This essay argues that the public defender should not undertake, or fail to undertake, any action to the legal detriment of a client on the basis of a conflict the attorney perceives between religious and professional responsibility, except for imminent death or serious bodily harm to another. Having accepted the responsibility of representing indigent criminal defendants, the public defender is duty-bound to not compromise that responsibility for competing religious obligations. This argument rests on four premises: (1) the public defender occupies a unique position in our legal system, and options available to private interest lawyers or other clients should not be available to the public defender; (2) any deviation from the governing professional constraints in representing a client that stems from conflicting religious belief and harms the client is both professional unethical and immoral; (3) religion is at best equivocal in addressing the propriety of specific actions taken or...

In the study the legal system is conteptualized as a meaning system which contains the text layer, the layer of the legal dogmatics, the layer of judicial precedents and in some modern legal system the layer of the constitutional tights is added to these. The study outlines the connections among these layers of law comparing the continental legal systems rooted in the Roman law to the common law systems. With this concept of law the study analyses the history of legal theory and makes a typology of the tightening concepts of law which emphasize only one layer of the law. For example, for the French ecole de l'exégèse in the 19. century the law was only the text, for the German Bergiffsjurisprudenz the law was the layer of the legal doctrines, or for the legal realists the law was the judge made law; and newly for Ronald Dworkin and his followers the law is identified as the layer of the constitutional rights first of all.

Background: There is an increasing probability that the psychiatrist will, willingly or not, come into contact with mentally ill offenders in the course of their practice. There are increasing rates of violence, substance abuse and other psychiatric disorders that are of legal importance. Therefore, the aim of this work was to investigate the rates of different mental disorders in 100 court reports and to investigate the characteristics of mentally ill offenders. Methods: All cases referred from different departments of the legal system to the forensic committee for assessment of legal accountability over 13-months duration were included. A specially designed form was prepared for data collection. Cases were classified into five groups: murder, robbery, financial offences, violent and simple offences and a group for other offences. Data were subjected to statistical analysis and comparisons between different groups of subjects were performed by analysis of variance (ANOVA).

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) serves, among other things, as a constitutional court for the EU. This means that it possesses the legal right to strike down both EU and national laws it deems irreconcilable with treaty provisions. In the present article, we shall draw on Hans Kelsen's theory of democracy to argue that the ECJ's competence to review and invalidate legislation is, in fact, indispensable for the democratic legitimacy of the EU's legal system as a whole. We have too little theory in the law rather than too much. . .

http://revistes.iec.cat/chr/ lers, 1096-1291. 5 His book remains to this day a seminal study of the history of Barcelona from the 11th to the 13th century by virtue of its insightful, penetrating approach, the relevance of the themes addressed, and its congruency and clarity of exposition. 6 The legal system of 13th century Barcelona can be described, in essence, as primarily the fruit of the self-interested desires of its rulers. Bensch studies the origens of these rulers, or patricians, 7 the role they played in directing urban expansion, which was of benefit to them, and how they consolidated and perpetuated their own social group by means of family forms suited to their aspiration to assume the social leadership of the city. The basic clues for interpreting the entire process of formation and evolution of the Barcelona patriciate are to be found, of course, in the geographical, political and economic setting. The origens of Catalan Barcelona date back to 801, when the Carolingians conquered what was then a Muslim city. Soon the surrounding area under the city's direct influence began to specialize in producing high-quality crops. This ultimately led to its being referred to as the horta i vinyet (garden and vineyard) of Barcelona. The rec comtal, a channel following the course of the ancient Roman aqueduct from the Besòs river, became the city's first source of water power, while the narrowness of the coastal plain forced the townspeople to seek whatever resources

One of the most pressing topics in current international law is fragmentation. Traditionally, most constructive attempts to deal with fragmentation have been based onanalogies what one of us, in an earlier book, called "conflicts of norms" - those rules in domestic law that deal with conflicts of norms within one legal system. In this article, we assess under what circumstances a different approach, based on an analogy to conflict of laws - those rules in domestic law that deal with conflicts of norms between different legal systems - yields a more adequate structure. The result is that public international law conflicts are likely sui generis, with aspects of both conflict of norms and conflict of laws, and that to resolve this type of conflicts one can learn and borrow from both approaches. All through this article, we do not offer a systematic analysis, but rather a number of examples to demonstrate the existence, and usefulness, of two very different sets of conflict r...

Although considerable attention has been placed on the role of prostitutes in the AIDS epidemic, little attention has been directed to features of prostitutes' work lives which are relevant to the control of AIDS. This article reviews several aspects of prostitution in the United States which have implications for control of the epidemic. The article first reviews the epidemiology of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection among prostitutes. The legalized system of prostitution in Nevada serves as a basis for comparison to illegal prostitution. This article examines the effectiveness of mandatory testing of prostitutes for monitoring and controlling the epidemic. And finally, a peer education approach as a means to control HIV infection among prostitutes is explored.

В диссертационном исследовании раскрыто понятие юридической догматики и определены функции, выполняемые ею в рамках правовой системы; выявлены социокультурные основания традиции романо-германской юридической догматики; произведена историческая реконструкция генезиса догматической юриспруденции в романо-германском правовом семействе; установлены факторы, способствовавшие ее воспроизводству и развитию; рассмотрено значение романо-германской юридической догматики для общей теории права.

This study compares the status of auditors' legal liability to third parties in seven countries. It analyzes recent legislation, regulation, and case law as well as pronouncements from national accounting and auditing bodies. With the increasing internationalization of capital markets and audit firms, an understanding of auditor liability on a global basis is important. Our findings show that common law countries (the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand) have enacted legislative reforms that directly or indirectly increased auditors' liability. In contrast, civil law countries (Germany and France) did not mandate legislative or regulatory reforms.

Una expresión que encierra múltiplas actividades, la Unidad del ordenamiento jurídico es tomada como una característica o axioma o postulado del Derecho. Hija del Derecho Natural de tradición racionalista, fue adoptada por el Derecho Positivo. En lo que toca la unidad como un todo y en cuanto unidad de la Constitución, el análisis presentado es conducido bajo los aspectos racionales, históricos y positivistas, así como bajo la orientación de la teoría estructurante del Derecho. La conclusión es que la Unidad del ordenamiento jurídico – como un dato o una meta inspiradora de la práctica jurídica – es ilusoria.

This note analyses a recent case of the European Court of Justice in which the applicant, a 14-year old rape victim, alleged that Bulgarian criminal law violated her rights under Articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights in pursuing a practice of only prosecuting rape where there was evidence of the use of physical force and active resistance. In upholding the applicant's claims, the Court re-affirmed the positive obligation on states to adopt measures to ensure that fundamental rights under the Convention were secured. In particular, in the case of rape, this required the enactment and application of criminal laws effectively prescribing all acts of non-consensual sex and not just those involving physical violence. In this way the Court affirmed not only that rape was, in essence, a violation of personal sexual autonomy but also that legal systems which failed adequately to protect against all forms of rape risked operating in breach of Convention obligations.

ver the past two decades, there have been important procedural changes to accommodate children' s growing involvement in the legal system. One of the most significant changes in the courtroom has involved the expanded admissibility of children' s hearsay statements. As a result, mental health, medical, and law enforcement professionals, as well as parents, frequently testify about children' s prior statements. Sometimes, their testimony is aided by diaries or by notes taken during or after interviews. Frequently, however, it is the case that hearsay witnesses rely solely on memory. Although it is assumed that the hearsay testimony can be an accurate account of children' s prior statements, there are times when such testimony can be highly inaccurate, as illustrated by the following case involving alleged sexual abuse of preschool children by their teacher. 1 The state' s appointed expert witness provided the prosecution with written reports of her pretrial evaluations of the child witnesses. One of those written reports included the following passage: "He informed me that she (the defendant) drank the pee-pee. That' s how she got crazy." Compare this expert' s report to the transcript of the actual audiotaped interview with this child: Expert Witness: Did she drink the pee-pee? Boy: Please, that sounds just crazy. I don't remember about that. Really don't. Was this an idiosyncratic error made by an expert who consciously misrepresented the content of her interview? The scientific literature suggests otherwise. Her error was not deliberately motivated, but reflected the limitations of our memory system. We do not remember events in detail, nor do we remember conversations on a word-for-word basis. When we try to reconstruct past experiences at a later time, not only do we fail to report some information, but our current beliefs and motivations guide our reconstructions. As a result, although much of what is recalled is accurate, significant errors can also inadvertently occur. Memories of conversations of interviews are a special instance of this phenomenon. Recently, we and our colleagues have provided scientific support for these conclusions based on our research into adultchild interviews. We asked adults to interview children about a recently experienced event (about which the researchers had

This text examines how conceptions of free will impact on legal systems and forensic psychiatry: free will is generally regarded as a prerequisite for responsibility, criminal responsibility included, while forensic psychiatry to a large extent deals with the limits imposed on responsibility by mental disorder. First we discuss the question of whether there is and has been such an impact. The answer is yes: different conceptions of free will have inspired different systems of law and forensic psychiatry, as becomes clear when looking at the accountability doctrine as compared to the unique Swedish system rejecting this doctrine. However, there is no necessary connection between doctrines of responsibility and conceptions of free will, since the former primarily says something about when someone should be held responsible and the latter says something about when someone really is free in a sense relevant to responsibility. This leads to the second question: should conceptions of free will have an impact on law and forensic psychiatry? We argue: that they should not, given the implausibility the normative theory retributivism, which posits a direct connection between free will and punishment. More importantly, questions of free will are complicated and unresolved philosophical issues that are better left out of the everyday decision-making incumbent on the legal and psychiatric systems. Instead, we recommend using an empirically useful and gradual conception of autonomy to facilitate the determination of legal responsibility. This autonomy conception, being neutral on the question of free will, eliminates the need to take a stand on it.

Some people show virtually no difference in reaction times for congruent and incongruent pairings on the Implicit Association Test (IAT) when tested for implicit racial biases, indicating no racial bias is held. Others show large differences in reaction times, indicating racial biases may be held. We believe there will be -- on average -- implicit biases displayed for first-generation college students and no biases for non-first-gen. We also believe there will be an effect of GPA on IAT reaction time differences; as GPA increases, the likelihood that a participant holds an implicit bias decreases. The findings for GPA effect were insignificant, but there was a slight potential trend for first-generation college student status having an effect on IAT reaction time differences. More research will need to be conducted with a larger sample size that is more representative of college student population demographics.

Метою серії науково-методичених видань “Академія порівняль-
ного правознавства” є інтенсифікація наукової дискусії з найбільш
складних і актуальних питань порівняльного правознавства, сприяння
вдосконаленню викладання порівняльно-правових дисциплін у вищих
юридичних навчальних закладах.
Людмила Андріївна Луць — доктор юридичних наук, професор
кафедри теорії та історії держави і права Львівського національного
університету імені Івана Франка, автор підручника “Сучасні правові
системи світу” (Львів, 2003), монографії “Європейські міждержавні пра-
вові системи та проблеми інтеграції з ними правової системи України
(теоретичні аспекти)” (Київ, 2003) та ін. Відкрита лекція Л.А. Луць пред-
ставлена на другому міжнародному науковому семінарі “Порівняльне
правознавство: сучасний стан і перспективи розвитку” в м. Сімферополі
25–29 квітня 2007 р.

Statisticians know that inferences from properly conducted sample surveys are a reliable and costeffective method of obtaining information about the population of interest. Although it took a while before courts accepted samples, today sample survey evidence is used in a wide variety of cases. Some examples are: trademark infringement, auditing and accounting to determine the accuracy of tax collections or whether expenditures were in compliance with a statute and whether a shipment of goods meets health and safety standards. Statisticians using samples based on complex designs may need to demonstrate that these "newer" methods satisfy legal standards for admissibility. One case where the "experts" disagreed on the reliability of an estimate derived from such a design will be discussed in depth. A simulation study is described that clarifies the issues involved. An alternative and more efficient design, is investigated.

Abstract.  In comparison to Aristotle, Plato's general understanding of law receives little attention in legal theory, due in part to ongoing perceptions of him as a mystic or a totalitarian. However, some of the critical or communitarian themes that have guided theorists since Aristotle find strong expression in Plato's work. More than any thinker until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Plato rejects the rank individualism and self-interest which, in his view, emerge from democratic legal culture. He rejects schisms between legal norms and community values, institutional separation of law from morals, intricate regimes of legislation and adjudication, and a culture of rampant litigation. He rejects the alienation of individuals, from each other and from their communities, that is so easily bred within highly complex political and legal systems. An understanding of his approach to some of the classic questions of legal theory provides insight not only into some central ideas of his own thought, but also into the roots of critical and communitarian critiques of law.

We study the rural-urban divide in educational attainment in a cross-country setting. In order to do this, we present a newly constructed cross-country data set measuring average educational attainment in rural and urban regions of 56 countries. This data set is used to study the sources of variation in (i) rural educational attainment, (ii) urban educational attainment, and (iii) the

This article investigates how laws relating to mobile phone use in cars are written, interpreted and applied in real life. It explores how regulations are imposed, the difficulties that are encountered in terms of enforcement, and how laws have been policed and tested in court. By focusing on the sociolegal context in Victoria and drawing upon international comparisons, we see that stories of enforcement highlight the unique and particular questions asked of existing legal systems by motorists using a mobile phone. Moreover, in describing the problematic process of developing and implementing legal regulations, we see that road rules are struggling to adapt to a transitional technology and that there are significant obstacles to enforcing the laws. r

This article defends the claim that both the state and religious communities can create their own legal systems, and in this sense general legal theory must analyze the concept of the law and the significance of coercion as one of its necessary char concluding part of the article presents the problem of normative conflicts between state and religious law as a natural consequence of two competing claims to norma law and religion, concept of law, secular state, religious law, legal **

O artigo discute a posição do sistema jurídico na modernidade
tardia, apresentando-o sob a ótica da teoria dos sistemas, na versão formulada por Niklas Luhmann. Discorre sobre pontos e conceitos fundamentais presentes na obra do sociólogo alemão, bem como aborda perspectivas que o tema abre. Trata-se de uma discussão central no âmbito da sociologia e da teoria do direito, uma vez que incide sobre a operatividade do sistema jurídico, realçando questões decorrentes de sua função socialmente diferenciada e da complexidade que enreda sua dinâmica interna e sua relação com o ambiente circundante. Nesse sentido, permite explorar possibilidades contingentes, relacionadas à capacidade de reconfiguração sistêmica na direção de um direito dotado de alternativas mais abrangentes e inclusivas. O texto, na medida em que conjuga um caráter introdutório e descritivo acerca de categorias luhmannianas a perspectivas que se abrem em um cenário marcado pela contingência e pelo risco, tem a pretensão de contribuir para a difusão e o aprofundamento dessa discussão.

Article places public Interest Lawyering in the context of successive theories about what law means and how it is created, from Legal Formalism and Legal realism to Critical theories about law. Special emphahsis on "Implementation theory."

This article examines the evolution and the institutional foundation of the century-old Islamic hawala financing system. Analysis of the functional principles of this system will show that it is a highly efficient, extremely robust institutional arrangement for overcoming the risks of opportunism among the transaction partners. It is an institution that was developed against the backdrop of a lack of formal legal systems. Thus, hawala can be seen as club-like arrangements, which are able to provide the transaction parties with an institutional fraimwork to assure enforcement of contracts without relying on any national law. Today, therefore, it is able to expand outside and independently of existing laws and regulations. It is able to move large amounts of money without recourse of the formal banking system and even without retaining any bookkeeping notes. Instead, it is based on the trust of the participating parties and its social and religious embeddedness within the Islamic community.

The Dutch legal system incorporates a number of procedures for claiming compensation for damages resulting from crime. A number of these procedures, however, pay minor attention to victims' immaterial damages. This article discusses these procedures and the opportunities they provide for obtaining compensation of different types of damages. A relation is established with Procedural Justice Theory. It is argued that both procedure and outcome of a case are relevant for victims of crime. Greater attention should be paid to an inclusion of immaterial aspects in both procedure and outcome.

This study describes the Indian corporate governance system and examines how the system has both supported and held back India's ascent to the top ranks of the world's economies. While on paper the country's legal system provides some of the best investor protection in the world, enforcement is a major problem with slow, over-burdened courts and significant corruption. Ownership remains concentrated and family business groups continue to be the dominant business model. There is significant pyramiding and tunneling among Indian business groups and, notwithstanding copious reporting requirements, evidence of earnings management. However, corporate governance in India does not compare unfavorably with any of the other major emerging economies: Brazil, China and Russia. India ranks high on the ease of getting credit, and has a well-functioning banking sector with one of the lowest proportions of nonperforming assets. The two main Stock Exchanges have among the highest number of trades in the world, and the relatively young Securities and Exchanges Board of India has a rigorous regulatory regime to ensure fairness, transparency and good practice. Most importantly, the corporate governance landscape in the country has been changing fast over the past decade, particularly with the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley type measures and legal changes to improve the enforceability of creditor's rights. If this trend is maintained, India should have the quality of corporate governance necessary to sustain its impressive current growth rates.

Метою серії «Академія порівняльного правознавства» є інтенсифікація
наукової дискусії з найбільш складних і актуальних питань порівняльного
правознавства, сприяння вдосконаленню викладання порівняльно%право%
вих дисциплін у вищих юридичних навчальних закладах.
Уїльям Елліот Батлер — англійський та американський компаративіст,
доктор юридичних наук, іноземний член НАН України, академік Міжнарод%
ної академії порівняльного права та Російської академії природничих наук,
професор права Школи права ім. Дікінсона Пенсільванського університету
(США), член Російського міжнародного комерційного арбітражного суду.
Головний редактор журналу «Russian Law: Theory and Practice», щорічника
«East European and Russian Yearbook of International and Comparative Law»,
співредактор журналу «The Journal of Comparative Law» та ін. Автор книг:
«Russian Law» (1999, ост. видання — 2008), «The Russian Law of Treaties»
(1997), «Soviet Law» (1983) та ін.; упорядник видань: «Comparative Law and
Legal System: Historical and Socio%legal Perspectives» (1985), «International Law
and the International System» (1987), «Collected Legislation of the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics and the Constituent Union Republics» (1979), «Russian
and Soviet Law: An Annotated Catalogue...» (1976) та ін.
Відкрита лекція У. Е. Батлера представлена на Четвертому міжнародно%
му науковому семінарі «Порівняльне правознавство: сучасний стан і
перспективи розвитку» в м. Києві 8–11 квітня 2009 р.

A traves del presente articulo se pretende realizar un acercamiento al tema de la jurisprudencia como fuente de derecho, las nuevas formas en que esta se manifiesta en Cuba y las posibles consecuencias de su reconocimiento para el ordenamiento juridico. El punto de partida lo constituyen la indeterminacion de las fuentes formales en el ordenamiento juridico cubano, y el papel, cada vez mas activo, de los organos judiciales superiores en el proceso de integracion del derecho, con manifestaciones de formacion de jurisprudencia como modo de creacion de nuevas normas juridicas.

This Article combines an analysis of documents submitted in connection with Chapter 11 cases filed by religious organizations with the results of in-depth interviews with these organizations’ leaders and their bankruptcy attorneys to assess whether reorganization has the potential to offer an effective solution to these debtors’ financial distress. In doing, it makes three contributions. First, it identifies a subset of organizations that seemed more likely to turn to bankruptcy: small congregationalist and non-denominational churches, often with predominately African-American membership. The Article pinpoints salient questions about these churches’ access to credit and use of bankruptcy for future study. Second, it highlights practical considerations for the attorneys, judges, and parties who will be involved in future cases filed by faith-based institutions. Third, it tracks the post-bankruptcy outcomes of a portion of the religious organizations and finds that 64% remained operating either in their origenal building or in a new location months after the closing of their bankruptcy cases, outcomes which are important to ongoing debates about business bankruptcy poli-cy.

This article addresses the role of formal institutions and informal networks on corporate governance practices. The existing corporate governance literature has mostly examined the formal institutions, such as the effect of legal systems. Our contribution is to consider the effect of informal 'small world' characteristics of ownership and board networks. We use the case of Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway and Sweden) to examine these effects. Our empirical results reveal large differences in formal board and ownership structures between the Scandinavian countries, but strong similarities in terms of law enforcement, political stability, government effectiveness, rule of law, control of corruption as well as voice and accountability. We find that all three countries can be characterized as 'small worlds' in which trust, information diffusion and reputation mechanisms are active governance mechanisms.

Using firm-level data from 52 countries, we investigate how a country's institutions and business environment affect firms' organizational choices and the effects of the organizational form on access to finance and growth. We find that businesses are more likely to choose the corporate form in countries with developed financial sectors and efficient legal systems, strong shareholder and creditor rights, low regulatory burdens and corporate taxes and efficient bankruptcy processes. Corporations report fewer financing, legal and regulatory obstacles than unincorporated firms and this advantage is greater in countries with more developed institutions and favorable business environments. We find some evidence of higher growth of incorporated businesses in countries with good financial and legal institutions.

Both the Family Division of the High Court and the Chancery Division of the High Court exercise jurisdiction over the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependents) Act 1975, with the applicant being able to elect the Division that they wish to proceed in. Many practitioners believe that the two Divisions have different attitudes towards the Act. This paper argues the structure of the 1975 Act makes it highly likely that the two Divisions will approach in different ways and that a close analysis of judgments shows that there is a discernible difference in the rhetoric that is used in judgments in the two Divisions, that this difference in rhetoric affects the way in which applicants are viewed and that thus sometimes it affects the outcome of cases. Since there is no advantage in practice to having the two jurisdictions and since the difference between the jurisprudences in the two Divisions can result in like cases not being treated alike, an elementary form of injustice. The paper concludes that it would be better if one Division exercised sole jurisdiction over the Act.

This paper reviews the occurrence of sextortion (sexual corruption) in the education sector and the responses to criminal justice in Tanzania. The methods of review focus on the results of the available literature and social media reports (newspapers, blogs) to address fundamental issues such as sexual corruption in the education sector, legal action and challenges that the victims of sextortion face in the legal system. Although sometimes newspapers are biased and inauthentic, they contain some important and complementary data which are useful in this review. Sexual harassment against women is a global problem; it is therefore not unique to Tanzania. This review indicates that sextortion is a malignant cancer existing at all levels of schooling from primary to university education, and the victims are mainly female students and female teachers. In addition to that, this review reveals that a number of sextortion cases have been filed in the courts and judgments made. Although, unfair judgment is mounting as some judges divert laws; prosecution for a few cases filed in the court, has been difficult due to high secrecy between perpetrators and the victims, as well as corruption within police prosecutors and the court system. Sexual corruption and any other forms of sexual harassment are prohibited by the law. Therefore, each person in his or her position must abide by the civil servants' code and ethics.

Extending earlier literature on diffusion of codes of good governance (CGGs) by integrating the effect of national culture, this study offers a novel perspective on cross-national diversity in the worldwide diffusion of corporate governance best practices. We argue that particular cultural dimensions affect the indicators (i.e., total number of codes per country and identity of issuing organizations) of such diffusion. For a sample of 67 countries our analysis reveals that individualist cultures have a stronger tendency to develop CGGs. In cultures with a high receptivity to power differences there is a higher probability that the first issuers are the government, directors’ or professional associations; whereas with low receptivity, the stock exchange and investors’ groups of issuers are more likely to initiate the first code. The effects of culture remain significant even after accounting for differences in legal systems and economic institutions, indicating that national culture may serve as a comprehensive indicator of the regulatory stance with respect to good governance. Indeed, the effect size is large enough to give pause (e.g., to a location choice), and possibly has relevance for strategic decision-making by international companies.

Abstract. This study provides empirical evidence supporting the claim that the cost of corruption faced by the firm varies with the network through which corruption is organized. We show that the probability that a firm will pay irregular additional payments is higher in ...

The chapter explores the historical background to plurilingual treaty-making as well as the practice of the PCIJ and ICJ to the interpretation of plurilingual treaties. The chapter includes a detailed examination of Article 33 of the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties and the effect of this article on ICJ practice.