That's me out of the running.

Indeed, this is news to the many non-practicing NI academics, or the very few practitioners who also (occasionally) teach. I'm involved in both and am still asked which one I'll end up with, as if I've been speed-dating between the two for 5 years. But of course, we must be on a different planet.

Finally, at 111 pages of double-spaced print, this is a remarkably short document from one of the world's wordiest courts 10/10.

+ interesting stuff about the binding/non-binding nature of the advisory jurisdiction and what an opinion can do to a prior judgment. Tldr: the prior judgment - i.e. the resolution of an inter partes dispute - cannot be affected by an opinion, but the opinion can affect legal Qs in that judgment 9/

Anyway. The main takeaways are that courts can't do something which makes the Governors/President effectively redundant, but can order them to do what the constitution requires of them. In so doing, a collaborative, dialogic federalism must be preferred. 8/

This field of discretion is also not justiciable (only the unreasonable failure to do anything is). This may have implications for how we perceive royal assent powers in the UK, given that the Indian model evolved directly from the UK model (and the Court references colonial frameworks) 7/

Interestingly the opinion makes it clear that the officers do possess a discretion to make that choice (within the limits in the constitution) entirely free of either executive or legislative opinion/advice. Thus, assent (+ etc) is neither a legislative act nor an executive act 6/

Or by necessary implication from that clear text, not otherwise. Thus, courts do not have any jurisdiction to "deem" assent. Instead in limited circumstances (i.e. Governor/President does nothing for ages), the court can grant mandatory relief requiring the officer to choose between their options 5/

This aligns with the spirit of cooperative federalism which the Court took as a highly important constitutional value. The ability of the President or Governors to assent, withhold assent or reserve in relation to Bills can only be circumscribed from the clear text of the constitution 4/

Lots of interesting things come out of the advisory opinion (2025 INSC 1333 for comparative law nerds like me) but I think this is among the most important: 3/

Last week, the Supreme Court looked at the issue again, under its advisory jurisdiction. The Indian President had referred 14 questions to the court which arose out of the earlier judgment (critics called it an attempt to appeal the earlier decision) 2/

😭

I was sceptical of anything other than pork on a pizza and but (and despite my general scepticism towards Indianised versions of non-Indian foods), the butter chicken pizza works. And works beautifully.

And courts. We had remote review lists as a default even after the pandemic until the courts "felt empty" and started demanding people turn up 😒

Under the terms of the Windsor Framework, this is important for Northern Ireland and its discrimination protections 3/3

Articles 20 (citizenship) and 21 (free movement) TFEU *and* Article 21(1) of the Charter (non discrimination, including on the basis of sexual orientation) have directly effective rights and require no EU secondary law to be realised/invoked domestically 2/

I think that's right; I just have no familiarity with marital recognition in law anywhere. Family law has never been a strong suit!

I didn't know that about English law. The judgment in this one is yet to be published but from the précis, I think the innovation is that it takes citizenship as a more important starting point than free movement. So EU citizenship has meaning beyond just 600 million+ economic units.