Kenyan Supreme Court Cites Professor Landau’s Work

In April, Professor David Landau’s scholarship and a co-written amicus brief were relied upon by the Kenyan Supreme Court in its decision to stop the Kenyan president from making constitutional changes through the Building Bridges Initiative. Several of the court’s decisions especially relied on Landau’s scholarship with Professor Rosalind Dixon concerning the distinction between a tiered constitutional design and a judge-made doctrine of unconstitutional constitutional amendment.

“I’m really happy that the Kenyan Supreme Court found our work and our amicus brief useful for their analysis, especially in such an important case, one which bears on the fairness of elections in the country,” Landau said.

Landau, the Mason Ladd professor and associate dean for international programs, is internationally recognized for his scholarship. His work has been published in many of the nation’s most prestigious law journals. It has also been cited by the high courts of several other countries, including the Supreme Court of Israel, the Supreme Court of Canada, the Constitutional Court of Colombia, the Constitutional Tribunal of Chile, and the Supreme Federal Tribunal of Brazil. His scholarship focuses on constitutional design, constitutional theory, and comparative constitutional law.

Published on May 6, 2022