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This article provides an overview of the most relevant cases decided by the Court of Justice of the European Union concerning contract law. The present issue covers the period between the beginning of January 2024 and the end of March 2024. Out of a total of 123 judgments decided in this period, 37 had a contract law dimension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are numerous proposals for Group Decision-Making (GDM) inspired by the ELECTRE multiple criteria decision approach. These proposals capitalize on ELECTRE's resemblance to certain voting systems and its ability to navigate veto situations. However, while ELECTRE-based methods have commendable features for establishing the credibility degree of the predicate "x is collectively considered at least as good as y", they do not address three relevant issues: (1) the reinforced preference in favor of x exhibited by certain members of the group; (2) the strength of the coalition of Decision-Makers (DMs) who favor y over x; and (3) the effects of preference dependence (complementarity, redundancy, antagonism) among different DMs. This paper addresses group ranking problems within scenarios where a group is under the control of a special powerful actor, called a "Supra-Decision Maker", or when a group adheres to a predetermined system of rules agreed upon by its members. Unlike other ELECTRE-based methods for GDM, this proposal comprehensively addresses the issues (1), (2) and (3) to determine the credibility degree of the collective outranking predicate. This determination can be utilized to derive a collective ranking or another form of recommendation in GDM. This proposal is expected to excel in a collaborative organizational environment where group members express genuine judgments, devoid of malicious intentions to manipulate collective decisions. Moreover, it has relevance in socially oriented decision-making contexts, especially when government agencies seek to reconcile opinions of diverse stakeholder groups with highly contradictory points of view. In such scenarios, where phenomena such as preference dependence, reinforced preference, and intense disagreement manifest, this proposal could offer valuable insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The opinion focuses on the European Court of Human Right's (ECtHR) recent judgment in Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz v Switzerland which was handed down on 9 April 2023. The decision broke new ground by establishing that 'Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights must be seen as encompassing a right for individuals to effective protection by the State authorities from serious adverse effects of climate change on their life, health, well-being and quality of life'. The opinion discusses five key aspects of this voluminous judgment which will likely have an impact far beyond this individual case, including the points made relating to the role of the ECtHR, courts in general and the Convention as a living instrument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the adjudication of a maritime boundary dispute is usually a bilateral process, it is also often the case that third States have an interest in the delimitation to be carried out. Coupled with the potential for the delimitation decisions of courts and tribunals to impact their maritime claims or entitlements, this raises the concern that third State interests could be prejudiced by such a dispute settlement process, without their participation. While third-party intervention has been suggested as a possible means of recourse for such third States, this article argues that third States may, in practice, be hesitant of resorting to intervention. This is because attempts to intervene, whether successful or unsuccessful, are likely to entail the court or tribunal's eventual decision having some legally binding effects on the third State. Further, alternative options remain available to third States desirous of a platform to make their interests known. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growing popularity of mergers in higher education, limited research examines their impact on conflicts within the affected universities and their surroundings. The article discusses the issue of university mergers in Belgium, Germany, and Spain, which were so severe that they required resolution by a constitutional court. The methods include an analysis of constitutional courts' judgments, supported by the analysis of literature and legal acts concerning higher education. The results indicate that both forced and voluntary mergers lead to fierce conflicts resolved by constitutional courts. Conflicts may arise not only in universities to be merged or already merged but also within the institutional environment of the university. In addition to the unified universities themselves, participants in such conflicts may also include competing universities, professional associations, student unions, and governmental bodies. In court disputes regarding the merging of universities, a violation of the university's right to autonomy and/or of academic freedom in general are usually alleged. The results also show that the different structures and organizational cultures of universities need not presage the failure of the merger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study critically evaluates Jordan's bifurcated approach to the enforcement of arbitral awards, with an emphasis on its domestic laws and international obligations under the New York Convention. Utilizing a rigorous methodology that melds doctrinal scrutiny with comparative legal analysis, the research delves into Jordan's Arbitration Law 31 of 2001, its subsequent amendments, and the Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Law 8 of 1952. The analysis reveals a marked incongruence between Jordan's national legal frameworks for recognizing and enforcing foreign arbitral awards and its commitments under Article 3 of the New York Convention. The study further quantifies the financial and procedural barriers erected by Jordan's stratified judicial system, contrasting them with universally accepted benchmarks. Informed by international jurisprudence, the research proffers targeted policy recommendations designed to harmonize Jordan's arbitration regulations with prevailing pro‐enforcement international standards. This investigation fills a scholarly void and offers pragmatic, timely solutions, thereby contributing to the global dialogue on compliance with international arbitration norms, particularly from a Jordanian vantage point. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constitutional courts in several European democracies are under stress. In Italy, the inefficiency of the system of government has led to increasing calls for the Court to intervene in crucial legislative matters. This article examines how and why the Constitutional Court plays a key role in contemporary Italian politics. First, it focuses on the determining factors of the political system that have strengthened the Constitutional Court vis-à-vis other political branches. Second, through a quali-quantitative analysis, it focuses on controversial decision-making techniques that have enabled constitutional judges to participate in the law-making process. It focuses on the so-called 'warnings to the legislature', which correspond to formal invitations to parliament to intervene in a particular discipline. It then examines the 'manipulative judgments' that have pushed the boundaries of constitutional adjudication, with the Court increasingly assuming the role of 'positive legislator'. Third, the article examines the consequences of the Court's expanding role in specific policy areas, shedding light on recent judicial decisions relating to assisted suicide. The aim of the article is to contribute to the understanding of the changing role of Constitutional courts in democratic political regimes at a time of their more or less manifest crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of constitutional courts (CCs) of post-communist Europe typically entailed the belief in CCs' transformative potential for the consolidation of democracy. Recently, this belief has been questioned, albeit the knowledge of why at least some CCs in the region failed to prevent the rise of non-democratic regimes remains limited. This article addresses this gap via the cases of Hungary and Slovakia, which have taken a different trajectory post-2010: the Slovak CC (SCC) remains an independent institution, while the Hungarian CC (HCC) has been packed by the executive. By combining contextual case law analysis of judgments referring to democracy and semi-structured interviews, the article shows that, during critical moments, the HCC did not perceive itself as responsible for Hungarian democracy, which resulted in its self-marginalisation. The SCC was largely spared from similarly critical moments, which, however, facilitated particular self-perceptions of its responsibility (or lack thereof). These findings offer empirical support for institutionalist scholarship that emphasizes the impact of ideas in calibrating the self-perceptions of political institutions and their positioning in the political system. Constitutional courts remain inseparable from the political regimes they are located in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last three decades, the field of EU judicial behaviour has spawned a sizeable body of work. While the efforts of EU judicial scholars have indubitably generated important insights about the operation of the Court of Justice and its interactions with domestic tribunals and litigants, EU judicial behaviour research suffers from substantial limitations at multiple levels. The first arises from the field's poor integration with theoretical advances that have emerged in other contexts. The second pertains to its methodological assumptions, which have yet to be updated to respond to the credibility crisis. The third relates to the existing datasets and the paucity of data on national courts' practices outside the preliminary ruling mechanism. To address these shortcomings, I suggest how the field may benefit from incorporating theoretical advances from research on judges in other contexts, a stronger emphasis on smart designs and experimental and quasi-experimental methods and the deployment of data-crawling and Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning in the 2010s, rivers have captured the legal imagination of judges, legislators and activists alike, as part of a rapidly growing phenomenon described by UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, David Boyd as 'a legal revolution that could save the world'. Investigating river cases in jurisdictions as diverse as Aotearoa New Zealand, Colombia, India, the United States and Australia, and following Nicole Graham's suggestion that the non‐human world is constantly reconstituted within an all‐encompassing legal cosmology for which any observable 'thing', any 'object', any landscape, is always, inherently, and inevitably a 'lawscape', this paper explores the legal and the ontological nature of 'the river'. By casting traditional riparian doctrines against novel rights of Nature judgments, the paper highlights the interconnected and interdependent legal relationship between artificially construed human and non‐human worlds, and observes a series of perceptible generational shifts in the legal and ontological treatment of rivers, from an abstract near‐neglect, to a rights‐based discourse, and ending (for the moment at least) in a deeply relational re‐conceptualisation. By casting traditional riparian doctrines against novel rights of nature judgments, this paper highlights the interconnected and interdependent legal relationship between artificially construed human and non‐human worlds, and observes a series of perceptible generational shifts in the legal and ontological treatment of rivers, from an abstract near‐neglect, to a rights‐based discourse, and ending (for the moment at least) in a deeply relational re‐conceptualization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most employment discrimination research has focused on race and gender. The relatively fewer papers dealing with religion suggests that discrimination exists. We extend the literature by examining the effects of job type (public safety/non-public safety), religion (Muslim/non-Muslim) and Muslim gender on selection decisions. Participants ranked applicants and made judgments on trust and whether to interview applicants after evaluating seven resumes for either a shipping clerk or a security guard position. Participants rated Muslim applicants lower than non-Muslim applicants for the security guard position. We found no evidence of discrimination in the shipping clerk position. Perceived trust may be a possible explanation for some of the decisions people made. We also found that the Muslim female candidate was rated higher than the Muslim male candidate for the security guard position; no gender differences existed for the shipping clerk position. Our findings are consistent with the gender discrimination literature in that job type affected the extent to which religious-based discrimination occurred and the intersectionality literature/models specifying that combinations of demographics can impact judgments. One implication is the need to incorporate religion in discrimination interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disagreements persist regarding the neural basis of syntactic processing, which has been linked both to inferior frontal and posterior temporal regions of the brain. One focal point of the debate concerns the role of inferior frontal areas in receptive syntactic ability, which is mostly assessed using sentence comprehension involving complex syntactic structures, a task that is potentially confounded with working memory. Syntactic acceptability judgments may provide a better measure of receptive syntax by reducing the need to use high working memory load and complex sentences and by enabling assessment of various types of syntactic violations. We therefore tested the perception of grammatical violations by people with poststroke aphasia (n = 25), along with matched controls (n = 16), using English sentences involving errors in word order, agreement, or subcategorization. Lesion data were also collected. Control participants performed near ceiling in accuracy with higher discriminability of agreement and subcategorization violations than word order; aphasia participants were less able to discriminate violations, but, on average, paralleled control participants discriminability of types of violations. Lesion-symptom mapping showed a correlation between discriminability and posterior temporal regions, but not inferior frontal regions. We argue that these results diverge from models holding that frontal areas are amodal core regions in syntactic structure building and favor models that posit a core hierarchical system in posterior temporal regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the typographic form of Plowden's Commentaries within its legal, printing, and technological histories, demonstrating that its typographic appearance embeds complex tensions over the study and dissemination of the common law into its material form. There are legally relevant meanings in the shape of letters, beyond mere legibility, that are connected with the heritage of type design and print technologies. Within the context of debates over the propriety of early common law printing, this paper provides an examination of Plowden's typographic style as roman and humanist. Tracing the genealogy of roman and humanist letters that led to the ones used in Plowden's opening judgment, the typography of the Commentaries is connected to debates over the resistance of the common law (as an unwritten law) to humanism and Roman-style codification. Plowden's typographic register is thereby seen to encode the Latinate traditions to which the structure and custom of the English common law is opposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to its intrinsic complexity and the principle of collective solidarity that governs it, solid organ transplantation (SOT) seems to have been spared from the increase in litigation related to medical activity. Litigation relating to solid organ transplantation that took place in the 29 units of the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris and was the subject of a judicial decision between 2015 and 2022 was studied. A total of 52 cases of SOT were recorded, all in adults, representing 1.1% of all cases and increasing from 0.71% to 1.5% over 7 years. The organs transplanted were 25 kidneys (48%), 19 livers (37%), 5 hearts (9%) and 3 lungs (6%). For kidney transplants, 11 complaints (44%) were related to living donor procedures and 6 to donors. The main causes of complaints were early post-operative complications in 31 cases (60%) and late complications in 13 cases (25%). The verdicts were in favour of the institution in 41 cases (79%). Solid organ transplants are increasingly the subject of litigation. Although the medical institution was not held liable in almost 80% of cases, this study makes a strong case for patients, living donors and their relatives to be better informed about SOT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When making decisions, humans often strive to uphold objective, absolute standards, such as about what is small versus large, blue versus purple, or unfair versus fair, suggesting that our judgments should not be swayed by extraneous factors such as the sequence or frequency of events to be judged. Yet in previous research, when some items (e.g., threatening faces) became less frequent, humans responded by expanding their concept (of "threatening") to include more ambiguous stimuli. We assessed the origins of this perceptual frequency bias by testing 25 capuchins, seven rhesus monkeys, and 102 humans on a computer task in which they had to classify one circle at a time (pulled from a continuum of 50 circle sizes) as either small or large. Small and large circles initially appeared with equal probability but over time small circles either became less frequent, more frequent, or did not change in frequency. All three species showed changes in judgment, but contrary to predictions, they contracted, rather than expanded, their size judgments of the less frequent category. In other words, when small circles became rare, participants were more likely to judge ambiguous circles sizes as large (and vice versa). This may have been due to the immediate explicit feedback, as has recently been found in humans, and we consider possible mechanisms driving our participants' responses. These results suggest that humans' difficulties in maintaining absolute standards are shared with other animals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a series of decisions—Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Collins v. Yellen—the Supreme Court struck down for-cause removal restrictions over agency heads. These rulings fault structural elements of the respective agency—double-layer protections or single directorships—for violating separation of powers because they insulate the agency from presidential review and oversight. But while the Court increasingly relies on agency structures to adjudicate constitutionality, separation of powers scholarship has focused on the division of powers into legislative, executive, and judicial functions. This Article supplies the missing account of separation of structures, and in the process defends the legitimacy of the administrative state against its critics. It argues that an emphasis on an agency’s institutional structure in adjudicating constitutionality is deeply rooted in constitutional design and the Founders’ reception of ancient Greek and Roman political philosophy. By introducing the link between institutional design and the Constitution, separation of structures sketches a doctrinal terrain of how judicial adjudications of agency structure could proceed beyond the formalist approach latent in the Court’s recent decisions. By shifting the doctrinal focus from the nature of political functions to the design of accountability mechanisms in governance structures, this Article provides strong support for the constitutionality of congressional delegation of legislative powers to agencies. This more capacious understanding of structural separation of powers accords with constitutional design and better accommodates the dynamic needs of modern regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the Supreme Court declined definitively to block Texas’s S.B. 8, which effectively eliminated pre-enforcement federal remedies for what was then a plainly unconstitutional restriction on abortion rights, a prominent criticism was that the majority would have never tolerated the similar treatment of preferred legal protections—like gun rights. This refrain reemerged when California enacted a copycat regime for firearms regulation. This theme sounds in the deep-rooted idea that judge-made law should adhere to generality and neutrality values requiring doctrines to derive justification from controlling a meaningful class of cases ascertained by objective legal criteria. This Article is about consistency, and inconsistency, in judicial decision-making—and more specifically, about the extent to which federal courts should provide similar opportunities to obtain relief for wrongs to discrete constitutional rights. The Article explores how a commitment to generality and neutrality values can translate into a paradigm promoting transsubstantivity (meaning consistent applicability across separate substantive concerns) for constitutional remedies (meaning rules for implementing and preventing or punishing the violation of constitutional rights)—and how the Supreme Court has deviated from this paradigm. Supported by an array of examples, the Article proposes a novel framework turning on the notion that remedial inconsistency can be transparent, translucent, or opaque given the clarity of doctrinal inconsistency. Prophylactic remedial doctrines (like the Miranda-warning mandate and First Amendment overbreadth) are transparently inconsistent, for instance, because they apply differently to discrete rights on their faces. And indeterminate remedial standards (like the political question doctrine for justiciability and the “plan of the Convention” doctrine for state sovereign immunity) are opaquely inconsistent because discerning their variable character requires inductive analysis of actual applications. After these descriptive claims, the Article proceeds to a normative examination of how this framework could help improve judicial approaches to constitutional remedies—while recognizing that non-transsubstantive doctrines are desirable in many circumstances. Courts, for example, should work to make doctrines of opaque and translucent inconsistency more transparent so that appropriate institutional actors can more easily assess, affirm, alter, or abandon them. And judges should consider the risk of introducing unnecessary elements of opaque inconsistency before relying on overdeterminative reasoning to reach otherwise established results. Among additional contributions, by providing innovative tools for centering remedial consistency as an important—but not absolute—aspect of constitutional law, this Article offers a potential step toward decreasing perceptions of the Supreme Court’s work as pervasively political, thereby reinforcing its legitimacy at this time of widespread skepticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on a verdict in a case of forged vaccination certificates. A doctor was acquitted because he was forced to issue more prescriptions than his colleagues due to a coincidental accumulation of certain diagnoses. It is stated that the increased number of diagnoses should not be limited to specific indication groups. The article also mentions another verdict in which a pharmaceutical-technical assistant issued digital vaccination certificates even though the individuals had not received the corresponding vaccination. The present text is about the case of a defendant and a co-defendant who forged digital vaccination certificates and sold them on the darknet. The defendant offered the forged proof of vaccination in a darknet forum and forwarded the buyers' data to the co-defendant, who entered it into the pharmacy computer system and transmitted it to the RKI (Robert Koch Institute). The two defendants produced a total of 185 digital vaccination certificates. Later, they changed their approach to minimize the risk of detection and used remote access software to produce the certificates outside of the pharmacy's opening hours. In total, 885 digital vaccination certificates were forged. Furthermore, the text also mentions a previous case in which the defendant submitted forged certificates to obtain a position as a media designer. This resulted in damages of €32,987.50 for the company. The verdict in this case has been partially overturned and needs to be reviewed. The text deals with the interpretation of § 75a IfSG a. F. (Infection Protection Act) as a general offense. It is argued that the reference to § 22 (5) IfSG a. F. does not limit the potential circle of perpetrators and therefore should also include professional assistants and forgery gangs. The purpose and intent of the Infection Protection Act also support an interpretation as a general offense. However, the simultaneous conviction for forgery of technical records is considered legally untenable. The present text is about a decision of the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) regarding a conviction for forgery of technical records and fraud. The BGH overturns the conviction due to legal errors and states that the change of BIOS settings and the installation of remote access software only created the conditions for issuing digital vaccination certificates outside of the pharmacy's opening hours, but did not influence the actual technical record. However, the BGH confirms the conviction for forgery of evidence-relevant data and fraud in other cases. The decision also concerns a permit to practice dentistry and states that it can be granted until the conclusion of the proceedings on the reissuance of the license if a positive prognosis exists. [Extracted from the article]

The article deals with the determination of special features in practice within the framework of a benchmark review. It is explained that self-employed doctors are supposed to be protected by the regulation of § 103 para. 4c SGBV from medical care centers (MVZ) predominantly led by capital investors. However, this regulation does not apply to MVZs that were already approved on December 31, 2011, and where the majority of shares and voting rights were not held by the contracted doctors working there. It is emphasized that the court's decision is provisional and does not grant a permanently secured legal position. [Extracted from the article]

The article deals with the requirements for an implicit stationary admission in hospitals. It is mentioned that a short-term emergency treatment in the first hospital may be sufficient if the patient is subsequently transferred to another hospital in a timely manner. The Federal Social Court has ruled in a judgment that there is no entitlement to the invoiced lump sum if there is no treatment plan for inpatient treatment. The hospital has filed an appeal against the judgment. The text also refers to the requirements for structural characteristics for a stroke unit according to OPS 8-981.2. Hospitals must have these characteristics checked before they can bill for corresponding services. [Extracted from the article]

The distinction between issues of jurisdiction and admissibility is at the heart of arbitration law due to the role it plays in defining the relationship between tribunals and the courts of the seat. Nevertheless, there has long been controversy as to the foundation of the distinction and on which side of the line the issue of alleged non‐compliance with pre‐arbitration steps falls. C v D offered a rare opportunity for an apex court to consider the distinction between issues of jurisdiction and admissibility, and to resolve these controversies. Whilst the judgment provides certainty on some matters, the reasoning adopted creates more confusion than it resolves and is unlikely to be the final word on the matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the extra‐judicial work of Lord Diplock in the domain of national security in the context of his life and judicial work. It first considers briefly the role of judicial biography in understanding the work of judges and then the particular considerations which apply to such biography in the context of national security law and practice. The following sections consider Lord Diplock's role in national security oversight, emphasising the wide range of issues with a national security dimension which Diplock was called upon to consider. It then seeks to shed light on the reasons for which he was repeatedly entrusted by the government to consider matters of the utmost sensitivity by turning back to his early life, his service during the second world war, and his work thereafter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the recent cases of the European Court of Human Rights (the ECtHR, the Court) in which the Court offered legal protection to vulnerable groups. For this purpose, the paper will first discuss the vulnerability paradigm before the ECtHR and draw the list of groups recognised by the Court as vulnerable. It will then turn to the case law to trace the recent trends and developments in the Court's focus when protecting vulnerable groups. In particular, the research covers the Court judgements rendered in the last four years (from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2022). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does racial diversity impact institutional outcomes and (in)equality? Discussions about diversity usually focus on how individuals' identities shape their behavior, but diversity is a group-level characteristic. Scholars must, therefore, consider the relationship between group composition and the individual decisions that shape institutional outcomes. Using felony data from a large U.S. court system, I explore the relationship between racial diversity among the judges comprising a court and individual judges' decisions. I find that as the percent of Black judges in a courthouse increases white judges are less likely to render incarceration sentences in cases with Black defendants. Increases in racial diversity decrease the Black–white gap in the probability of incarceration by up to 7 percentage points. However, I find no relationship between judge's racial identities and disparities in their decisions. This study highlights the importance of conceptualizing diversity as a group characteristic and the relationship between institutional context and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In December 2019, the Court of Justice issued a judgment in Case C-418/18 P. Puppinck and Others v. European Commission, ending a long-standing dispute between the organizers of the European Citizens' Initiative "One of Us" and the European Commission. Ruling in the appeal proceedings, the CJEU dismissed in its entirety the application to set aside the judgment of the General Court of the European Union of 23 April 2018 in case T 561/14 One of Us and Others v. Commission. The "One of Us" organizing committee requested the repeal of the European Commission's communication following the public initiative on the grounds that it lacked follow- up. The aim of the "One of Us" initiative was to strengthen the protection of dignity, the right to life and the integrity of every human being from conception in the EU's areas of competence. The initiative proposed amendments to three legislative acts on research, humanitarian cooperation and their funding. The judgment under discussion is important for the interpretation of EU law in two areas. First, this is the first judgment that interprets the systemic position of the European Citizens' Initiative in such a comprehensive manner. The case confirms that the ECI is an autonomous institution of EU law, whose systemic position is shaped by the principle of institutional balance and participatory democracy. The ECI is a form of emanation of deliberative democracy. Second, the judgment may be considered as confirming the exclusive competence of the Member States in the area of protecting human life at the prenatal stage. On the one hand, this means that EU law cannot impose its own standards on the right to life on Member States. On the other hand, in the area of its competences, it seems that the EU can have its own ethical position, allowing, while respecting the triple lock system, research involving the use of human embryonic stem cells and financing abortions as part of the package of medical assistance offered to the developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The preliminary reference as an appeal of the Court of Justice of the European Union presents many complexities and complicated interpretations over time, given that we have a national judge in the scene of the appeal process, often creating problems but also solutions for greater effectiveness of the law of the European Union and respect for domestic law. The preliminary ruling aims to resolve disputes between internal jurisdictions and evaluate compatibility with EU law, especially in the national procedural sector. Ensuring a postponement of the EU and, above all, protecting the rights of individuals in a concrete, complete and effective way is still questionable research, not so much on a theoretical level but also on a procedural one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have issues--148 issues to be exact. Although the Rules use the term "issue" throughout their text, they do not use it in the same way each time. In some circumstances, the meaning of "issue" is made clear by surrounding context, minimizing any interpretive difficulty. But sometimes context does not clarify the term's meaning, creating interpretive challenges. This Article argues that the ambiguous term "issue" found in Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 50 and 52 is best read to mean a "dispute of fact." This reading best comports with judicial interpretations of Rules 50 and 52, best fits their history and purpose, and best connects them with conceptually related rules of civil procedure. In order to eliminate the ambiguity of the term "issue"--and avoid future interpretive difficulties--Rules 50 and 52 should be amended to clarify their meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades, legal academics have complained about a conflict between history and the doctrine of Article III standing. First in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins (2016) and then notably in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez (2021), Justice Clarence Thomas presented a halfway resolution. Justice Thomas grounded Article III standing in a historical distinction between private and public rights. Suits for violations of private rights would require no showing of concrete injury in fact. Suits for violations of public rights would require the injury in fact showing of special damage, a term borrowed from the public nuisance tort. This Article questions the Thomas retention of injury in fact for public rights. Part I explains Justice Thomas's nuanced approach to Article III standing. Part II investigates old English and early American materials on special damage to flesh out the meaning of Justice Thomas's requirement for public rights standing. The upshot is a lack of historical consensus on the content of the special damage standard. The materials do not align on a precise standard, making it difficult, either as a matter of 1788 original meaning or later liquidation, to operationalize Justice Thomas's special damage requirement. Part III argues that there are good reasons to doubt that the requirement of special damage is constitutionally relevant to the original meaning of Article III. The Framers did not discuss special damage in connection to Article III. Most of the relevant cases are from state courts, which are not bound by Article III. The traditional rationale for the special damage requirement does not have constitutional significance. And it seems implausible that the Constitution incorporated a legal doctrine in such flux without textual indication. The Article concludes with a critique of the current Supreme Court's lack of concern for originalism in standing doctrine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In June 2022, the Supreme Court held in Vega v. Tekoh that a failure to read a suspect their Miranda rights before questioning them does not provide a basis for a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Experts predict that this decision will disproportionately affect youth, who are more psychologically vulnerable to coercive interrogation tactics. However, no scholars have yet proposed any ways to mitigate this impact. This Note explores potential changes to Fifth Amendment doctrine that would safeguard youths' ability to obtain a remedy following a Fifth Amendment violation. It explains that while the voluntariness test gives many youths hope of securing a remedy for a Miranda violation, the current voluntariness doctrine will not protect all youth whose un-Mirandized statements are admitted in court. Furthermore, while protecting youths' Miranda rights is necessary, Miranda alone is not sufficient to uphold youths' rights because youth struggle to understand Miranda warnings and waive Miranda at very high rates. In light of these issues, this Note proposes three changes to Fifth Amendment doctrine. First, courts should adopt a rule that statements made by youth in custody without a parent, guardian, or lawyer present are per se involuntary. Additionally, courts should hold that un-Mirandized statements by youths in custody are per se involuntary. Finally, courts should allow youths to bring a lawsuit under § 1983 for the admission of an un-Mirandized statement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public reason liberals expect individuals to have justificatory reasons for their views of certain political issues. This paper considers how groups can, and whether they should, give collective public reasons for their political decisions. A problem is that aggregating individuals' consistent judgments on reasons and a decision can produce inconsistent collective judgments. The group will then fail to give a reason for its decision. The paper considers various solutions to this problem and defends a deliberative procedure by showing how it incentivizes information sharing and leads to outcomes most acceptable to the group members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the aerobics competition, the judge's judgment plays a key role in the athlete's performance and ranking. However, due to the existence of human factors and subjective judgments, artificial judgments are prone to errors and unfairness. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to design and implement a machine vision system based on light detection sensor, which is used to assist judges in aerobics competition. The system aims to improve the objectivity and accuracy of competition judgment and reduce the influence of subjective factors on competition results. In this paper, the optical detection sensor technology is used to obtain real-time movement data of athletes by setting sensors in different positions of the field. The sensors can recognize the athlete's body outline, posture and movement flow, and transmit the data to a computer for real-time analysis and processing. Through machine vision algorithms, the system can automatically identify and analyze the degree of completion and technical difficulty of different actions. The experimental results show that the machine vision system based on the light detection sensor can accurately capture the movements of athletes and provide reliable data for judging. Compared with traditional manual evaluation, this system has higher objectivity and accuracy, and can reduce the interference of subjective factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The brain engages the processes of multisensory integration and recalibration to deal with discrepant multisensory signals. These processes consider the reliability of each sensory input, with the more reliable modality receiving the stronger weight. Sensory reliability is typically assessed via the variability of participants' judgments, yet these can be shaped by factors both external and internal to the nervous system. For example, motor noise and participant's dexterity with the specific response method contribute to judgment variability, and different response methods applied to the same stimuli can result in different estimates of sensory reliabilities. Here we ask how such variations in reliability induced by variations in the response method affect multisensory integration and sensory recalibration, as well as motor adaptation, in a visuomotor paradigm. Participants performed center-out hand movements and were asked to judge the position of the hand or rotated visual feedback at the movement end points. We manipulated the variability, and thus the reliability, of repeated judgments by asking participants to respond using either a visual or a proprioceptive matching procedure. We find that the relative weights of visual and proprioceptive signals, and thus the asymmetry of multisensory integration and recalibration, depend on the reliability modulated by the judgment method. Motor adaptation, in contrast, was insensitive to this manipulation. Hence, the outcome of multisensory binding is shaped by the noise introduced by sensorimotor processing, in line with perception and action being intertwined. NEW & NOTEWORTHY: Our brain tends to combine multisensory signals based on their respective reliability. This reliability depends on sensory noise in the environment, noise in the nervous system, and, as we show here, variability induced by the specific judgment procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the use of case law by Spanish administrative courts. Based on a database of 2964 sentences, a content analysis captures the integration of case law into the legal basis of court rulings. Even though case law is not listed as a source of law in the Spanish legal system, courts follow case law from either the same sentencing court (self-referential pattern) or higher courts (hierarchical pattern). The results of a logistic regression analysis point to a higher level of regulatory complexity and the configuration of the appellate procedures as incentives to integrate higher courts' case law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The document contains information about the process form book "Vorwerk", which includes explanations and samples for various court proceedings. It emphasizes that the book is indispensable for civil proceedings and provides 1,500 current samples for the entire process. The book is also equipped with a database access that provides the complete content and all included forms for download. Information is also provided about a specialized module for pharmaceutical law and a journal for health law. Further articles address topics such as billing fraud in the medical aids sector, the conflict between data protection and data usage in healthcare, and the joinder of parties in medical liability proceedings. The text contains information about various judgments and current developments in the field of medical liability law. It delves into the specifics of the joinder of parties in medical liability proceedings. Additionally, other topics such as the manipulation of blood values prior to the allocation of a donor organ, the admissibility of an expert opinion, and various judgments on medical liability are discussed. Current developments in medical education, hospital care, and nursing financing are also discussed. [Extracted from the article]

The Federal Social Court has ruled that a health insurance company is not allowed to charge a surcharge payment for an invoice audit initiated before January 1, 2022. The decision of the health insurance company was deemed unlawful and violated the rights of the hospital. The health insurance company's appeal was dismissed. The surcharge payment only applies from the year 2022 according to § 275c para. 3 SGBV. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the question of whether doctors who work as "pool doctors" in emergency medical services are automatically considered self-employed or whether they are subject to social security contributions. A court ruling has determined that a dentist who worked as part of the emergency service was considered to be in dependent employment and therefore subject to social security contributions. The Federal Social Court (BSG) has decided that a dentist who works in emergency dental services is considered to be in dependent employment and therefore subject to social security contributions. The decision of the 12th Senate of the Federal Social Court concerns the question of social security contributions for medical activities in emergency services. It is recommended that the legislature establish regulations for "pool doctors" in order to ensure the organization of emergency services. [Extracted from the article]

The article is about a legal dispute concerning possible tampering with an anesthesia device, which could be seen as obstruction of evidence. It discusses whether medical guidelines for determining the medical standard are relevant and how the causality of medical malpractice can be proven. It is stated that tampering with an anesthesia device twice after a treatment that resulted in oxygen deprivation for the patient cannot necessarily be considered as obstruction of evidence. The decision of the district court is deemed correct, as potential claims by the plaintiff would be time-barred. [Extracted from the article]

This article provides an overview of the most relevant cases decided by the Court of Justice of the European Union concerning contract law. The present issue covers the period between the beginning of July 2023 and the end of December 2023. Out of a total of 220 judgments decided in this period, 57 had a contract law dimension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU's response to the COVID-19 pandemic has renewed discussions on whether the gap between responsibility and responsiveness is, to some extent, constructed. This discussion only partly applies to courts, which are important in interpreting EU crisis responses. While judges do not rule in a political vacuum, it is not their main task to please public opinion. Even if they were to be influenced by changes in public mood, judges have little incentives to claim responsiveness in their judgments. By contrast, higher courts may be considered the epitome of responsibility since they are themselves bound by the law and entrusted to decide on conflicting responsibility claims of other actors. Hence, we ask how different courts interpret responsibility – their own and that of others – during the Eurozone and the COVID-19 crises. We conduct a comparative analysis of responsibility claims in the jurisprudence of the EU Court of Justice (CoJ) and the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) at two crucial crisis moments. We find little evidence of judges claiming responsiveness, but important differences in the constructions of responsibility between the two courts and across crises. The gap between how the courts construct their shared responsibilities in EU economic governance has seemingly narrowed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In October 2022, a two-judge bench of the Indian Supreme Court delivered a split verdict on constitutional challenges to the "hijab ban" imposed in some educational institutions in the State of Karnataka. This case note identifies gaps in the manner in which three central constitutional claims, namely, religious freedom, privacy and freedom of speech and expression, and discrimination, were engaged with in this case. The note argues that while both judges' opinions on the inapplicability of the essential religious practices test are questionable, its application does not conclusively determine the constitutionality of the ban. It also argues that the Court should have subjected the hijab ban to a structured proportionality analysis to investigate if the ban violates the rights to privacy, and freedom of speech and expression. Finally, the note argues that claims of indirect discrimination are central to this case and demanded serious engagement by the bench. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Covariation judgment underlies a diversity of psychological theories and influences various everyday decisions. Information about covariation can be learned from either a summary description of frequencies (i.e., contingency tables) or trial‐by‐trial experience (i.e., sampling individual instances). Two studies were conducted to investigate the impact of information learning mode (i.e., description vs. self‐truncated sampling) on covariation judgment and related decision. In each trial under the description condition, participants were presented with a contingency table with explicit cell frequencies, whereas in each trial under the self‐truncated sampling condition, participants were allowed to determine when to stop sampling instances and thus the actual sample size. To eliminate sampling error, an other‐yoked (i.e., between‐subject) design was used in this research so that cell frequencies shown in a trial under the description condition were matched with those experienced in a trial under the self‐truncated sampling condition. Experiment 1 showed that the self‐truncated sampling condition led to more moderate covariation judgments than the description condition (i.e., a description–experience gap). Experiment 2 demonstrated further that the same gap extended to covariation‐related decisions in terms of relative contingent preference (RCP). Regressive frequency estimation under self‐truncated sampling appeared to underlie the consistent gaps found in the two studies, whereas the impact of regressive diagnosticity (i.e., the same sample of instances was viewed as less diagnostic under description than under self‐truncated sampling) or simultaneous overestimation and underweighting of rare instances under experience was not supported by the observed data. Future research might examine alternative accounts of the observed gaps, such as the impacts of belief updating and stopping rule under self‐truncated sampling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 2023 case 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, the United States Supreme Court was asked to decide whether a Colorado web designer could post a notice informing consumers of her unwillingness--based on her devout Christian beliefs--to design wedding websites for same-sex couples. The Court ultimately ruled for the web designer, holding that Colorado could not use its antidiscrimination laws to prevent the web designer from exercising her First Amendment right to free speech. Written prior to the Court's decision, this Article explores the background of the case, analyzes each party's arguments, and recommends that the Court set aside its biased attitude toward to the advancement of Christianity and rule that Colorado's anti-discrimination laws forbid the unjust treatment of LGBTQ+ individuals in the name of religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The task of assigning internationally accepted commodity codes (aka HS codes) to traded goods is a critical function of customs offices. Like court decisions made by judges, this task follows the doctrine of precedent and can be nontrivial even for experienced officers. Together with the Korea Customs Service (KCS), we propose a first-ever explainable decision supporting model that suggests the most likely subheadings (i.e., the first six digits) of the HS code. The model also provides reasoning for its suggestion in the form of a document that is interpretable by customs officers. We evaluated the model using 5,000 cases that recently received a classification request. The results showed that the top-3 suggestions made by our model had an accuracy of 93.9% when classifying 925 challenging subheadings. A user study with 32 customs experts further confirmed that our algorithmic suggestions accompanied by explainable reasonings, can substantially reduce the time and effort taken by customs officers for classification reviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, imprisonment remains a popular form of crime control amidst rising costs in prison expenditure and high rates of prison return. While changes to crime rates and to policing policy have impacted the growing prisoner population in recent years, less is known about the language underpinning the courts' decision to imprison. This article presents the results of a critical discourse analysis on 124 sentencing remarks on imprisonment from the District Court of New South Wales in 2017. Three discourses were identified in the texts as facilitating the justification of a prison sentence: the discourse of control, the discourse of safety and the discourse of duty. These findings highlight the ways in which the prison is constructed and legitimated in the courts, which has implications not only for sentencing policy and practice but also for conceptions and applications of justice more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]