialism.
CNN screenshot
Bernie Sanders is a Democratic Socialist, a potential problem for the presidential candidate. A Cold War campaign to link American-ness and capitalism helped create popular distrust of socialism.
South Africa’s new sex education curriculum is seen by some as infringing on the rights of parents.
EFE-EPA/Jon Hrusa
Failure by South Africa’s municipalities to provide housing for the poor violates a Constitutional Court ruling.
Donald and Melania Trump in Paris last week. According to the Washington Post, the president has made 6,420 false or misleading comments in 649 days.
Ian Langsdon/EPA
Jill Darling, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences e Robert Shrum, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Americans are overwhelmingly committed to a free press and hostile to government restrictions, a new poll finds. But the country is divided on the meaning of President Trump’s attacks on the press.
A member of South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters party with a copy of the Constitution.
EPA/Kim Ludbrook
What’s still missing in the religious freedoms debate is any clarity around what people think they won’t be able to do, or where the existing laws are likely to fail to protect them.
Concerns have been raised about whether Australia adequately protects human rights given multiple reports of abuses, including mistreatment of juvenile detainees.
AAP/Lucy Hughes Jones
As South Africa marks Human Rights Day and the 20th anniversary of its constitution it’s a good time to reflect on the problems it faces in making constitutional rights a reality.
There are fears a new bill that seeks to criminalise hate speech in South Africa might infringe freedom of expression.
Flickr/janinsanfran
The growing incidence of racism on social media in South Africa suggests that there are consequences. Whether there ought to be criminal sanctions remains an ongoing debate.
Former Constitutional Court judge, Albie Sachs.
Steve Gordon/ www.musicpics.co.za
The making of South Africa’s Constitution took six long years. Now, 20 years later, the process of drawing up this revered document is being tainted with myth making.