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Publication Abuse of Power and Self-Entrenchment as a State Response to the COVID-19 Outbreak: The Role of Parliaments, Courts and the People(SSRN, 2021-06-08) Kouroutakis, Antonios; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75The World Health Organization, on March 11th, declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a pandemic and while the pandemic is still spreading, and some counties are affected more than others, governments have had to respond, given that SARS-CoV2(Covid-19) poses a serious public health threat. In their responses, governments have adopted emergency measures balancing public health with a plethora of rights such as freedom of movement, right to assembly and freedom to religion. In liberal constitutional theory, the norm is that during emergencies power is concentrated in the hands of the executive. Interestingly due to the nature of the pandemic, in some countries, such as in Hungary, parliamentary sessions were suspended, in others such as in Greece and the UK they were either under function or gone virtually via online platforms respectively. This limited function of the legislative body has grave implications on the quality of modern democracy as parliamentary scrutiny is restricted, ministerial accountability is distorted and most importantly the voice of the opposition does not have an appropriate forum to be heard. On the top of that, a well established stance of deference prevails in the judiciary weakening judicial review as an extra mechanism of protection to monitor the political process. Such constitutional circumstances may give rise to abuse of executive power and application of policies for self-serving purposes and self-entrenchment. For instance, the government may allocate funding in a way to favor its reelection. The aim of this paper it to examine legitimate and illegitimate executive self-entrenchment in times of emergency and identify the role of different institutions, to monitor and scrutinize executive emergency actions.Publication Disruptive Innovation and Sunset Clauses: The Case of Uber and Other on Demand Transportation Networks(SSRN, 2019-07-10) Kouroutakis, Antonios; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75Uber and other on-demand transportation network companies, such as Lyft and Cabify, have brought significant change in the transportation industry within cities. Calling a taxi was never so simple and easy, while the payment transaction was never so fast and convenient. However, such ride sharing platforms brought significant disruption within the taxi business. Nowadays, ride-sharing platforms operate in the vast majorities of the big cities; in some cities like New York, cars affiliated with on-demand ridesharing platforms have not only outnumbered taxis but also and more importantly have taken away millions of rides from taxi drivers. Due to the noticeable drop in passengers, the value of taxi licences has drastically reduced. According to anecdotal references, in 2013, a taxi licence in New York was worth as much as $1.3 million, however, nowadays the price has dropped down to as low as $200,000. As a result, such disruption in the taxi business has brought protests from taxi drivers around the world, and has created challenges to policy makers on how to resolve the conflicting interests and resolve the tension. Such challenges are expected to rise with the spread of the autonomous cars in the future. This chapter aims to examine the utility of sunset clauses in order to resolve this issue. It will use the progressive abolition of roaming changes as a pilot case, which took place with a number of laws subject to sunset clauses, in order to show how such clauses may with temporary regulations to deregulate the taxi industry by creating a predictable business environment for all parties involved.Publication EU Action Plan Against Disinformation: Public Authorities, Platforms and the People(SSRN, 2020-10-30) Kouroutakis, Antonios; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75In democracies, people (demos in Greek) hold the power (kratos in Greek). When people elect their representatives from a number of candidates, such power is temporarily transferred to their elected representatives. Thus, the quintessence of democracy is a system of trust and accountability. Such power is returned to the people every time elections are held and people periodically evaluate their representatives and hold them accountable for their actions and omissions. If people are not satisfied with their representatives, they can always replace them with their competitors. For democracy to function in a proper manner, it is important that people are able to actively participate and vote based on trustworthy, accurate and complete information. But this system of trust is distorted by disinformation which became a fast-paced and widespread phenomenon. A foriori, during electoral periods, disinformation might have a decisive impact on the electoral result. A number of incidents of orchestrated disinformation around the world, alarmed the policy makers in the EU ahead of the European Parliament elections in May 2019 and the EU Action Plan Against Disinformation was adopted. This Action Plan is the most concrete and specific initiative on the matter. It is a modest regulatory intervention, based on soft law and self-regulation. As it is subject to a 12 month sunset clause, this marked its experimental nature and the EU Commission’s effort to monitor closely its application. The success of the action plan was based on the cooperation of the public authorities, of the platforms and the people. In substance, it was focused on four core areas: first on the improved detection of disinformation, second on the coordinated responses of disinformation, third on the cooperation with online platforms and the industry, and finally on the raising awareness and building resilience amongst citizens.Publication How Can Courts Encourage Constitutional Replacement?(SSRN, 2024-10-14) Verdugo, Sergio; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75Courts often do not play a significant role in constitutional replacement processes. Observers have identified exceptions and theorized about the courts' possible functions during and after those processes. However, little has been said about the courts' work taking place before replacement processes occur. This essay shows that courts can help establish the conditions for constitutional change by encouraging the demand for such change. They can do that by fostering the perception that the Constitution has become a tool to help one side of the political struggle win over politically salient constitutional conflicts, thus contributing to the polarization among competing political groups. Observers have reported that backlash against the courts is possible. I claim that a backlash against the Constitution itself is also possible. Encouraging the losers of the constitutional conflict to either attack the court or the constitution is possibly an unintended consequence of judges deciding cases in politically consequential ways. The implication is that strategic judges must balance the need to resolve cases in ways they perceive correct with the longterm acceptance of the Constitution. Still, a collective action problem makes this task difficult to achieve. The essay explores these ideas using different examples and expands on how the Chilean Constitutional Court contributed to building opposition against the Constitution before the Constitutional Convention was convened.Publication Preliminary rulings on validity of European Union acts: an initial empirical analysis(The Jean Monet program, 2024-05) Garot, Marie José; Claudia Golden; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75[No abstract available]Publication The Architecture of the Emergency Framework of Greece: Inactivity and Second Generation Emergencies(SSRN, 2019-03-03) Kouroutakis, Antonios; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75In 20th century Greece, officially Hellenic Republic, which is an independent state from 1830, wars, social unrest, and armed coups informed the drafters of the 1975 Greek Constitution on the issue of emergency. The Constitution of 1975, which established the so-called third Republic, replaced the Constitution of 1952, which was overthrown in 1967 by a military coup that lasted seven years until 1974. The current constitutional document was amended three times in 1986, in 2001 and finally in 2008. The first part of this article will show that de lege lata, the emergency toolbox of Greece, provides policymakers with a plethora of options to address emergency situations. But given the fact that policymakers in Greece have such powerful tools at their disposal to address potential threats to national security before these escalate and cause breakdowns, one may wonder why the constitutional system has been unable to respond promptly and efficiently during recent emergencies — like the economic crisis in 2009 and the emerging refugee crisis that began in 2015. This article will argue that the reason why the Greek constitutional system repeatedly fails to address emergencies in practice is threefold. First and foremost, the emergency framework of Greece is well equipped with numerous provisions, but it still lacks specific provisions on economic emergencies. Suffice to mention here that many newly adopted constitutions contain provisions and regulate economic emergencies explicitly. Second, the imperfect formulation of the separation of powers makes emergencies initiative monopolized by the cabinet, thus, allowing the Prime Minister, head of the cabinet and leader of the majority party in Parliament, to remain inactive during emergencies. Third, despite the fact that the constitutional drafters have foreseen the need to regulate second generation emergencies when there is an official declaration of the state of emergency (de jure), the absence of a specific derivative emergency framework during de facto emergencies creates deadens and inefficiencies. In particular, the occurrence of the refugee crisis amidst the economic crisis is a prime example of an emergency within an emergency. In principle, it is apparent that governments rely on the emergency provisions to face second-generation emergencies as well. But given that emergency provisions are drafted on the assumption that an emergency will occur under normal circumstances, one must wonder if the existing emergency provisions will be good enough to address second-generation emergencies.Publication The Constitution of Somalia on Paper and the Constitutional Reality(SSRN, 2018-01-12) Kouroutakis, Antonios; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75Somalia in 2012 adopted a new constitution and it became another African country with a new constitutional order such as Egypt, South Sudan, Libya and Tunisia. The recent Constitution like a palimpsest, embodies the constitutional acquis, and the lessons learned from past constitutional experiences. At the same time, it encapsulates the hopes for a stable and prosperous constitutional status quo in Somalia. While the Governments are enriched with a new constitutional cloak, the ideals for democracy, reconciliation and peace will not be materialized with an automatic pilot. It has been acknowledged numerous times that constitutional documents are not panacea solving all problems. With this caveat, it is important to take into consideration the constitutional reality in Somalia. Since 2012, the state building with its institutions is still in the making. The second legislative chamber is still absent from the mechanism of separation of powers. In addition, the building of the federal states is still ongoing distorting the balance within the vertical separation of powers. Moreover, elections do not take place due to security concerns evaporating the fuel of the political process and a fortiori the provision of referenda in the amendment process was proven an excessive expectation.Publication The Law As a Conversation Among Equals - A Skeptical View(SSRN, 2024-11-08) Verdugo, Sergio; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75In the context of the discussion about strengthening democratic regimes while facing the problems of constitutional and democratic erosion, Roberto Gargarella has offered a new regulatory ideal called "The Law As a Conversation Among Equals" to guide the discussion. He suggests placing our efforts of democratic recovery in new, more experimental forms of political participation, such as citizens' assemblies. This essay argues that Gargarella's valuable prescription for the problem may become self-defeating. If the main focus is not on helping the infrastructure of representative democratic regimes recover or heal, the focus on new experimental forms of political participation can even deepen the harm that the political systems are suffering. This is not to say that these new forms of political participation should always be avoided. As I will show, they should be used to complement and not replace representative institutions. I suggest a more modest, narrow, and cautious way to implement those participatory mechanisms. If the infrastructure of democracy is to be recovered, we should not avoid discussing issues such as the functioning of political parties, how fourth-branch institutions can impose limits and slow down processes of erosion while offering opportunities for democratic forces to regroup, and the way citizens access information and participate in the flawed marketplace of ideas.