The Roundtable
Welcome to the Roundtable, a forum for incisive commentary and analysis
on cases and developments in law and the legal system.
on cases and developments in law and the legal system.
 By Emma Davies
Emma Davies is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. Up until the 2018 Midterm Elections, Florida had one of the strictest disenfranchisement laws in the United States. Along with Iowa and Kentucky, Florida barred all people convicted of a felony from voting, unless they independently applied for a highly restrictive clemency application. Under Florida Governor Rick Scott, there were more than 20,000 pending cases, but only about 400 people were granted clemency each year [1]. As a result, some individuals waited more than 10 years to have their case heard, and it is estimated that it would take 51 years to hear the entirety of the backlog, if no new cases were added [2]. This policy, compounded with the fact that Florida has one of the highest incarceration rates (as a percentage of the population) [3], had led to Florida being one of the most disenfranchised states. However, this November, 64% of Florida voters voted in favor of the state constitutional amendment titled the “Voting Rights Restoration for Felons Initiative,” aka Florida Amendment 4, in a referendum. This amendment automatically restored voter rights for people with past felony convictions upon completion of sentencing, including parole and probation, amounting to the enfranchisement of 1.6 million people [4]. The results of this ballot initiative is extensive, and could potentially impact the direction of Florida’s 29 electoral votes in the 2020 National Elections [5].
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 By Kaitlyn Rentala Kaitlyn Rentala is a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania studying Philosophy, Politics, and Economics in the College of Arts and Sciences. On October 19th, the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) ordered Poland to first suspend a law that forced judges off the nation’s Supreme Court and then to reinstate those judges [1]. This was in response to the Polish Parliament passing a law lowering the mandatory retirement age for judges, forcing out 27 out of the 72 Supreme Court Justices, including the Supreme Court president, Malgorzata Gersdorf [2]. Despite thousands of critics and protests taking place in the streets, the Polish government went ahead with the purge, resulting in the EU’s order. However, high ranking Polish government officials stated that they would not follow the EU’s ruling, claiming the ECJ did not have the authority to dictate Poland’s legal system [3]. Jaroslaw Gowin, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education, cited this recent incident as yet another conflict with the Lisbon Treaty, a 2007 agreement that was intended to reign in EU oversight and bureaucracy [4].
In recent years, a rise of illiberalism among countries like Hungary and Poland have promoted the EU to take measures to protect the legal boundaries of the bloc. In 2014, the EU moved to adopt Article 7, which allowed the EU to discipline countries that threatened the values of the EU [5]. Conflict between the EU and Warsaw specifically started in 2016, when Poland became the first member country to be threatened with losing its voting rights under Article 7 of the EU bloc’s treaty [6]. Adding in the legal tensions between the two parties, Poland’s future standing in the EU looks unclear. For background, the ECJ is the EU’s highest legal authority and is composed of two separate courts- the Court of Justice and the General Court. The ECJ decides whether the parties of the EU are acting justly and settles disputes among them. It also ensures that member states are adhering to the legal obligations set out by the EU [7]. The last order is the point of contention between the ECJ and Poland. This incident is symbolic of a bigger issue that is becoming more pressing. Three years ago, the Law and Justice party in Poland took control of the nation’s Constitutional Tribunal, tasked with ensuring laws do not violate the Constitution. The Polish Constitution does not say that the European court is superior to Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal, presenting a large gray area for the future [8]. If the two contradict each other, there is no system in place to resolve that. With the tensions between Brussels and Warsaw already at new heights, this development only deepens the strife. Another interesting factor to consider is the increasing polarization of judicial systems in not only Poland but also United States. With the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court, the nation’s highest court is the most conservative it has been in recent years. Similarly, Poland’s Law and Justice party, a far-right party, had the opportunity to greatly swing the political partisanship of the Polish Supreme Court thanks to the forced retirement of two dozen federal judges. Whether or not Poland complies with the EU and reinstates those judges remains to be seen. References [1] “Poland Must Immediately Suspend the Application of the Provisions of National Legislation Relating to the Lowering of the Retirement Age for Supreme Court Judges.” Europa, 19 Oct. 2018, curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2018-10/cp180159en.pdf. [2] Santora, Marc. “Poland Purges Supreme Court, and Protesters Take to Streets.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 3 July 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/world/europe/poland-supreme-court-protest.html. [3] Romo, Vanessa. “Top EU Court Blocks Polish Supreme Court Law Forcing Judges To Retire.” NPR, NPR, 20 Oct. 2018, www.npr.org/2018/10/20/659016900/eus-top-court-blocks-poland-s-supreme-court-law-forcing-judges-into-retirement. [4] “Gowin: To Nie Jest Krok Do Polexitu.” Do Rzeczy, Magdalena Złotnicka, 27 Aug. 2018, dorzeczy.pl/kraj/75120/Gowin-To-nie-jest-krok-do-Polexitu.html. [5] “How the EU Is Fighting to Protect the Rule of Law in Poland.” The Economist, The Economist Newspaper, 3 July 2018, www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/07/03/how-the-eu-is-fighting-to-protect-the-rule-of-law-in-poland. [6] Santora, Marc, and Joanna Berendt. “Poland Ordered to Reverse Purge of Supreme Court.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 19 Oct. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/10/19/world/europe/poland-supreme-court-purge.html. [7] Morris, Chris. “Reality Check: What Is the European Court of Justice?” BBC News, BBC, 23 Aug. 2017, www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40630322. [8] Santora, Marc, and Joanna Berendt. “Poland Ordered to Reverse Purge of Supreme Court.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 19 Oct. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/10/19/world/europe/poland-supreme-court-purge.html. Photo Credit: Jakub Kaminski/EPA, via Shutterstock The opinions and views expressed through this publication are the opinions of the designated authors and do not reflect the opinions or views of the Penn Undergraduate Law Journal, our staff, or our clients. Jakub Kaminski/EPA, via Shutterstock  By Owen Voutsinas-Klose
Owen Voutsinas-Klose is a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania studying Politics, Philosophy and Economics and minoring in Legal Studies and History in the College of Arts and Sciences. State courts play a vital role in serving as a check on legislatures and administering justice against companies and individuals accused of wrongdoing. Unlike at the federal level, many states elect most or all of their highest court justices. Seven states, including North Carolina and Pennsylvania, elect justices to their highest courts. Twenty states hold partisan judicial elections at all trial court levels. [1]  By Saxon Bryant
Saxon Bryant is a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania and associate editor of the Penn Undergraduate Law Journal April 15th is national tax day, the deadline to submit all federal income tax forms. In the midst of hours of paperwork and tabulating assets and losses, many citizens are left to wonder during the process, “Do I have to pay my taxes?” What standing does the government have to mandate that everyone pay income taxes? Several people have made their grievances about federal taxes known over the centuries, but did any of them have merit?  By James Freirich
James Freirich is a guest writer for The Roundtable and a sophomore majoring in Finance at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management. Since the 1990s, World Trade Organization (WTO) members have seriously questioned the legality of various types of subsidies utilized within the aviation industry [1]. This can be seen by General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT) violating German export subsidies in 1992, Canadian-Brazilian trade disputes regarding “export-financing programs for regional aircraft” from 1996-2001, and United States (US)-European Union (EU) trade disputes regarding state and investment bank funded launch aid, state tax breaks, and preferential government contracts since 2004. While the use of certain adverse subsidies that distort market competition should undoubtedly be avoided, the aviation industry, since its inception, appears to have been dependent upon subsidy utilization for its survival. Moreover, as seen in the early stages of US aviation industry development, it “lived and died by [government] airmail contracts” (Thomas, Geoffrey) [2]. Accordingly, as “the U.S. Postal Service began selling its airmail routes to private carriers [3]” (Boeing, Lombardi) by virtue of the Contract Air Mail Act of 1925 [4] and the Air Mail Act of 1934 [5], companies like Boeing Air Transport [6] would transform these mail routes to eventual passenger routes-giving way to the domestic airline network. Furthermore, in World War II (WWII), government programs such as the Air Transport Command (ATC) [7] furthered the domestic airline industry by way of awarding contracts and funding.  By Kirsten Mullin
Kirsten Mullin is a senior majoring in Political Science and minoring in Economics at Haverford College. On June 23rd, 2018, thousands of Saudi women took to the roads to legally drive for the first time [1]. Previously, women were banned from driving in the Kingdom, the last country in the world where such limitation on female mobility still existed. Banned from driving themselves, women had to rely on a male guardian or a chauffeur to get to and from grocery shopping, visits friends and commute to work [2].  By Adam Lake
Adam Lake is a senior at York University specializing in Sociology and completing a certificate in Anti-Racist Research and Practice. The criminalization of minority youth in the Canadian justice system is often ignored (Ming Kwok et al., 2017, p.15). There are a wide range of effects related to race, which demonstrate that even though Canadians live in a racially diverse nation, certain communities are marginalized. There is a different type of treatment that person of colour face when dealing with the entire range of Canada’s juvenile justice system. Racial imbalance within the juvenile justice system is existent when the percentage of individuals from a specific racial group is greater than the amount of other racial groups, in the general population. This can lead to disparity. Disparity within the justice system can refer to a situation where individuals from different ethnic groups have different perspectives on certain outcomes, which can turn into overrepresentation of the justice system.  By Nikhil Mahadeva
Nikhil Mahadeva is a fourth year B.A./LL.B. (Hons.) student at the National University of Advanced Legal Studies, Kochi. Sovereignty, in its simplest understanding, implies an ultimate authority over something, usually some form of polity. Nowadays, it is a term used to describe the independence and autonomy of states, i.e. the right of each state to decide its own affairs. This ultimate authority is said to derive from the people that form that state. In this regard, international law forbids nations from interfering with the sovereign matters of other nations [1]. This concept is complemented by the principle of self-determination, which is the right of people to choose who or what governs them. However, this element of choice does not always lend itself to the recognition of sovereignty. So how does one determine its sovereignty? Sovereignty can be legitimately acquired by accretion, cession, conquest, effective occupation and prescription. This list excludes less legitimate methods, such as outright annexation. When considering ‘occupation’ as a prerequisite, two of these methods come to mind.  By Natalie Behrends
Natalie Behrends is a rising senior majoring in History at New York University. In a news cycle that seems to be characterized by the unthinkable and the unexpected, it comes as a surprise how consistently immigration comes up as a topic for debate and legislation. Recent months have seen immigration and immigration law crop up in debates over DACA, the DREAM Act, refugee bans, border walls, the isolation and detention of migrant children, and countless discussions over American identity in an age of uncertainty. Often, these stories throw into stark relief the vulnerable positions of those outside the US’s definition of citizenship. In his 1958 dissent from Perez v. Brownell, former Chief Justice Earl Warren famously summed up citizenship as “man’s basic right, for it is nothing less than the right to have rights [1].” Warren was, perhaps unintentionally, borrowing a phrase from philosopher Hannah Arendt, who coined the term “right to have rights” in relation to citizenship in her 1949 article, “The Rights of Man: What Are They?” Arendt and others would go on to explore this idea of citizenship as the “right to have rights” in more depth throughout the next half-century, expanding our understanding of what citizenship is, and how it operates [2].  By Kirsten Mullin
Kirsten Mullin is a senior majoring in Political Science and minoring in Economics at Haverford College. In a landslide victory for women’s reproductive rights, the Republic of Ireland voted in a country-wide referendum on May 26th, 2018 to overturn the country’s restrictive abortion ban. Before the vote, Irish abortion law - legislated in the 8th amendment to the constitution and the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act - was among the most restrictive in the world. The law allowed for abortion only in cases where there was a clear threat to the life of the mother and barred even cases of incest or rape [1]. The Irish electorate’s decision to repeal country’s the abortion ban leaves Malta as the only country in Europe where women are unable to access safe and legal abortions within the country’s borders [2]. Throughout its history, the Republic of Ireland has been viewed as a conservative state rooted in the values of the Catholic Church. However, the influence of the church has been waning in recent years largely as a result of a string of highly publicized sex scandals. Accompanying the decline in influence of the Catholic Church in Ireland has been a string of legislative reforms reflecting an increasingly liberal society; contraception, divorce, same-sex marriage and now abortion have all been legalized in the past 30 years [3]. |
