Προσωπικά δεδομένα και αδιαφάνεια

του Πάσχου Mανδραβέλη

Καθημερινή
11 Μαρτίου 2012

Η προστασία των προσωπικών δεδομένων είναι μεγάλη κατάκτηση. Αφορά τις προηγμένες χώρες, όπου υπάρχει οργάνωση και μηχανοργάνωση, εκεί δηλαδή που κρατικοί και ιδιωτικοί μηχανισμοί μπορούν να απειλήσουν αυτό που οι Αγγλοσάξονες ονομάζουν privacy, μια έννοια τόσο ξένη στην Ελλάδα, που ακόμη δεν έχουμε κοινά αποδεκτή λέξη γι’ αυτή· άλλοι την ονομάζουν «ιδιωτικότητα», άλλοι «προστασία της ιδιωτικής ζωής».

Αλλά και στις αγγλοσαξονικές χώρες η προστασία της ιδιωτικής ζωής είναι σχετικά νέα υπόθεση. Υπάρχει στο εθιμικό δίκαιο (common law) της Βρετανίας αλλά αφορούσε τη φυσική παραβίαση του οικογενειακού ασύλου («το σπίτι μου είναι το κάστρο μου») και όχι τη διάχυση πληροφοριών για τα άτομα. Είναι χαρακτηριστικό ότι το δικαίωμα στην προστασία της ιδιωτικής ζωής δεν υπάρχει στο Σύνταγμα των Ηνωμένων Πολιτειών, που παραμένει το πιο φιλελεύθερο του κόσμου. Υπάρχει μεγάλη συζήτηση που ξεκινά από ένα σημαντικό άρθρο των Samuel D. Warren και Louis D. Brandeis στο Harvard Law Review το 1890, υπάρχουν δικαστικές αποφάσεις, αλλά όχι και συνταγματική διάταξη.

Η προστασία των προσωπικών δεδομένων όμως προβλέπεται από το ελληνικό Σύνταγμα. Με την αναθεώρηση του 2000 τα πράγματα είναι σαφέστατα: «Καθένας έχει δικαίωμα προστασίας από τη συλλογή, επεξεργασία και χρήση, ιδίως με ηλεκτρονικά μέσα, των προσωπικών του δεδομένων, όπως ο νόμος ορίζει. Η προστασία των προσωπικών δεδομένων διασφαλίζεται από ανεξάρτητη αρχή που συγκροτείται και λειτουργεί όπως νόμος ορίζει» (άρθρο 9Α). Είναι μια εξαιρετικά προχωρημένη διάταξη διότι, όπως προείπαμε, η ιδιωτική ζωή απειλείται σοβαρά σε χώρες όπου υπάρχει οργάνωση και μηχανοργάνωση. Ετσι, στην Ελλάδα μπορεί να μην έχουμε π.χ. ηλεκτρονική συνταγογράφηση, αλλά τουλάχιστον έχουμε όλο το νομικό οπλοστάσιο για να προστατευθούμε από την αθέμιτη χρήση της.

Στη χώρα της υπερβολής, και η προστασία των προσωπικών δεδομένων έγινε υπερβολική. Τα πάντα θεωρήθηκαν ιδιωτική ζωή. Υπήρξαν αποφάσεις της Αρχής Προστασίας Δεδομένων Προσωπικού Χαρακτήρα (ΑΠΔΠΧ) που θεωρούσαν παράνομη ακόμη και την οικειοθελή παραχώρηση προσωπικών στοιχείων. Αυτό έγινε τον Φεβρουάριο του 2004 όταν ο τότε πρόεδρος της Αρχής, Δημήτριος Γουργουράκης, απαγόρευε κατ’ ουσίαν στο ΠΑΣΟΚ να πραγματοποιήσει εκλογή αρχηγού από τη βάση, θεωρώντας ότι η εθελοντική καταγραφή των μελών και φίλων του Κινήματος αντίκειται στον νόμο περί προστασίας της ιδιωτικής ζωής.

Από εκεί και πέρα, η Αρχή πήρε φόρα. Επέβαλε πρόστιμο 5.000 ευρώ στην Ενωση Συντακτών Ημερησίων Εφημερίδων Αθηνών (ΕΣΗΕΑ) επειδή δημοσιοποίησε τον κατάλογο των δημοσιογράφων στο Δημόσιο, δηλαδή των δημοσιογράφων που πληρώνει ο ελληνικός λαός. Ετσι εμείς οι φορολογούμενοι πολίτες δεν μπορούμε να μάθουμε ποιοι δημοσιογράφοι εργάζονται στο κράτος (ΕΡΤ, ΑΠΕ, γραφεία Τύπου κ.λπ.) διότι και η ιδιότητα του δημοσίου υπαλλήλου εθεωρήθη προσωπικό δεδομένο!

Στα θολά νερά του «ιδιωτικού» επιχειρήθηκε να πνιγεί και η δημόσια πληροφορία των αμοιβών που έπαιρναν τα στελέχη του δημόσιου τομέα. Το 2007 μάλιστα δεν δόθηκαν στοιχεία στη Βουλή όταν η κυβέρνηση θεώρησε ότι οι μισθοί στις ΔΕΚΟ ήταν δεδομένα προσωπικού χαρακτήρα. Τα χρήματα που οι Ελληνες πολίτες έδιναν στους υπαλλήλους τους εθεωρήθησαν προσωπικά δεδομένα των υπαλλήλων.

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Of Contraceptives and Same-Sex Marriage

by Geoffrey R. Stone

Huffington Post
February 12, 2012

This was an interesting week for religion in America. First, the Council of Catholic Bishops demanded that the president of the United States exempt Catholic hospitals and universities from a general requirement that all employers receiving federal funds must provide health insurance for their employees that includes coverage for contraceptives. On reflection, the president acceded to their demand, explaining that such institutions should not be required to do something that is fundamentally incompatible with their religious beliefs.

While all this was going on, a federal court of appeals ruled that California's Proposition 8, which attempted to strip gays and lesbians of the previously recognized state law right to marry, violated the federal Constitution. The court explained that Proposition 8, which had been aggressively promoted by the Catholic Church, the Mormon Church and evangelicals, was unconstitutional because it served "no purpose... other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California."

The juxtaposition of these two events sheds important light on the relationship between religion and government in the United States today.

Our nation's founders sought to shape the basic nature of that relationship in the First Amendment, which contains two distinct but intertwined clauses concerning religion. The Free Exercise Clause forbids government to make any law prohibiting "the free exercise of religion." The Establishment Clause forbids government to make any law "respecting an establishment of religion."

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Live, From the Nation’s Capital, It’s ... the Supreme Court

Bloomberg
Editorial
February 9, 2012

Porcinophobia, fear of hams, is the main thing keeping the justices of the Supreme Court from opening their proceedings to television. They are afraid that showoff lawyers will perform for the cameras, rather than for the court, thereby lowering the tone to the level of, well, television.

This would be an odd way for lawyers to react. After all, the most important consideration -- for themselves and their own futures, as well as for their clients -- will remain winning the case. And if the justices do let the cameras in, it will be with gritted teeth (if not over their dead bodies, as former Justice David Souter described his lack of enthusiasm). They are likely to be more hostile, not less, to any sign of hamming it up.

The question of the Supreme Court allowing cameras in its courtroom is not new -- that Souter quote is from 1996. But it has renewed relevance and urgency thanks to next month’s oral arguments over the constitutionality of the Obama administration’s health-care law, a five-and-a-half-hour marathon scheduled for March 26-28. The court is now considering requests from scores of lawmakers and media organizations, including Bloomberg News, to open its proceedings to TV cameras.

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Dickens v. Lawyers

by Joseph Tartakovsky

New York Times
February 5, 2012

Tuesday is the bicentenary of the birth, in Portsmouth, England, of Charles Dickens, literature’s greatest humanist. We can rejoice that so many of the evils he assailed with his beautiful, ferocious quill — dismal debtors’ prisons, barefoot urchin labor, an indifferent nobility — have happily been reformed into oblivion. But one form of wickedness he decried haunts us still, proud and unrepentant: the lawyer.

Lawyers appear in 11 of his 15 novels. Some of them even resemble humans. Uriah Heep (David Copperfield) is a red-eyed cadaver whose “lank forefinger,” while he reads, makes “clammy tracks along the page ... like a snail.” Mr. Vholes (Bleak House), “so eager, so bloodless and gaunt,” is “always looking at the client, as if he were making a lingering meal of him with his eyes.” Most lawyers infest dimly lighted, moldy offices “like maggots in nuts.” (No, counselor, writers dead since 1870 cannot be sued for libel.)

Dickens knew whereof he spoke. At 15, he was hired as an “attorney’s clerk,” serving subpoenas, registering wills, copying transcripts; later he became a court reporter. For three formative years he was surrounded by law students, law clerks, copying clerks, court clerks, magistrates, barristers and solicitors who (reborn in his fiction) uttered cheerful sentiments like “I hate my profession.” His portraits of nearly every London court — Chancery, Divorce, Probate, Admiralty, etc. — are so accurate that one scholar wrote a lively book called Charles Dickens as a Legal Historian. At 32 he filed his first suit against a pirate publisher. Dickens told a friend afterward that “it is better to suffer a great wrong than to have recourse to the much greater wrong of the law.”

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Politics and the Supreme Court

New York Times
Editorial
February 4, 2012

The Supreme Court underscored its power to shape American life when it took major cases about the health care reform law, Arizona’s anti-immigrant law and the Voting Rights Act in an election year. But this is not simply a case of the court thrusting itself into politics.

The way these cases developed and made their way to the highest court also illustrates the reverse — how politics shape the court. Each case grows out of a struggle between left and right where politics have pushed the law: between a quest for universal coverage and the defense of big health care providers; between an emphasis on openness and hostility toward immigrants; and between a promise of access to the voting booth made nearly 50 years ago and the unyielding opposition to keeping that promise.

Each party has its program and works to turn it into law. The great example of political change through legal change was the long, methodical effort to whittle away at segregation from within the legal mainstream that culminated in the court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The conservatives’ legal-political strategy draws from Brown, but it is also vastly different in nature and design.

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Live, From the Supreme Court

New York Times
Editorial
February 1, 2012

Since May, the Supreme Court of Britain has allowed its hearings to be broadcast live. On Wednesday and Thursday, the court is hearing arguments on the extradition of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, from Britain to Sweden and whether a Swedish prosecutor had the authority to issue a warrant for his arrest.

The British court, which replaced the Law Lords as the highest court in the land in 2009, has the good sense to see that televising hearings can boost the court’s reputation and confidence in the legal system.

The Supreme Court of the United States, however, still refuses to see these benefits. It does not allow broadcasts of oral arguments out of a misguided worry that cameras would encourage grandstanding by lawyers and might cause the justices to censor their questions.

But the court currently releases transcripts of oral arguments soon after they are finished and audio recordings of arguments the week they occur — all without causing grandstanding or self-censorship. Adding video would further enhance public understanding of the court.

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The Justice of Occupation

by Ra’anan Alexandrowicz

New York Times
January 24, 2012

Israel’s Supreme Court is the body that provides checks and balances to the country’s executive and legislative powers, upholding constitutional standards. Over the years the court has gained a reputation as one of the most judicially active, human rights-oriented courts in the world.

In the four decades since the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors, the court has become a stage for an escalating conflict between two very different world views.

Israel is the only modern state that has held territories under military occupation for over four decades. It is also unusual for a nation to allow residents of territories under a military occupation to petition its Supreme Court and request intervention in acts of state.

Since the early years of the occupation, the Supreme Court has unwittingly found itself pushed into a corner time and again. Rather than functioning as the bastion of human rights that it was established to be, it has instead become the entity responsible for balancing the needs of a state engaged in a prolonged occupation with basic principles of democracy.

This Op-Doc expands on one of the themes explored in my new feature documentary, “The Law in These Parts,” and asks about the role of the Supreme Court in the legal underpinnings of the longest military occupation in modern times.

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Η νομιμοποίηση της κυβέρνησης Παπαδήμου

του Νίκου Κ. Αλιβιζάτου

Καθημερινή
15 Ιανουαρίου 2012

Στις 10 του περασμένου Νοεμβρίου, το ένστικτο επιβίωσης, χάρη στο οποίο η Ελλάδα σώθηκε κυριολεκτικά την τελευταία στιγμή, αρκετές φορές στη νεότερη Ιστορία της, λειτούργησε και πάλι. Με αντανακλαστικά που εξέπληξαν ακόμη και τους πιο αισιόδοξους παρατηρητές των πολιτικών μας πραγμάτων, βουλευτές όλων των παρατάξεων -αλλά κυρίως της πλειοψηφίας- επέβαλαν τη «λύση Παπαδήμου». Μια λύση που, όπως φαίνεται, απεύχονταν οι ηγεσίες των δύο μεγάλων κομμάτων, για δικούς της λόγους η καθεμιά. Ετσι, με διόλου αμελητέο κόστος τη συμμετοχή στην κυβέρνηση εκπροσώπων του ΛΑΟΣ, απετράπη το μοιραίο. Δηλαδή η άτακτη χρεοκοπία, στην οποία είναι βέβαιο ότι θα οδηγούσε τη χώρα η διεξαγωγή εκλογών στις αρχές Δεκεμβρίου, ή ο εκ των ενόντων σχηματισμός άλλης μονοκομματικής κυβέρνησης από το ΠΑΣΟΚ.

Ο κ. Λουκάς Παπαδήμος συμπλήρωσε προχθές δύο μήνες στην πρωθυπουργία. Αν και τα δύσκολα βρίσκονται ακόμη μπροστά του, το διάστημα αυτό είναι αρκετό για να βγάλει κανείς μερικά πρώτα συμπεράσματα:

Από τη μια, επικράτησε ένα αίσθημα καταλλαγής, κυρίως στην Αθήνα, αλλά και στις άλλες πόλεις της χώρας. Αν και δεν βρήκε ακόμη τον κανονικό ρυθμό της, η ζωή αρχίζει δειλά δειλά να επανέρχεται στο πολύπαθο Κέντρο. Και θέλω να πιστεύω ότι τα φιλόδοξα μέτρα που ανήγγειλε πρόσφατα ο δήμαρχος Αθηναίων δεν θα αργήσουν να αποδώσουν.

Με την καταλλαγή κατέβηκαν κάπως και οι τόνοι. Ο κόσμος, σε μικρότερες ή μεγαλύτερες παρέες, άρχισε να αναστοχάζεται και να κουβεντιάζει για τα βασικά. Ποτέ άλλοτε, τα τελευταία χρόνια, δεν μπήκαν στο τραπέζι τόσο βαθιά ριζωμένα στερεότυπα και αντιλήψεις. Παλιοί και νέοι έχουν χάσει τις βεβαιότητες άλλων εποχών και, φαινόμενο μοναδικό, ακόμη και οι πολιτικοί διαλέγονται.

Η στροφή αυτή είχε ως αποτέλεσμα μια ψυχραιμότερη αντιμετώπιση της κρίσης και των δεινών της. Η δικαιολογημένη αγανάκτηση την οποία προκάλεσε η μέγιστη αδικία της καλπάζουσας ανεργίας, και η λαίλαπα των περικοπών σε μισθούς και συντάξεις, δεν οδηγούν όπως πέρυσι σε μια καθολική απόρριψη των μέτρων του Μνημονίου. Γιατί συνειδητοποιείται όλο και περισσότερο ότι πολλά από αυτά έπρεπε να έχουν ληφθεί εδώ και χρόνια. Οδηγεί αντίθετα σε κινήσεις αλληλεγγύης για την ανακούφιση αυτών που πάσχουν πραγματικά (απολυμένοι, άστεγοι, άνεργοι προπάντων νέοι) και που, με την κρίση, ο αριθμός τους έχει εκτιναχθεί σε πρωτοφανή ύψη. Για πρώτη φορά από το 2004, το εθελοντικό κίνημα, με τόνο πατριωτικό και όχι ελεημοσύνης, έχει πάρει τέτοιες διαστάσεις.

Σε όλα αυτά, όπως σημείωνε προ ημερών ο Αντώνης Τριφύλλης, ο «δωρικός» λόγος του «αντιπολιτικού» Παπαδήμου, συνέτεινε θετικά, αφού «υπονόμευσε» τον συναισθηματικό και εν τέλει «διχαστικό» λόγο των επαγγελματιών της πολιτικής. Αρκεί βέβαια να αρχίσει να φαίνεται φως στην άκρη του τούνελ.

Η τελευταία αυτή παρατήρηση οδηγεί στο ζήτημα της νομιμοποίησης της κυβέρνησης Παπαδήμου. Ως σήμερα, ήταν δεδομένη για τους παραπάνω λόγους. Τα περί του αντιθέτου υποστηριζόμενα από τα «αντισυστηματικά» άκρα του πολιτικού φάσματος δεν ευσταθούν. Δείχνουν, αντίθετα, κραυγαλέα αποκοπή από την πραγματικότητα (για να μην πω και έλλειψη στοιχειώδους συνταγματικής παιδείας). Από εδώ και πέρα, ωστόσο, η νομιμοποίηση της κυβέρνησης Παπαδήμου θα εξαρτηθεί από την ικανότητά της να φέρει σε πέρας την κύρια αποστολή της: δηλαδή, να συμφωνήσει με τους δανειστές της χώρας για περικοπή του δημόσιου χρέους (PSI) και να συνάψει τη νέα δανειακή σύμβαση. Συνάρτηση της πρώτης, η δεύτερη είναι η αναγκαία προϋπόθεση για να παραμείνουμε στο ευρώ. Και αυτό, την ύστατη τούτη ώρα, αποτελεί τον κεντρικό στόχο του έθνους.

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The Struggle to Give the European Parliament Clout

Spiegel
January 12, 2012

As the weakest of the EU's three major institutions, the European Parliament has often been viewed as little more than a rubber stamp for the others. But Martin Schulz, the German Social Democrat who will become its president next week, plans to change that -- and he's not afraid of ruffling feathers in the process.

Two stars are blinking red on the indicator panel, signaling that the allotted speaking time has run out. Germany's Martin Schulz is already about two minutes over his limit, but he just keeps talking.

It's mid-December, and he's speaking about Europe's debt crisis and the future of the European Union. Schulz is taking advantage of his last appearance as the leader of the center-left Socialist group in the European Parliament to demonstrate to everyone gathered in the assembly hall in Strasbourg that few could come up with verbal zingers as strong as his. "The financial markets are driving a Ferrari, while the governments of Europe are puttering along behind on a bicycle," he says.

Schulz keeps on speaking, but he has nothing to fear as European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek, who is from Poland, lets him have his way. Without permission, Schulz has just about reached twice the limit of his speaking time when he finally starts wrapping it up. Then Buzek says into the microphone: "I have really been enormously patient."

On Tuesday, Jan. 17, the 56-year-old Schulz will replace Buzek as the president of the European Parliament. In the parliament, the usual procedure is that the two biggest parliamentary groups each get to choose the president for half of the five-year legislative period, with the office-holder being replaced after two-and-a-half years. Thus, Buzek, a member of the European People's Party (EPP), the alliance of Christian Democratic and conservative parties making up the largest faction in the parliament, will be succeeded by Schulz, the head of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), the second-largest faction.

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«Πρέπει να τηρούμε τους νόμους;»

Ξενοφών Ι. Παπαρρηγόπουλος
Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής Φιλοσοφίας, Ιστορίας, Μεθοδολογίας και Θεωρίας του Δικαίου στο Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλίας

Αριστοτέλειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης
8 Δεκεμβρίου 2011

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Διαρθρωτικές μεταρρυθμίσεις τώρα, χωρίς αναθεώρηση

του Αντώνη Μανιτάκη

Καθημερινή
7 Ιανουαρίου 2012

Ο τόπος έχει ανάγκη -αποτελεί κοινό τόπο- από αλλαγές, από ριζικές αλλαγές, και κατά πρώτο και κύριο λόγο στις βασικές λειτουργίες του κράτους: στη Διοίκηση και στη Δικαιοσύνη. Απαιτούνται, ακόμη, επειγόντως, και ορισμένες καίριες, άμεσες, ενδεικτικές έστω, βαθιές τομές στο πολιτικό σύστημα, που δεν θα αγγίξουν όμως το πολίτευμα. Για να φανεί, έμπρακτα, ότι οι τωρινές πολιτικές δυνάμεις έχουν συνειδητοποιήσει την κρισιμότητα των περιστάσεων, καθώς και την επιτακτική ανάγκη των διαρθρωτικών μεταρρυθμίσεων. Και ότι είναι έτοιμες να ταπεινωθούν πολιτικά, να θυσιαστούν, προκειμένου να ανακτήσει το πολιτικό σύστημα ένα μέρος της χαμένης αξιοπιστίας του.

Δεν είναι δυνατόν ο ελληνικός λαός να υφίσταται εξαιτίας της κακοδιαχείρισης των δημόσιων οικονομικών τόσες και τέτοιες θυσίες, πρωτοφανείς σε ένταση και έκταση, που ωθούν εκατομμύρια ατόμων κάτω από τα όρια της φτώχειας, με μοναδικό αντάλλαγμα και δέλεαρ την ανάκτηση της εμπιστοσύνης των αγορών, και το κομματικό κατεστημένο να μη δέχεται να θυσιάσει δεσμούς και αρμούς, αιωνόβιους, του πελατειακού συστήματος, που το στηρίζουν. Χωρίς έμπρακτη και εύγλωττη πολιτική ταπείνωση δεν μπορεί να υπάρξει πολιτικός εξαγνισμός ούτε εξιλέωση.

Σε κάθε περίπτωση η ανάγκη των διαρθρωτικών αλλαγών, στο κράτος και στο πολιτικό σύστημα είναι και επιτακτική και άμεση. Δεν επιδέχεται αναβολή. Εχει άλλωστε, ούτως ή άλλως, ξεκινήσει η σχετική διαδικασία για τη Διοίκηση και τη Δικαιοσύνη, με νομοσχέδια που είναι έτοιμα, ορισμένα από καιρό ή είναι υπό ετοιμασία με τη συνδρομή της ομάδας ειδικών που συνέστησε ο Ευρωπαϊκή Επιτροπή.

Η δυναμική των μεταρρυθμίσεων δεν μπορεί, πάντως, να περιμένει την όποια συνταγματική αναθεώρηση ούτε μπορεί να εξαρτά το περιεχόμενο ή την έκβασή της από αυτήν. Για πολλούς, προφανείς λόγους. Πρώτον, διότι η διαδικασία της συνταγματικής αναθεώρησης είναι χρονοβόρα και δυσκίνητη. Απαιτεί πολλούς τύπους, ειδικές πλειοψηφίες, αρκετές ψηφοφορίες, δύο φάσεις και επίπονες συναινέσεις. Και το σημαντικότερο δεν μπορεί, τυπικά, να ξεκινήσει πριν από το 2013 ούτε μπορεί να ολοκληρωθεί πριν μεσολαβήσουν εκλογές και αναδειχθεί, λίγα χρόνια αργότερα, Αναθεωρητική Βουλή. Εν των μεταξύ, μέχρι τότε, η χώρα ίσως και να έχει χρεοκοπήσει ή μόλις θα βγαίνει ασθμαίνοντας από την κρίση. Ποιος θα ενδιαφέρεται τότε για την Αναθεώρηση και τι να περιμένει από αυτήν;

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Calling for a Convention

by Lawrence Lessig

American Prospect
January 4, 2012

To keep money from corrupting our democratic politics, we need constitutional change. No doubt lots can be done by statute alone—meaningful transparency rules, such as the Disclose Act, and small-dollar public funding, such as the Fair Elections Now Act. The Supreme Court, however, has all but guaranteed that these won’t be enough. Transparency by itself won’t build trust; public funding can only be voluntary; and independent expenditures are all but certain to swamp even the best reforms tolerated by the Court. If we’re ever going to get a Congress “dependent,” as James Madison put it in Federalist Paper No. 52, “upon the People alone,” and not “the Funders,” it is clear that Congress will need new constitutional authority.

Yet it is also clear that Congress won’t ask for this authority itself. The chance that this Congress, or any Congress elected in the current environment, could muster 67 votes in the Senate to alter Washington’s economy of influence is zero. Congress is the problem. Fixing itself is just one of the items on a very long list of things that it simply cannot do. A whole industry of influence depends upon preserving the status quo. For that industry, blocking change is child’s play.

At some point, we reformers must consider the one way the framers gave us to revise the Constitution when Congress itself is the problem. This is the Article V convention. If 34 state legislatures apply, then Congress must “call a Convention for proposing Amendments.” The product of such a convention is just that—proposals, not constitutional change. As with amendments proposed by Congress, those put forward by the convention become law only if ratified by 38 states. But the convention is the one path to making such proposals that Congress can’t easily control, and the one path that could create enough of a mandate to force Congress to act.

Liberals and conservatives alike fear a convention. That fear is fair. In the 223 years since our Constitution was ratified, we’ve never had a convention (though we’ve gotten close). It’s not even completely clear how one would be organized or how it would be controlled. But any remaining uncertainty must be viewed practically, with a clear eye to the political constraints that would cabin any amending process.

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'Destroying Democracy': Hungarians Protest Controversial New Constitution

Spiegel
January 3, 2012

Tens of thousands of Hungarians took to the streets of Budapest on Monday night to protest the country's new constitution, which took effect on Jan. 1. The document, in combination with other recent laws, severely curtails the independence of the country's central bank and courts. Religious rights have also been slashed.

"Viktor Orban. Dictator!" read one sign. "Enough!" screamed another. "Hey Europe, sorry about my prime minister," said a third. And there were hundreds more on Monday night in Budapest as tens of thousands of people gathered in front of the city's famous opera house to protest against the country's controversial new constitution, which went into effect on Jan. 1.

"The prime minister took an oath to defend the constitution, but instead he overthrew it," said Laszlo Majtenyi, the former head of the country's media authority, at the rally. "Tonight, the Opera is the home of hypocrisy and the street the home of constitutional virtues."

The crowd gathered outside as inside Prime Minister Viktor Orban and other leading government officials celebrated the new Basic Law inside the opera. Hungarian President Pal Schmitt defended the document, saying that his countrymen should be proud of it. "The constitution was born of a wide consultation, building on national and European values," he said in a speech at the celebration. "Our Basic Law defines the family, order, the home, work and health as the most important, shared scale of values."

The passage of the new constitution marks the crowning achievement of Orban's center-right Fidesz party, 18 months into its rule. The party won 53 percent of the vote in the spring of 2010, resulting in 68 percent of the seats in parliament, enough to radically change Hungary's legal landscape. Since then, according to Kim Lane Scheppele, director of Princeton University's Program in Law and Public Affairs and a long-time observer of Hungary, Fidesz has passed 359 laws.

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In Libya, Building the Rule of Law

by Sarah Leah Whitson

New York Times
December 29, 2011

When I first met Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, now the chairman of Libya’s Transitional National Council, in April 2009, he was the beleaguered justice minister in Muammar el-Qaddafi’s Libya, virtually the sole brave voice among senior officials demanding accountability from the country’s security services.

He had been brought in as a concession to the restive western city of Benghazi, where he was a judge for many years. Abdel-Jalil minced no words in denouncing the corruption of the Interior Ministry, which operated outside the law to detain and abuse Libyans with impunity. Commenting on the fledgling reforms under Qaddafi, he characterized Libya as a country “going through the difficult and painful pangs of birth.” Little did he know how utterly transformed Libya would find itself just over two years later.

Recently in Tripoli, I sat with Abdel-Jalil to discuss new priorities for Libya that would have been unimaginable in 2009. The challenges the new authorities face are daunting, starting with the need to gain control over thousands of men in dozens of independent militias. Libya swiftly needs to have a justice system running that can deal fairly with the crimes of today and of the past, and to rebuild basic institutions, atrophied over many decades of authoritarian rule.

Government officials recognize the need to give the anti-Qaddafi fighters, widely regarded as heroes, a reason to give up their arms.

The transitional council is discussing plans for a massive program of training, jobs, education, loans and compensation. But this commendable initiative will require time and substantial funds. Meanwhile the council shouldn’t wait until it has full command over the militias to assert its authority over the more than 5,000 detainees those militias are holding, outside any jurisdiction of Libya’s laws or justice system.

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The 9th Circuit’s proper call on bone marrow donations

by George Will

Washington Post
December 29, 2011

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is famously liberal and frequently reversed. Recently, however, a unanimous three-judge panel of this court did something right when it held that bone marrow donors can be compensated. In effect, it revised a law, the National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) of 1984, because of a medical technique developed since then.

Was this “judicial activism” — judges acting as legislators, imposing social policies they prefer? Or was it proper judicial engagement — performance of the judicial duty to ensure that the law is applied in conformity with the actual facts of the case? Herewith an example of a court’s conscientious application of law in light of a pertinent change — a technological change — in a medical sphere the law regulates.

NOTA made it a felony to sell human organs for transplants. This codified two moral judgments. One is that there is wisdom in an instinctive repugnance about the commodification of the human body, or at least of body parts that are not renewable. The other judgment is that a market for organs — offering perhaps $50,000 for a kidney — would usually, and troublingly, involve affluent people buying from low-income people whose consent is influenced by their neediness.

Here, however, is another moral dilemma resulting from NOTA’s codification of moral impulses: Potentially deadly blood diseases strike tens of thousands of Americans each year. For example, of the 44,000 who will be diagnosed with leukemia, including 3,500 children, half the adults and 700 of the children will die from it. Nearly 3,000 Americans die of various blood diseases because they cannot find matching bone marrow donors. Compensation would substantially increase the number of lifesaving donors. Unfortunately, NOTA classifies as an organ the bone marrow that is the source of lifesaving stem cells that generate white and red blood cells, and platelets.

The 9th Circuit panel ruled this month that a new medical technique has made the phrase “bone marrow transplant” anachronistic. When NOTA was written, extracting bone marrow involved a protracted, painful and risky semi-surgical procedure in which long needles were inserted into the hip bones of anesthetized donors.

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Interview with Ex-German High Court Justice: 'It Is a Mistake To Pursue a United States of Europe'

Spiegel
December 28, 2011

In an interview conducted as he heads into retirement, German Constitutional Court Judge Udo Di Fabio explains why he believes the high court's recent decisions on the European Union will not necessarily hinder further European integration and how he believes debates over possible changes to Germany's constitution to strip power from Karlsruhe are "phoney."

The Lisbon Treaty, which went into effect on Dec. 1 2009, represents the last major reform of the structures of the European Union. Germany's Federal Constitutional Court subsequently issued a landmark decision on the treaty, authored by Judge Udo Di Fabio, which stated that the Treaty conformed with Germany's constitution. Nevertheless, the court also underscored that the parliament in Berlin must have greater participation in decisions made by the country at the EU level. Many politicians and journalists believe the ruling could hinder a future deepening of European integration.

In an interview with SPIEGEL, Di Fabio discusses why he believes the Lisbon ruling isn't nearly as critical of the EU as some have interpreted and why strong democratic states are essential to a continuing integrated Europe.

SPIEGEL: Professor Di Fabio, you were the German Constitutional Court's expert on Europe and the author of the controversial decision on the Lisbon Treaty, which has governed the workings of the European Union since 2009. Will politicians in Berlin heave a sigh of relief now that you are retiring from the court?

Di Fabio: I can't imagine that they will. A chamber of the Constitutional Court is a collective decision-making body. You shouldn't overestimate the power of a single judge.

SPIEGEL: Does the government still have to fear that the court in Karlsruhe will put the brakes on European integration?

Di Fabio: I don't think that the Constitutional Court stands in the way of integration efforts. In many respects the court has even strengthened Germany's position.

SPIEGEL: But your president, Andreas Vosskuhle, only recently said with regard to further integration steps that the scope of Germany's constitution, the Basic Law, had been "largely exhausted."

Di Fabio: I think such statements concern sweeping transfers of responsibilities that are currently not up for debate.

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