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Longstanding debate over the Politicized Departure Hypothesis (PDH) asserts that federal judges arrange to retire under presidents of the same political party as the presidents who first appointed them, thereby giving that party the right to nominate their successor. PDH is important for assessing political party agency by judges, who receive no consequent personal benefit, and for explaining the long-term political party orientation of courts. Previous PDH studies suffer from absent data on known and unknown determinants of retirement timing and correlational rather than causal methods. To avoid both problems, we apply 11 sharp regression discontinuity (SRD) analyses to voluntary judicial departures before and after six elections (1920-2016) that replaced Democratic presidents with Republicans and five elections that replaced Republicans with Democrats. We contrast judicial decisions to retire, resign, or take senior status during the days before a regime-changing election with such decisions during an equal number of days after the inauguration of a president from the other party, with tests performed for periods approximating 6, 9, 12, 18 and 24 months. For pre-election and post-inauguration observation periods of 270 days, for example, the results of 10 of 11 analyses, including difference tests and difference-in-difference tests, are as predicted by PDH: judges were more likely to retire when the same party holds the presidency as when they were first appointed to the federal bench. Serendipitously, judges appointed by Republican presidents appear to respond more strongly than Democratic appointees to changes in the party holding the White House. We offer a novel explanation of PDH based on normative reciprocity in addition to ideology. We also suggest using politicized departure to examine effects of former judges’ political party agency on their prior judicial decisions.

As Chinese legal system follows a statutory tradition, the writing of Chinese judicial opinions is normally considered as an invariant sequential process of stating the law, presenting the fact, and finally providing the conclusion. The official ideology is further reinforced by the fact that Chinese judges need to follow various authoritative writing guidelines and templates prescribed by the official bodies of legal profession. This paper examines to what extent this ideology is a trustworthy description, and to what extent it is only an imagined myth related to the rhetorical practices of Chinese legal profession. Theoretical constructs employed in the study are genre, text type, and rhetorical modes, and analytical data include exemplar judicial opinions, intertextual legislative documents, and insiders’ accounts. According to the research findings, while the official ideology remains a strong shaping force in the composing of Chinese judicial opinions, Chinese judges do take compelling moves to add dialogic elements to the traditionally monologue-dominated discursive sphere of legal writing.

The question whether authoritarian regimes use transparency initiatives to improve public governance or only to perform window dressing remains open. To address it, we examine a recently promulgated transparency policy in China that mandates public access to all judicial opinions. We find that local courts fail to disclose more than 60% of their opinions in corporate litigation cases, measured against a baseline of publicly listed firms’ disclosure of their litigation, as required and enforced by the securities regulations. Instead of upholding judicial fairness, local courts disclose cases selectively, displaying favoritism and responding to private incentives. Courts are more likely to suppress the publication of their opinions when the firm involved in the litigation is state-owned or is the defendant in its home court, especially in the year before the promotion of the provincial party secretary. We also find that firms whose cases are disclosed by the courts undergo adverse economic consequences, signaling that they have fallen out of favor with the government.

Under what conditions will authoritarian courts issue decisions that constrain state actors? This study breaks new ground in authoritarianism research by explaining when authoritarian states are—and are not—held accountable to legal norms. I leverage evidence from interviews with Jordanian and Palestinian legal actors, original data on judicial decisions, and two years of fieldwork shadowing judges as they conducted business in the courthouse. I find that courts in Jordan and Palestine are hardly regime pawns, as judges routinely prioritize their own interests above those of regime elites. My results also demonstrate that lawsuits revealing instances of intra-state disunity are particularly good vehicles for expanding judicial authority over state activity and, further, that appellate courts are uniquely less capable of constraining state actors./abs>

This article examines the use of reflexive metadiscourse in majority and dissent opinions of the U.S Supreme Court (SCOTUS). In doing so, it deals with two largely overlooked phenomena in studies on judicial discourse and reflexive metadiscourse respectively. In relation to the former, it examines the phenomenon of separate opinions. In relation to the latter, it examines the discursive foci of reflexive metadiscourse in interactive written genres. Using two corpora, one containing 60 majority decisions (302,921 words in total); one containing 60 dissent opinions (223,149 words in total), the results show that judicial opinion writers used a similar overall amount of reflexive metadiscourse. The results also identify a number of significant differences in the frequency use of reflexive metadiscourse. In their use of reflexive metadiscourse, majority writers display a pronounced self-focus (i.e., focus on their own discourse); dissent writers display a pronounced other-focus (i.e., focus on the majority's discourse). Reflecting the overall trend identified, highly significant differences were also identified in the use of communicating, clarifying, and enumerating devices.

Esta nota de investigación identifica la cronología exacta de la publicación de uno de los ensayos más importantes de Andrés Bello, "Publicidad de los juicios", que apareció en el periódico chileno El Araucano en 1830, pero que se publicó originalmente sin atribución de autor en El Censor Americano en Londres en 1820. En esta nota se establece la autoría de Bello y se arguye que entre ambas publicaciones hay algunas diferencias importantes, que evidencian momentos históricos diferentes: la crítica, con mirada inglesa, a la revolución liberal en España en 1820, que restauró la Constitución de 1812 y la organización republicana de Chile en 1830. El elemento de continuidad es la transparencia de las decisiones judiciales, cualquiera sea el sistema político, monárquico constitucional, o constitucional-republicano.

Industrial design is a type of intellectual property that grants exclusive market rights over designs. Its analysis and possible grant are made by the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office, which is responsible for verifying compliance with the requirements established by Law No. 9,279/96. When, however, there is non-compliance with the decisions of the federal autarchy, the cases are taken to the Judiciary. The objective of this study is to make a critical analysis of the decision rendered by the Federal Regional Court of the 2nd Region in the trial of the cancellation of the industrial design registration BR 30 2013 006726-2 in the light of the Gestalt theory applied to the examination of the novelty and originality requirements. As results, it is pointed out evidences of the mismatch of the judicial decision. Moreover, it is proposed the adoption of the Gestalt methodology in the examination of similar issues.

The study deals with the politicization of the hooligan nature of the crime in the initial period of the functioning of this structure in the Polish social and legal reality after World War II. The political entanglement of such behaviors, their ideologization and perception through the prism of attacks on the foundations of the new socio-economic system was undoubtedly influenced by the origin of this circumstance. The politicization of hooligan behavior in the Soviet reality — from where this structure was transplanted into the native reality and ultimately the legal order — had had a long tradition at that time. Over two decades of experience in demonstrating the “class” nature of such behavior, its “counter-revolutionary” basis and the “anti-systemic” motivation of its perpetrators were reflected in the statements of some of the interpreters of hooliganism in Poland at the turn of the 1940s and 1950s. Analyzing the literature and judicial decisions from this period, attention was drawn to the scale of the politicized exegesis of this concept and its reminiscences in the later periods of its functioning in the domestic criminal law system. At the same time, the exponential trend was not omitted, which more or less firmly disregarded the relationship between hooliganism and politics.

Este artículo fue elaborado con el propósito de examinar la penalización sobre la mutilación genital femenina en Sudán, como instrumento para catalizar la protección de derechos humanos de las mujeres en este territorio. Con este propósito, fue elaborado un estudio sobre Derecho Internacional de los Derechos Humanos bajo el enfoque cualitativo de la investigación, desarrollado con diseño documental, estructurado en función de la revisión de textos periodísticos, doctrinales, jurisprudenciales y normativos, los cuales fueron útiles para conocer los conceptos esenciales, consecuencias y mecanismos de acción vinculados a la ablación en las féminas. Se determinó que la práctica estudiada se aplica por razones de carácter cultural, provoca en las mujeres secuelas físicas y psíquicas, mientras que representa por todo ello una violación de sus derechos fundamentales. También se dedujo que existe amplia variedad de textos jurídicos promotores de los derechos naturales a nivel internacional, y persiguen la protección contra este procedimiento, por lo que, Sudán ha hecho lo correcto al modificar su legislación para adecuarla a instrumentos normativos integrados a los parámetros de la comunidad interestatal.

In most countries of the world, the principle of motivation of court decisions is enshrined in the constitution as a constitutional guarantee inherent in the rule of law, so the jurisdiction of the state has a legal obligation to motivate the decisions of the constitutional jurisdiction. The motivation of the jurisdictional acts adopted by the Constitutional Court provides for the restriction of the powers exercised by a judge, which requires the proper application of the principle of legality, demonstrating that the former did not violate fundamental rights.The obligation to motivate is also conditioned by other principles of judicial procedure, which are explained by the Constitution and other procedural norms, and which, thanks to this principle, the parties have the opportunity to control the procedure of judicial proceedings in accordance with the law. Motivation has both a political function and a procedural guarantee. As a political function, the motivation of court decisions goes beyond the process, reaching the same people on whose behalf the decision is made, which legitimizes it as a typical act of a democratic regime. As a procedural guarantee, it takes into account the internal or technical dynamics of the process, providing the parties with a formal mechanism for reviewing judicial decisions, in order to meet certain needs for rationalization and efficiency of jurisdictional activities.The principle of mandatory motivation of court decisions is part of the constitutional order and is a guarantee for the citizen against arbitrary decisions. According to this principle, the judge must explain the reasons for his conviction on the basis of rational aspects. The decision issued by the judicial body must be substantiated, demonstrate factual and legal truth on the basis of evidence.The application of mandatory reasons for court decisions provides legal certainty, as it is enshrined in a number of other constitutional grounds, including access to justice, due process, a conflicting system and broad protection.

The article analyzes the problem of the relationship between the provisions of constitutions and international treaties in constitutional law. Its solution often depends on the prevailing doctrine and case law of the constitutional courts regarding the application of the latter in the light of constitutional principles and rules. This is important for substantiation and decision-making by constitutional justice bodies. In this case, the problem is to decide whether the provisions of international treaties comply with the constitutional order and whether the constitutional justice authorities will use the provisions of international treaties in their activities and borrow elements of argumentation of international jurisdictions. This is the subject of heated debate, especially with the establishment of the European Economic Communities, although there is a specific relationship between international and national law, between supranational and national legal orders, as the nature of the EU is supranational and multilevel.Based on the experience of the constitutional justice bodies, arguments are presented that despite quite contradictory approaches, such can be unified by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. This can be achieved provided that he solves these problems through the prism of fundamental principles of law, thus ensuring the supremacy of the Constitution of Ukraine and the national identity of Ukraine in the legal geography of the world. The components of such a process are the application by the ССU of the principle of friendly attitude to international law and taking into account national interests, constitutional principles of territorial integrity and independence of Ukraine, human rights guarantees and compliance with due process. The study of Ukraine’s European integration in the light of constitutional principles should be based on the protection of the above values and the effectiveness of human rights, the balance of private and public interests. In the light of harmonization of legislation under the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, the acquis commumautaires of the European Communities should also be taken into account, in particular the case law of the Court of Justice of EU, which can be used as a basis for reasoning public administration and judicial decisions.

The objective of the article was to determine the essence and legal implementation in Russia of principles such as: independence of the judiciary, relative truth, contradictory nature, legal certainty of judicial acts and discretion. In the countries of the Roman-Germanic legal order, it is no coincidence that legal principles are of great scientific and applied importance. The presence of a certain system of procedural principles makes it possible to assess the existence of justice in the country, the stability of a judicial decision and the fairness of judicial acts. Thus, the principles of the law directly affect the level of legality in each state. Currently, some procedural principles give rise to a discussion in Russian doctrine about their essence and content. The topic is presented from the point of view of general scientific methods (systems analysis, structural and functional, historical), the method of theoretical analysis, specific scientific methods (comparative jurisprudence, technical and legal analysis, concretization, interpretation). The theoretical basis was cognitive theory. It is concluded that the principle of the independence of the judiciary is not fully operational in the Russian Federation.

Muitas vezes o Poder Judiciário é provocado a se manifestar sobre questões extremamente controversas, que dividem tanto a opinião pública quanto a dos governantes e parlamentares. As decisões proferidas em tais casos podem gerar reações de descontentamento por parte da sociedade, do Poder Legislativo e do Executivo, que se utilizam de diversos meios para demonstrar sua insurgência contra o resultado apresentado pelo órgão julgador. Essas reações adversas são denominadas de backlash, expressão atribuída ao fenômeno supracitado pelo direito norte-americano. No presente artigo, será realizada uma análise do que é o backlash, bem como quais foram as principais reações legislativas verificadas no direito brasileiro até hoje. A pesquisa utilizou o método hipotético-dedutivo, partindo da teoria constitucional sobre influência de fatores externos nas decisões judiciais, para, em seguida, analisar o caso específico da ocorrência de reações legislativas a duas decisões proferidas pelo Supremo Tribunal Federal. As técnicas de pesquisa utilizadas consistem em pesquisa bibliográfica e jurisprudencial. Por fim, conclui-se que que o fenômeno do backlash é de suma importância em uma Estado Democrático, desde que haja uma corte constitucional atuante exercendo o papel contramajoritário.

Los efectos irreversibles producidos por el cambio climático y por el nivel sin precedentes de degradación ambiental no es natural es debido a la crisis del sistema de producción y consumo imperante, y del fracaso del derecho Estatal ambiental tradicional. La Naturaleza como sujeto de derechos ha comenzado a recibir atención en los últimos años, en algunas normas constitucionales, leyes ordinarias, y en sentencias judiciales. La riqueza de muchos de estos cambios legales está basada en la perspectiva integral del entendimiento de que, no es la Tierra la que pertenece al hombre; es el hombre el que pertenece a esta. Queda mucho por avanzar, como las reflexiones de los derechos de la naturaleza desde una relectura de la categoría ancestral de la Pachamama sujeto de derechos, propuesta que ha nacido desde las poblaciones originarias de América Latina, quienes participan poco en el nuevo diálogo del constitucionalismo andino. Este nuevo proceso requiere la inclusión de las diferentes formas de pensar, de sentir, de actuar, desde un enfoque de la ecología de saberes y la interculturalidad para mejorar la situación presente y crear colectivamente el futuro.

The subject. The main issues of law enforcement activity on the application of administrative punishment in the form of administrative suspension of operations for identified offenses in the field of industrial safety of hazardous production facilities.The purpose of the article is to confirm or disprove hypothesis that Russian legislation allows the resumption of activities after the expiration of the period of its suspension without eliminating violations of industrial safety.The methodology of research is logical analysis of Russian legislation, statistical data and judicial decisions concerning enforcement of administrative suspension of operations in Russia.The main results. There is an ambiguous approach in the scientific literature to fixing the administrative suspension of operations in the system of administrative penalties. The effectiveness of its application is noted by some authors. At the same time, there are adverse consequences associated with the application of administrative suspension of operations for the further production activities of economic entities. Social tension in the collective of enterprises, difficulties of recovery after forced downtime, unclear prospects for further economic activity – this is not a complete list of problems arising in connection with the administrative suspension of activity. When making a court decision, judges often appoint a fine as a penalty and rarely a penalty in the form of suspension of operations. This is due to the complexity of the actual realization of suspension of operations, the special social significance of objects; the lack of a specialist's conclusion about the real danger of an offense. But if violations of industrial safety are detected during the operation of hazardous production facilities, it is initially possible to assume a high probability of serious consequences for the life and health of people, the environmental safety. Administrative suspension of activities is carried out by both judicial and non-judicial control authorities. In authors’ opinion, the application of this type of administrative punishment should be exclusively in the judicial jurisdiction. The law enforcement judicial practice concerning administrative suspension of operations in Russia is not uniform.Conclusions. There is a legal uncertainty in the mechanism of imposing administrative punishment in the form of administrative suspension of operations for violations of industrial safety of hazardous production facilities (Article 9.1 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offences). The uncertainty is manifested in the fact that the economic entity does not always eliminate the detected violations within the legally established period and after the expiration of the period for which the activity was suspended, the company resumes its activities nevertheless. Such opportunity reduces the preventive value of this punishment.

This work intends to investigate the different conceptions—accommodation and laicization—that underlie processes of legislative regulation and judicial decision in matters of conflicts involving the right to religious freedom, in the legal systems of North America and Brazil. We will also investigate the potential for harmonization of legal in conflicts with other fundamental rights. The objective here is to build possibilities in order to establish a synthesis meaning for the right of religious freedom, in accordance with the democratic constitutional models of law to begin with, the recent modulations which allowed the fundamental right to religious freedom, especially from the edition of some US federal and state legislation, as well as from a set of decisions taken by Brazilian courts. As a corollary of these modulations, the article intends to assess the consequences that these new laws and judicial decisions caused in the legal system, through social andinstitutional democratic practices related to any fundamental rights. We used the dialectical method, since the idea and the foundation of the right to religious freedom follow a three-stage approach: thesis (religious freedom in its original sense and secularized conception), antithesis (right to religious freedom as a possibility to act in the exercise of belief, by claiming accommodation with other rights), and synthesis (the perspective to elaborate a proper sense to liberal democracies). Initial results indicate that both models based on secularization and accommodation can generate democratic and undemocratic meanings to the right of religious freedom; both models can either harmonize conflicting rights or escalate social antagonisms.

EnglishAn ever larger part of the doctrine is strongly in favour of definitively breaking with the French tradition of a downgraded, subordinated or even “negated” judicial power. Here, we argue that this demand of recognition of a genuine judicial power in France can be seen as a demand for a change in substantiating theory: as our judicial system is globally based on a limit of the normative power of judges, this would amount to basing it on the opposite notion. Such an upheaval would have serious consequences, both on the way the judicial order as a whole is legitimized and on the way each judicial decision should be individually justified. francaisUne partie de plus en plus importante de la doctrine plaide ardemment pour que l’on rompe definitivement avec la tradition francaise d’un pouvoir judiciaire relegue, subordonne, voire « refuse ». L’hypothese retenue ici est que cette demande de reconnaissance d’un veritable pouvoir judiciaire en France peut etre analysee comme la revendication d’un changement de theorie justificative : alors que notre systeme juridique reste globalement fonde sur une minimisation du pouvoir normatif des juges, il s’agirait de le faire reposer sur l’idee inverse. Or un tel bouleversement serait lourd de consequences, a la fois quant a la facon dont l’ordre juridique dans son ensemble est legitime, et quant a la maniere dont chaque decision juridictionnelle doit etre individuellement justifiee.

Despite the fact that crime and punishment are personal, in answer to the question of whether other persons besides the perpetrators of the crime are responsible? According to the circumstances, a positive answer can be given. Over time, with the qualitative growth of laws, Vicarious liability was formed. Until 2013, the criminal liability of legal entities existed exceptionally in scattered laws. Legal doctrine has proposed different theories in this regard, which in general can be divided into two categories: "Fault doctrine" and " Risk doctrine ". Iranian law, according to the votes of the courts before and after the Islamic Revolution, is more inclined to the first theory; At the same time, in a few votes, the opposite opinion can be seen. The purpose of this study is to investigate the status of the principle of criminal liability due to other behavior in Iranian law which is obtained based on the method of describing and analyzing legal materials and judicial opinions.

A dolgozat vizsgálódásának fókuszába eső kérdéskör az elítéltek vagy egyéb jogcímen fogvatartottak alapvető jogait sértő elhelyezési körülmények miatti sérelemdíj iránti igények joggyakorlata. Ezzel összefüggésben a taglalt téma jellegéből fakadóan kettős kutatási kérdés került megfogalmazásra. Az első polgári jogi jellegű, s arra irányul, hogy a joggyakorlatban milyen felperesi, alperesi és bírósági attitűdök, tendenciák jelennek meg az elhelyezési körülményekkel összefüggő sérelemdíj kapcsán. A második a büntetés-végrehajtás tárgykörét érinti, s elválaszthatatlanul következik az elsőből: a bírói gyakorlatból milyen, a magyar büntetés-végrehajtási körülményeket jellemző sajátosságok tárhatóak fel. Ezek megválaszolása empirikus kutatásmódszertant igényel. Ennek megfelelően 91 darab 2014 és 2020 közötti ítéletet dolgoztam fel átfogó jelleggel. Ez nem jelent mást, minthogy a dolgozat bemutatja a sérelemdíj jogintézménye szempontjából releváns teljes időszakot, azaz a felperesi, alperesi és bírósági karakterisztikák nemcsak pontszerűen, hanem fejlődési ívükben kerülnek ismertetésre. Dolgozatomban először a felperesi kereseteket taglalom: részletezem, hogy mire irányul a kereseti kérelmük, melyik személyiségi jogaikat vélik sérülni, illetve milyen létbeli jelenségekre alapozzák a jogsértést. Második pontként vizsgálom az alperesi ellenkérelmeket illetően, hogy a büntetés-végrehajtási intézetek milyen jogi érvekkel kívánják alátámasztani, hogy nem követtek el jogsértést, vagy hogy velük szemben sérelemdíj kiszabására nincs lehetőség. Ezek után térek rá a bírói gyakorlat vizsgálatára. Először azt részletezem, hogy a bíróságok miként kezelik a megállapítási kereseteket, vagyis a jogsértés meg- vagy meg nem történtének kérdését. Majd bemutatom a marasztalási kereseteket, amelyek kapcsán a bíróságok szerint releváns felelősségi rezsimet, illetve az annak megfelelő részkövetelményeket taglalom. Ezek után kitérek a sérelemdíj és az elhelyezési körülményekkel összefüggő kártalanítás mátrixára, bemutatom a két jogintézmény viszonyrendszerét és az egyes elhatárolási pontokat. Végül sor kerül a kutatási kérdések megválaszolására. A polgári jogi kérdés kapcsán egy ideális modellt vázolok fel, amelyben az egyes eljárási szereplők megfelelő hivatkozásokat tesznek és döntéseket hoznak. Ezek révén a felperes biztosítani tudja, hogy a sérelmei miatt a jogsértést megállapítsák, valamint számára sérelemdíjat ítéljenek meg. Az alperes a modell követésével elérheti, hogy a megítélt sérelemdíj összege minél kisebb legyen, a bíróság pedig helyes dogmatikai alapokra helyezkedhet. A büntetés-végrehajtási kérdés kapcsán pedig megoldási javaslatokkal élek, amik mentén felszámolhatóak lennének az alapvető jogokat sértő elhelyezési körülmények.

A Lei nº 10.216/2001 surgiu dentro de um processo de reorientação do modelo assistencial brasileiro em saúde mental. Dentre os diversos debates possíveis a partir da referida legislação, opta-se, no presente estudo, pela análise do instituto da internação compulsória, que é aquela determinada pela Justiça. Nesse sentido, o artigo apresenta os resultados de uma pesquisa que teve como objetivo fazer um mapeamento das decisões judiciais proferidas no Tribunal de Justiça do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, entre 2001 e 2016, em processos de internação compulsória. A análise verificou a quantidade de processos de internação compulsória em cada ano, o perfil das pessoas passíveis de um processo de internação e o perfil de quem solicita a internação. Concluiu-se que, em geral, os pedidos de internação compulsória são solicitados pelos próprios familiares do internado, e que este, na maioria das vezes, é classificado nos processos como usuário de drogas.

We investigate whether judicial decisions are affected by career concerns of judges by analysing two questions: Do judges respond to pandering incentives by ruling in favour of the government in the hope of receiving jobs after retiring from the Court? Does the government actually reward judges who ruled in its favour with prestigious jobs? To answer these questions we construct a dataset of all Supreme Court of India cases involving the government from 1999 till 2014, with an indicator for whether the decision was in its favour or not. We find that pandering incentives have a causal effect on judicial decision-making. The exposure of a judge to pandering incentives in a case is jointly determined by 1) whether the case is politically salient (exogenously determined by a system of random allocation of cases) and 2) whether the judge retires with enough time left in a government’s term to be rewarded with a prestigious job (date of retirement is exogenously determined by law to be their 65th birthday). We find that pandering occurs through through the more active channel of writing favourable judgements rather than passively being on a bench that decides a case in favour of the government. Furthermore, we find that deciding in favour of the government is positively associated with both the likelihood and the speed with which judges are appointed to prestigious post-Supreme Court jobs. These findings suggest the presence of corruption in the form government influence over judicial decision-making that seriously undermines judicial independence.

Las demandas de inconstitucionalidad hacen parte del ejercicio democrático mediante el cual el ciudadano acude a la jurisdicción constitucional, en busca de proponer por parte de la Corte el análisis de una norma que se acusa de contradecir la Constitución. Las universidades del país son invitadas a participar en el trámite inicial que surte la demanda, con el propósito de proporcionar su interpretación jurídica entre la norma demandada y la Constitución Política. Este ejercicio previo a la decisión final de la Corte Constitucional se ha convertido en un espacio valioso de expresión de la voz académica en el contexto práctico de una decisión judicial. El lector encontrará a continuación, el concepto proyectado por la profesora Sandra Bibiana Vargas Castro y presentado por Hernando A. Hernández Quintero, decano de la Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Políticas, en representación de esta unidad académica en el trámite de la demanda de inconstitucionalidad de la norma dispuesta en el artículo 223 de la Ley 906 de 2004 “Por la cual se expide el Código de Procedimiento Penal”. Esta controversia jurídica fue resuelta mediante la Sentencia C-480-20 que puede ser consultada aquí.

The study of law and information technology comes with an inherent contradiction in that while technology develops rapidly and embraces notions such as internationalization and globalization, traditional law, for the most part, can be slow to react to technological developments and is also predominantly confined to national borders. However, the notion of the rule of law defies the phenomenon of law being bound to national borders and enjoys global recognition. However, a serious threat to the rule of law is looming in the form of an assault by technological developments within artificial intelligence (AI). As large strides are made in the academic discipline of AI, this technology is starting to make its way into digital decision-making systems and is in effect replacing human decision-makers. A prime example of this development is the use of AI to assist judges in making judicial decisions. However, in many circumstances this technology is a ‘black box’ due mainly to its complexity but also because it is protected by law. This lack of transparency and the diminished ability to understand the operation of these systems increasingly being used by the structures of governance is challenging traditional notions underpinning the rule of law. This is especially so in relation to concepts especially associated with the rule of law, such as transparency, fairness and explainability. This article examines the technology of AI in relation to the rule of law, highlighting the rule of law as a mechanism for human flourishing. It investigates the extent to which the rule of law is being diminished as AI is becoming entrenched within society and questions the extent to which it can survive in the technocratic society.

Human dignity has become a central legal concept throughout the world and is increasingly used in judicial decisions in many countries that do not include it in their national legislation. However, due to the acknowledged vagueness of the concept, academics and judges have identified many difficulties in its implementation and the specific challenges it poses to the rule of law. Consequently, from a documentary methodology this article tries to develop and propose, from the analysis of different philosophical approaches to the definition of human dignity, a series of principles that can be applied in judicial decisions to achieve a deep common understanding of the usefulness of human dignity and, at the same time, tries to solve problems that are now widely recognized, both by supporters and critics of the judicial use of this concept. It is concluded that the concept of human dignity must have a decisive influence on the formation, not only of substantive law but also of procedural law. It must become a criterion for the need for measures to prevent the abuse of procedural rights, the distortion of justice and the deliberate evasion of its main task.

Lord Sumption, a former Justice of the Supreme Court, has been a prominent critic of coronavirus restrictions regulations in the UK. Since the start of the pandemic, he has consistently questioned both the policy aims and the regulatory methods of the Westminster government. He has also challenged rationales that hold that all lives are of equal value. In this paper, I explore and question Lord Sumption’s views on morality, politics and law, querying the coherence of his broad philosophy and his arguments regarding coronavirus regulations with his judicial decision in the assisted-dying case of R (Nicklinson) v Ministry of Justice. In Nicklinson, Lord Sumption argued for restrictions on liberty given the priority of the sanctity of life principle and the protection of others who may be vulnerable, as well as for deference to policy-making institutions in instances of values-based disagreement. The apparent inconsistencies in his positions, I argue, are not clearly reconcilable, and invite critical analysis of his impacts on health law and policy.

El cuestionamiento de la subjetividad del agente legal que, ejecutando sus labores y basada en discrecionalidad judicial imprime aspectos particulares como emociones, propios de la esencia humana en la sentencia, es el tema central de este artículo. Con la implementación de nuevos actores como jueces digitales, estos aspectos adquieren un papel relevante por quien ahora se encarga de deliberar. El objetivo del artículo es evaluar el papel de la subjetividad, inicialmente desde el rol de jueces y/o juezas, para luego involucrar programadores y programadoras de inteligencia artificial que asisten tareas en la toma de decisiones judiciales. ¿Qué pasa con la subjetividad que ya no impregna directamente el encargado de juzgar? En otras palabras, la empatía que genera en la actualidad el agente judicial encuentra nuevos aliados con quienes trabajan mancomunadamente. El análisis está basado en artículos que profundizan temas como decisiones judiciales, emociones e inteligencia artificial. Temáticas trabajadas desde conocedores de ciencias como derecho y tecnología que unifican esfuerzos para dar origen a conocimiento superior artificial. Al procesar grandes volúmenes de información emanan una sentencia, que en vector doctrinal anhela mantener certeza jurídica y cumplir con buenas prácticas que ocasionen en la sociedad aceptación y legitimidad

The first chapter of the paper elaborates the question of whether one of the constitutive elements of the internationally wrongful act and a precondition for responsibility could be embodied in an existence of damage that has to be inflicted upon participants with international legal personality. In this regards legal doctrine, the arbitral awards, international judgments as well as the works of the UN International Law Commission will be examined, particularly the Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts and the Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organisations from 2001 and 2011, respectively. An interesting question could be raised concerning the terms used in Law on Responsibility and that is whether there is a difference between damage, injury, and unlawful consequence. Punitive or penal damage and its application in Law on Responsibility will be further assessed. The author will begin its research with the definition of punitive damage, and will further take into consideration international legal doctrine, international arbitral awards, judicial decisions of international courts, decisions of various claims commissions as well as norms of general international law in supporting his hypothesis that international law does not entail reparations for punitive damages. One of the aims of this paper is to indicate the question of whether the existence of punitive damages in international law, if any, be linked to a legal nature of State and international organization responsibility, in the sense that application of punitive damages in international law would support the thesis on the very existence of criminal responsibility of the named subjects of international law? It is interesting to note that the criminal responsibility of states has been abandoned by the removal of Article 19 in the final Draft Articles on Responsibility of States.

The subject of study is the criminal-legal basis for an expedited procedure for adopting a court ruling when the accused person agrees with the charge. These issues are relevant, since in July 2020 the substantive legal basis of the expedited procedure in Russia was changed and now this procedure can only be applied in criminal cases of small and medium gravity.The aim of this work is to study the substantive legal basis of an expedited procedure of litigation from the point of view of the changes were made to it. The author expresses the thesis that the legislators did not quite reasonably link criminal-legal grounds of the expedited procedure with the system of categories of crimes.The methodology. The author used general scientific methods (dialectical, historical, methods of formal logic, system analysis) as well as method of formal legal interpretation of Russian Criminal Code and judicial decisions of Russian courts.The main results, scope of application. The criminal and legal basis of certain criminal procedure is a package of criminal law standards, for the implementation of which a certain criminal and procedural form is intended. The parameters of the substantive basis of criminal proceedings are set with the signs that shall be indicated in the Code of Criminal Procedure and may change. It directly refers to the expedited procedure for adopting a court ruling, by Chapter 40 of the Russian Criminal Procedure Code. Initially, it was assumed that the application of this procedure is permissible in criminal cases concerning crimes the punishment for which does not exceed 5 years imprisonment in accordance with the Russian Criminal Code. The expedited court proceedings began to be applied in criminal cases concerning crimes, the punishment for which does not exceed 10 years imprisonment in accordance with the Russian Criminal Code, since 2003. The Russian Supreme Court made an attempt to reduce the application of court proceedings provided by Chapter 40 of the Russian Criminal Procedure Code in 2019. It turned out to be successful. Legislators have changed the basic criterion that determines the substantive basis for an expedited procedure for adopting a court ruling. Now the system of categories of crimes is this basis. The system of categories of crimes presented in Article 15 of the Russian Criminal Code is not stable enough and is based on a set of provisions of this Code, but the sanctions for many crimes are not scientifically and practically grounded in this Code. In addition, the classification of crimes enshrined in Article 15 of the Russian Criminal Code is based on such a criterion as the nature and degree of public danger of the crime. These categories are among the most complex in the science of criminal law.Conclusions. The use of categories of crimes as a criterion for determining the criminal legal basis of the expedited procedure for making a court decision significantly complicates the application of the expedited procedure.

This paper focuses on the study of Ronald Dworkin and Human dignity as the highest constitutional value. Ronald Myles Dworkin (1931-2013), a famous American philosopher, jurist, and scholar of the United States constitutional law believes that constitutional provisions are permeated with moral principles and that human dignity is an intrinsic constitutional value, and that it must be consideredin judicial decisions. Dworkin has his concept of rights, arguing that rights constitute claims against the state,and he espouses the idea that it is forbidden to sacrifice individual needs and preferences to achieve the public interest. That is, there are rights that the state cannot derogate from or violate, whatever the rationalizations and justifications. Dworkincategorically affirms that people have the right to be treated with dignity and that rights have an exceptional moral force that stems from the importance of human dignity, and that leads to preventing the formulation and implementation of specific policies even if they aim to enhance the general welfare of society. Consequently, his thoughts and reflections in this regard constitute a solid philosophical basis for the recognition of human dignity as the highest constitutional value.

O objetivo da pesquisa é investigar a utilização dogmática do direito fundamental à liberdade religiosa como legitimador do discurso de ódio contra as minorias sexuais. A escolha do tema se justifica em razão da relevância teórica, prática e atualidade do debate, haja vista que o direito à diferença, como corolário da igualdade, dignidade humana e não-discriminação devem ser os referenciais hermenêuticos de interpretação e aplicabilidade dos direitos fundamentais no Estado Democrático de Direito. Absolutizar o exercício da liberdade religiosa, utilizando-a como meio de reprodução do discurso de ódio contra minorias sexuais, constitui uma forma de utilização da ciência do direito para segregar, excluir e marginalizar pessoas que não aderem aos padrões binários de uma heteronormatividade compulsória. Por meio da pesquisa bibliográfica e documental, além das análises temáticas, teóricas, interpretativas, críticas e comparativas, foi possível demonstrar e concluir que a decisão judicial brasileira que proibiu a apresentação de peça de teatro em que uma mulher trans protagoniza a pessoa de Jesus Cristo, assim como a decisão da Suprema Corte dos EUA, que legitimou o direito de um homem confeiteiro se recusar a fazer um bolo de casamento para um casal gay, por razões religiosas, deixam claro o protagonismo e a discricionariedade judicial, visto que tais decisões pautam-se em razões metajurídicas e solipsistas para robustecer a reprodução estrutural do discurso de ódio contra as minorias sexuais.

In China, public policy is commonly defined as “social and public interest” or “public interest”, the understanding and boundaries of which are rather vague, which gives the court more a broad discretion in applying the public policy rule. The article examines the content and development of public order in the legislation of China. The author analyses the practice of application the public policy rule in China and provides statistical data about the ground for refusal of Chinese courts to enforce international commercial arbitration awards based on the information obtained from public databases containing Chinese court decisions. The author also provides examples of court decisions denying recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitration awards in mainland China and summarizes the rules for application by the Chinese people’s courts of the public policy rule, established in judicial decisions, and the tendencies in the development of China’s approach towards international commercial arbitration.

Este artigo explora a diversidade de carreiras no Tribunal de Justiça do Estado de São Paulo (TJSP) para abordar o papel das carreiras jurídicas na resposta das decisões judiciais à reforma do sistema de medidas cautelares penais introduzida pela Lei no 12.403 de 2011. O diploma restringiu as prisões cautelares, exigindo fundamentação e impondo a aplicação prioritária de medidas cautelares alternativas. Sua intenção era frear as crescentes taxas de encarceramento, tema de grande saliência entre os juristas. A constituição brasileira reserva 80% dos assentos em tribunais de apelação para juízes de carreira, 10% para advogados e 10% para promotores. Na prática, porém, as vagas em painéis juntamente com atrasos aumentaram significativamente a participação de juízes substitutos de segundo grau em painéis de apelação – que atuaram como relatores em até 14% de todos os recursos criminais em São Paulo entre 2009 e 2013. Os ex-advogados e procuradores são nomeados pelo governador do estado após processos de nomeação na Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil (OAB) e no Ministério Público (MP). Tais juízes são escolhidos a critério do conselho superior do tribunal, não retêm as prerrogativas dos juízes de recurso efetivos e normalmente são contratados com o objetivo de reduzir atrasos. Seu desempenho afeta suas chances de ser promovidos ao tribunal de apelações, relativamente a juízes semelhantes que não foram designados. Com base em um grande conjunto de dados de recursos criminais relacionados a crimes de roubo no estado de São Paulo, este estudo explora a atribuição exógena de casos a relatores para identificar os impactos da reforma penal contingentes ao tipo de desembargador. Com base em um modelo de escolha discreta que contempla efeitos fixos de órgão julgador e de tempo, analisa-se a probabilidade de decisões favoráveis ao réu em recursos criminais, especialmente nas classes de recurso em sentido estrito, habeas corpus e agravos de execução penal. Busca-se aliviar o problema da seleção de casos excluindo da amostra os recursos distribuídos por prevenção ao magistrado. Os resultados indicam que, a despeito da clara intenção do legislador em reduzir as taxas de encarceramento de réus não julgados, relatores que são juízes substitutos em segundo grau ou que têm origem no MP (quinto constitucional) apresentam resposta à reforma das cautelares fortemente contrária aos interesses dos réus. Discute-se o significado dos resultados à luz de elementos relativos às preferências dos juízes (modelo atitudinal) e também a influência política sobre a justiça, em prol de política criminal vigente.

Introduction. The article presents a study of the legal category of "impartiality" of a judge in the administration of justice. Until recently, the concept of impartiality was identified exclusively with reason (rationality), where there was no place for the study of emotions. There is a point of view in legal positivism that the term "impartiality" is a state of consciousness in which the possibility of expressing emotions is excluded. However in recent decades Western scientific publications have revived interest in the knowledge of emotions in law which bypasses the consideration of the emotional theory of ethical phenomena by L. I. Petrazhitsky. In this regard the author of the article, first, conducted a study of the concept of impartiality of a judge based on the analysis of international documents and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Secondly, the author reviewed the Russian legislation which regulates the features of the term "impartiality" in the administration of justice. Third, the term "impartiality" was analyzed through the prism of the main concepts of emotions in law. Materials and methods. The methodological basis of the study is characterized by the following methods: 1) general (dialectics); 2) general scientific (analysis, synthesis, system and functional approaches); 3) private scientific (formal-legal and comparative-legal); 4) problem-theoretical reconstruction. Results of the study. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that the author of the article not only analyzed the formal features of the term "impartiality" based on the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights but also studied the nature of impartiality through the prism of modern approaches to emotions in law and classified them. As a result of the study, the following conclusions are made, which, among other things, are of practical importance: 1) impartiality in making the justice can be objective and subjective; 2) the basis for impartial decision-making by a judge can be: a) exclusively, the reason (formal-rationalistic approach);b) the reason and emotions with the dominance of the former and the negative consequences of the latter for the process of making a legal decision (irrational approach); c) reason and emotions, which are not opposed to each other, but interact with each other as equivalent components in the formation of a judicial decision (cognitive approach); d) imperative and attributive emotions, which are the source of law (ethical and legal approach). Discussion and conclusion. It is proved that the impartiality of the judge's personality is formed not only by intellectual, moral, and volitional spheres, but also by emotional ones, where the latter includes conscientiousness and receptivity. It is precisely the judges' behavior, their decision-making, that determines their beliefs based on conscience, which is the source of true law, called intuitive law.

Artificial intelligence can bring benefits to legal practice, providing agility and precision. It can allow judicial decisions to be the result of the combination of algorithms, enabling the development of a system based on machine learning. This article seeks to demonstrate the current state of the use of artificial intelligence in the Brazilian justice system with the impact of the development of a deep learning system, merely the result of the automation of textual analyses of legal cases, which now serve as models. Reflection is more than necessary given the ethical issues that can arise in view of the inherent precepts that are usually impregnated in the judicial function. Civil servants, lawyers, prosecutors and judges should be guided by a pertinent regulation of new technologies and reflect on whether judicial decisions would be the result of human thinking or not, in addition to the risk that they can carry when the models are biased, in good or bad faith, due to erroneous classification or misinformation in the system.

En este trabajo, basado en la jurisprudencia reciente del Tribunal de Justicia de la Unión Europea, del Tribunal de Derechos Humanos y de la literatura sobre el tema, se describe el principio de confianza mutua en relación con el nivel de protección de los derechos fundamentales, y en particular con el derecho a un juicio justo, en los Estados miembros. El principio de la confianza mutua como «piedra angular» de toda la cooperación judicial en el Espacio de Libertad, Seguridad y Justicia de la Unión Europea dimana de la convicción mutua de que el Estado de Derecho es el fundamento de la integración europea. Mientras tanto, el Tribunal de Justicia de la UE se ha ocupado recientemente de cinco casos relativos a la independencia del poder judicial polaco104. De ello se desprende que Polonia no respeta plenamente el principio de protección jurídica efectiva expresado en el párrafo 1 del artículo 19 del Tratado de Funcionamiento de la Unión Europea. Además, tampoco garantiza el derecho a un juicio justo según el artículo 47 de la Carta de Derechos Fundamentales de la UE. Por consiguiente, se plantea la cuestión de los límites de la confianza mutua entre las autoridades judiciales de la UE cuando un Estado miembro no respeta las normas reconocidas por los demás. En el caso C-216/18 PPU, LM, el Tribunal se refirió por primera vez, mediante un fallo preliminar, a los cambios sistémicos en el sistema de justicia de Polonia que socavaban la confianza del tribunal irlandés que ejecutaba la orden de detención europea según las normas procesales polacas. Motivado por la jurisprudencia de Estrasburgo y las posiciones de los tribunales de los Estados miembros, el Tribunal aceptó la revisión judicial dispersa del respeto de los derechos fundamentales en los Estados miembros de la UE. Basándose en sus decisiones en los casos: C-411/10 y C-493/10 N.S. y C-404/15, Aranyosi y Căldăraru, el Tribunal en el caso del PPU, LM indicó los pasos a seguir por el tribunal de ejecución de la orden de detención europea en caso de dudas sobre la imparcialidad del juicio en el estado emisor. En los casos analizados a este respecto involucrando a Polonia, el Tribunal, por una parte, contrarrestó el riesgo deuna suspensión general de la confianza mutua en relación con uno de los miembros de la Unión Europea y, por otra parte, contrarrestó el riesgode normas diferentes de protección del derecho fundamental a un juicio justo. En conclusión, corresponde a los tribunales nacionales examinar con equidad si el tribunal del Estado miembro cuya decisión procesal les corresponde ejecutar ha llevado a cabo todos los actos exigidos de conformidad con la letra de la ley. La jurisprudencia en los casos polacos refuerza la convicción de esos tribunales nacionales de que la presunción de observancia del derecho a un juicio justo en Polonia es refutable, por lo que la confianza en las normas procesales polacas debe ser limitada.

This essay, for a symposium issue of the Federal Sentencing Reporter dedicated to the impact of Judge Jack Weinstein on the occasion of his retirement from the federal bench, highlights how Judge Weinstein has re-imagined the role of the district court judge. Through his judicial opinions, extrajudicial writings and speeches, and his innovative use of the court’s supervisory authority, Judge Weinstein has challenged, and in some cases altered, the status quo in the realm of criminal sentencing. In doing so, he has established a forceful example of how district court judges can use their position to advocate for and effect reform more broadly in the system they are called upon to administer – an example that some other judges already have embraced. In his scholarship, Judge Weinstein also has turned his critical lens inward and examined whether this work is consistent with the judicial role. He concludes that it is, but offers valuable guidance for other judges considering following in his footsteps for how to do so in a way that minimizes concerns about partiality. In the end, Judge Weinstein concludes that such work is not only permissible but required when judges perceive injustice. Few will be as creative, prolific, or persuasive as Judge Weinstein has been. But he leaves behind a fully articulated vision of an active district court judge and invites other judges to consider the kind of judge they want to be given the limits and possibilities that accompany their position. https://doi.org/10.1525/fsr.2021.33.3.163

Judicial decisions in the law and Sharia are implemented by following two methods, either voluntarily by the free will of the convicted person, or driven by fear of compulsory execution, and it is the second method carried out by the judiciary, by forcing the convicted person to implement the required consequent commitments and cries. The problem of this study lies In the adequacy of the legal texts and Islamic Sharia in finding solutions to implement judicial rulings and decisions, researchers will follow the descriptive and analytical approach, and the comparative approach whenever possible, and the researchers have reached set of results and recommendations, the most important of which was: The forced execution shall be upon legal litigation instated Through the enforcement departments of the judicial authority after exhausting the optional implementation method. As for the most important recommendations, it should be taken into account in the Islamic jurisprudence that the insolvent debtor is considered a debtor who is unable to fulfill his obligations, and not merely the claim of the person convicted of insolvency.

The purpose of the author of this article is an attempt to assess the legitimacy of recognising a blog as a form of the press in accordance with the Act of 26 January 1984 – Press Law. Although the topic has already been a subject of numerous statements of legal doctrine and literature in the field of media sciences, as well as judicial decisions, the diversity of presented positions confirms that the topic requires further analysis and discussion. Many of the assessments presented so far raise serious doubts. This is related, among other things, to the fact that it is still problematic – not only for lawyers, but also for media experts – to define what a blog really is and who bloggers are. Therefore, the author not only undertakes to find a solution to the title problem, but in the first place, based on his own research, makes an attempt to outline the shape of the contemporary Polish blogosphere showing the features that distinguish bloggers from other groups publishing in the mass media. The final conclusions indicate that bloggers cannot be considered to be journalists nor blogs as the press.

When establishing human rights violations committed by the state, should it be violation of internationally protected rights or constitutional rights, the violator is obliged to compensate for the harm caused. In the meantime, neither international sources, nor national legal acts and case law answer the question whether the obligation to compensate is exhausted by the compensation awarded in accordance with a decision of an international judicial body or such a payment has punitive nature, and the state keeps the obligation to compensate the damage within the frameworks of national proceedings. Following the first part of opening remarks the second part of the article studies universal international law approach towards the state obligation to compensate for human rights violations, it reviews positions of the International Court of Justice, the model established in international customary law of international responsibility. The third part discusses the compensation mechanism of the European Court of Human Rights and a number of cases where the Russian Federation was the respondent state. The forth part considers national regulation of the Council of Europe states and case law thereof. The author argues that the established international case law in respect of awarding compensations for human rights violations is too restrictive – it does not take into account a complex nature of this phenomenon which includes both correction of the individual applicant situation (restitution of the pre-existed situation) and prevention of similar situations in the future. It is concluded that awarding the compensation by an international body primarily constitutes a measure of international responsibility whereas consideration by a national court is a more effective means of restitution of the applicants rights and that the national court shall not deny consideration of applicants claims due to the fact that they have already been awarded compensation by the international judicial body including the European Court of Human Rights.

The Case of the Monetary Gold Removed from Rome in 1943 is familiar to all international lawyers. Like a catechism, we are taught that the ICJ will not proceed with a case where the legal interests of a State not before the Court “would not only be affected by a decision, but would form the very subject-matter of the decision.” Mollengarden and Zamir's proposal that the Court should dispense with the Monetary Gold principle feels almost heretical. The authors contend that the ICJ Statute sets out a framework for balancing the interests of third parties through the use of the intervention procedure, and that Monetary Gold “disrupts that balance.” Monetary Gold is, they submit, to be treated as only a judicial decision, entitled under Article 36(1)(d) of the Statute to little deference as a source of legal principle. I suggest taking an altogether different approach. The best way to understand the place of the Monetary Gold principle is in the context of the ICJ's rule making powers pursuant to Article 30(1) of the Court's Statute. These rule making powers are not limited to the promulgation of formal Rules of Court but extend to the determination of appropriate procedures during the hearing of a case. These procedural rules (small r), articulated in the context of particular cases, may in time evolve into formal Rules of Court through an iterative process. Monetary Gold is an instance of the Court defining a small r procedural rule in a manner that is consistent with the Court's Statute.

O estudo analisa os diferentes conceitos do postulado da coerência, sua necessária utilização para a criação legislativa e para a decisão judicial, bem como sua íntima relação com os conceitos de unidade, sistema e integridade, utilizando, para isso, da pesquisa bibliográfica, de dados na internet e jurisprudencial como metodologia de estudo. Investigar-se-á também a relação entre integridade e coerência nas decisões judiciais e o regime democrático, sob a ótica da previsibilidade das decisões judiciais e da igualdade de tratamento aos litigantes e o incidente de assunção de competência como um dos instrumentos processuais aptos a conferir integridade e coerência às decisões de um mesmo Tribunal. Por fim, a investigação pretende criticar a ausência de uniformização jurisprudencial por parte dos Tribunal de Justiça do Rio Grande do Sul no caso dos contratos de crédito com descontos em folha de pagamento (contratos de crédito consignado) relativos aos servidores públicos do estado, que gera decisões em desconformidade com a coerência e a integridade da jurisprudência deste Tribunal.

Many studies have highlighted a substantial "bureaucracy domination" in procedures relating to migrants’ access to territory. This form of domination is marked by highly discretionary and arbitrary practices, enacted by the administrative authorities of the state. Only minor attention, however, has been devoted to the arbitrariness of judicial decisions and to the judicial role in general in the numerous proceedings that increasingly affect the path of migrants. This path is the main object of this paper. The study focuses on Italian case law in expulsion and detention proceedings of irregular third country national citizens and asylum seekers and presents qualitative empirical research on decisions issued by the competent national authorities. The results have been analysed using a selection of theoretical tools, all referable to the general concept of the rule of law. The judicial decisions on pre-removal detention proceedings in two case studies are examined: the jurisprudence on detention of irregular migrants, in different offices of the Justice of the Peace in Italy; and the case law on detention of asylum seekers in the Ordinary Tribunal of Rome. The assumption underlying the research is that various conceptions of the rule of law may have different explanatory power when it comes to explaining the empirical results. To verify this hypothesis, the study proposes an overview of the main rule of law doctrines in the Western tradition of political and legal thought and applies the method of historical-conceptual analysis. As a result, the explanatory power of six theoretical models of the rule of law was verified against the data with the view to highlight the virtues and vices of the respective explanatory frameworks. This article reaches a two-fold conclusion. First, as far as the explanatory frameworks are concerned: the results of the two case studies cannot be fully explained by any of the models considered in this study. This fact alone casts doubts on the explanatory power of these theories and calls for further research on judicial decision-making more generally. Secondly, a key finding of the study regarding the notions of discretion and arbitrariness is that the judicial approach which assures the highest protection of rights is also the one that is most easily influenced by arbitrariness. The author argues that this paradox can be easily dissolved by paying attention to the plural dimensions of arbitrariness. If we consider arbitrariness from a legal point of view, i.e. as an illegal decision, it is unsurprising that the authority that most uses its discretionary powers is also the one most at risk of abusing these discretionary powers and hence of exercising arbitrary power. However, if we consider arbitrariness from the point of view of philosophical-political theory, i.e. as a form of domination characterised by the absence of sufficient justification, it is unsurprising that the judicial approach which assures the highest protection of rights is also the one that takes its own role as guarantor of these rights and of the constitutional democratic legal order as such most seriously. This judicial approach thus most often risks exercising its power in criticisable ways, as compared to an authority much more in line with the requirements of law enforcement agencies. Keywords: migration, discretion, justice, arbitrariness, civil rights, Rechtsstaat, expulsion, mixed constitution

Il lavoro vuole affrontare il rapporto fra prova scientifica, diritto e processo penale, sottolineando come in Italia la mancanza di cultura scientifica dei giudici e, parimenti, la carenza di regole riferite ai criteri di scelta dei periti e dei consulenti tecnici, porti spesso a decisioni giudiziarie molto lontane dal rispetto dell’ortodossia del rimprovero penale. Dopo aver illustrato alcuni casi giurisprudenziali, la riflessione si sofferma sulle possibili soluzioni di questa annosa questione, muovendo dalla disciplina introdotta dalla legge Gelli Bianco e dal DDL sul Testo Unico Amianto.

According to the criminal procedure legislation, the sources of evidence in criminal proceedings are testimony, material evidence, documents and expert advice. The most common source is testimony, which, according to the legislation, can be obtained only during the interrogation. However, in law enforcement practice there are cases when during some investigative actions, other than interrogation, for instance investigative experiment, inspection, search, the investigator receives from persons involved in it certain information relevant to the criminal proceedings. However, courts sometimes consider the results of such investigative actions inadmissible as evidence, because during their conduct the investigator has recorded testimony which does not meet the requirements of the legislation regarding the procedural form of their obtaining. Such situations lead to the fact that the mentioned information is not evaluated by the courts during the trial, persons, who provided these knowledge during conducting such investigative actions are not interrogated as witnesses, and the proper judicial assessment is not made of the circumstances of the criminal proceedings which were recorded in the protocol of the investigative action. Thus, in the article the author draws attention to the awareness of the essence of the testimony as the sources of evidence in criminal proceedings; considers problems which arise during the classification of investigative actions depending on the methods of obtaining the information on verbal, nonverbal and mixed; analyzes national law enforcement practice, case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, doctrinal approaches and on the basis of the conducted research concludes that the criminal procedural legislation contains legal uncertainty regarding the concept of testimony and knowledge obtained in criminal proceedings. Author admits that the testimony of individuals should be considered in a broad sense, as it is done in the legislation of the foreign countries and in the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, as any knowledge which has been provided by a person during investigative (detective) actions, which determined the necessity of essential guarantees to people providing it, as well as mandatory interrogation of such people in court in order to perceive the provided knowledge during the hearing and observance of the law to substantiate the court’s conclusions in judicial decision with such testimony.

Pennsylvania is the largest producer of shale gas in the United States and is the second-largest natural gas-producing state overall. Owing to its strategic location atop the Marcellus and Utica Shale Formations, Pennsylvania’s position as a major natural gas producer is relatively new. Just a little over a decade ago, Pennsylvania ranked sixteenth among states in total natural gas production. With this rapid rise in the amount of natural gas development, there has been a corresponding increase in activity in courtrooms across Pennsylvania—both in state and federal courts. As a result, Pennsylvania oil and gas law has evolved within a number of different legal areas, with leasing and title issues perhaps being among the most frequent—and most important—topics that have been addressed by courts. This survey will address the 2019 reported judicial opinions issued by state courts in Pennsylvania that address oil and gas leasing and title issues.

This scientific work aims analyse judicial decisions about (in)constitutionality of municipal laws that prohibit the consuption of alcoholic beverages in public spaces. In this way is studied the historical evolution of fundamental rights, with emphasis on first generation rights, individual liberties, the legislative municipal autonomy, the fundamental rights restrictions and the decisions of the Santa Catarina and Parana Courts, based mainly on the principle of proportionality and its sub-elements. Theses judicial decisions points out the inconstitutionality of the municipal laws.

O presente artigo versa sobre as medidas coercitivas na ação de execução de alimentos no Brasil e no Chile, especialmente no estudo dos apremios utilizados no ordenamento jurídico chileno e sua aplicabilidade ou não no ordenamento jurídico brasileiro. Para isso, faz-se necessário o estudo de algumas decisões judiciais, que adotaram as medidas que serão tratadas no presente artigo, pautando-se nos meios executórios atípicos trazidos pelo Código de Processo Civil. Assim, foi possível evidenciar que a adoção de algumas destas medidas podem demonstrar ofensa à garantia fundamental do devido processo constitucional, vez que para a utilização das medidas executórias atípicas permitidas pelo Código de Processo Civil, é de suma importância à adoção de parâmetros razoáveis e proporcionais em cada caso levado à apreciação do poder judiciário, devendo sempre ser pautadas sob a égide dos princípios basilares trazidos pela Constituição e pelo próprio Código de Processo Civil.

This work focus on the protection of the fundamental right to freedom of expression in the conflict involving the Porta dos Fundos channel and the streaming company Netflix, arising from a judicial representation promoted by a religious association before the State Court of Justice of the Rio de Janeiro. The second instance of the local Judiciary, based on the need to protect values considered sacred by the Brazilian population, determined the exclusion of artistic material conveyed by the companies mentioned. The research questions whether the judicial protection in the specific case is compatible with the parameters defined by the inter-American Human Rights System in relation to the lawful restriction of freedom of expression, which are binding for the Brazilian State. The investigation was carried out using the deductive method and from documentary and bibliographic sources, with emphasis on decisions and reports by the Inter-American Court and Commission. The development of the work is divided into two parts: first, the factual and legal aspects of the concrete conflict were analyzed, and then the parameters that define freedom of expression in the inter-American System were investigated. It was concluded that the judicial decision of the local judicial body contradicted the regional determinations regarding the protection of human rights.

The present article makes a brief study on the legal regime of the right to recognition of authorship and the figure of the ghost writer in Brazilian law. In order to do so, it makes use of the judicial decisions rendered in the Bruna Surfistinha case, which discussed the authorship of the literary work "O Doce Veneno do Escorpiao" (The Sweet Poison of the Scorpion), which reports on the life of the character Bruna Surfistinha. It is a research that uses descriptive methodology, based fundamentally on bibliographic research, which is done to analyze the judicial solution given to the case object of the study. The most relevant issues of the matter are analyzed, such as the right to recognition of authorship, the work protected by the copyright law, as well as the conventions involving the figure of the ghost writer. It is also worth mentioning the presentation of brief notes on the problem of the ghost writer in Germany and France. Therefore, the objective of this work is to discuss if the judicial solution given to the Bruna Surfistinha case was the most adequate, considering the copyright, the right to the recognition of authorship and the ghost writer conventions.