Search

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.

Aims This study thus aimed to review and analyze liability lawsuits resulting from implant surgery-related inferior alveolar nerve (IAN) injury over a twenty-year period in France. Materials and Methods A retrospective descriptive study was performed to analyze judicial decisions pertaining to IAN injury from a legal database between 2000 and 2020. Inclusion criteria comprised all closed malpractice cases that involved an oral and maxillofacial surgeon or a dentist who performed a mandibular implant surgery resulting in IAN injury. The following data were recorded: judicial decision reference (including jurisdiction and date of final court ruling), timing between the incident and final court ruling, number of involved practitioners, patient's age and gender, practitioner's age and gender, implant type, number of implants, location of iatrogenic implant(s), allegation of IAN injury, alleged cause of injury, justification(s) for conviction, compensation amount and legal costs. Results Twelve judicial decisions from high civil courts relating to ten closed cases of liability lawsuits were included and analyzed. All of involved practitioners were dentists or oral surgeons, working in the private sector. Eventually, 85% of them were convicted. Mean indemnification was 17,340€ and highest indemnification was 42,828€ (inflation-adjusted in 2020 euros). Mean interval between the incident and final ruling was 87,1 ± 34,2 months. Conclusions Permanent nerve injury following dental implant placement can result in legal action. In the event of lawsuit, the risk of being convicted is high. Practitioners performing oral implantology procedures should practice effective risk management to avoid time-consuming unwanted litigations and administrative proceedings.

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>

Immigration is a top concern among citizens across the globe. Research shows that the salience of immigration shapes voters' political behavior, but little is known about whether it influences judicial behavior. This article theorizes that variation in issue salience influences judges' behavior when there is a clear connection between the legal and a generally salient, politicized issue. I test this argument drawing on all Swiss asylum appeal decisions reached between 2007 and 2015. I find that higher asylum salience leads judges to decide otherwise similar asylum appeals less favorably. This effect is not restricted to judges affiliated with anti-immigrant parties, unlikely to be driven by accountability pressures, and strongest for those topics known to drive anti-immigrant sentiment in the general public. Together, these findings raise concerns that issue salience threatens the consistency of judicial decisions. © 2021 American Journal of Political Science, American Journal of Political Science, 67 (1), ISSN:0092-5853, ISSN:1540-5907

The institute of urgent judicial decisions is a special procedure for administrative justice bodies in France, which allows to prescribe effectively and quickly a wide range of necessary measures (from the appointment of expert examinations to the suspension of normative administrative acts) and to protect the legitimate interests of individuals and organizations. There are two main categories of urgent judicial decisions, accordingly their functional purpose. The procedural features of urgent judicial decisions are related to the obligation of the French administrative courts to establish conditions for urgency and the need to prescribe certain measures as a matter of urgency. These criteria, being evaluative, are specified by the jurisprudence of the French administrative courts, according to which the judge determines whether there is a threat of causing immediate and sufficiently serious harm to the interests of the applicant and whether there is a need to take urgent measures, taking into account the circumstances of the case. At the same time, the urgent applications judge does not consider the case, but sets temporary measures that can be changed in the course of further proceedings. The article suggests creating mechanisms in Russian law that are similar to those existing in the French legal regulation of urgent judicial decisions in administrative cases. In particular, the author suggests expanding the powers of Russian courts to suspend normative administrative acts and individual decisions when courts take measures of preliminary protection in administrative claims.

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.

Objetivo: Buscamos demonstrar a necessidade de superação do “desafio kelseniano” referente à pretensa impossibilidade de racionalidade na interpretação e aplicação do Direito. Procuramos questionar o modelo kelseniano de ciência para a área jurídica e investigar se há uma objetividade no uso de “bons argumentos” capaz de impor um maior padrão de racionalidade aos operadores jurídicos brasileiro no momento da tomada de decisão.Metodologia: Partimos de uma pesquisa jurídica mais tradicional (embora não dogmática), baseada em uma resenha bibliográfica crítica de doutrina nacional e estrangeira. Compreendemos a ciência jurídica como uma ciência de ação que deve oferecer caminhos teóricos viáveis para a tomada de decisões e a solução de problemas concretos.Resultados: Concluímos que a ideia de Kelsen sobre a interpretação do Direito é resultado do seu conceito positivista de ciência, baseado na comprovação empírica das ciências exatas. A sua distinção rígida entre juízos de fato e juízes de valor (inacessíveis para o conhecimento científico) e afirmação da prevalência da vontade sobre a racionalidade no ato de interpretar/aplicar uma lei entram em conflito com o dever constitucional de fundamentação racional das decisões judiciais.Contribuições: Levantamos argumentos contra uma visão relativista da interpretação do Direito, que contribui para a imprevisibilidade das decisões judiciais. Esclarecemos diferentes aspectos da teoria de Kelsen que versam sobre a interpretação e aplicação da lei que são pouco discutidas na academia do Direito brasileiro. Objective: We seek to demonstrate the need to overcome the "Kelsenian challenge" regarding the alleged impossibility of rationality in the interpretation and application of law. We pretend to question the Kelsenian model of science for the legal area and investigate whether there is an objectivity in the use of "good arguments" capable of imposing a greater standard of rationality on Brazilian legal operators at the time of decision making.Methodology: We start from a more traditional (although not dogmatic) legal research, based on a critical bibliographic review of national and foreign doctrine. We understand legal science as a science of action that must offer viable theoretical paths for decision-making and concrete problem solving.Results: We conclude that Kelsen's idea of the interpretation of law is the result of his positivist concept of science, based on empirical proof of the exact sciences. His rigid distinction between judgments of facts and of values (inaccessible to scientific knowledge) and his affirmation of the prevalence of will over rationality in the act of interpreting/applying the law conflicts with the constitutional obligation of rational reasoning of judicial decisions.Contributions: We raise arguments against a relativistic view of the interpretation of law, which contributes to the unpredictability of judicial decisions. We clarify different aspects of Kelsen's theory that deal with the interpretation and application of the law that are little discussed in the Brazilian academy of law. Objetivo: Buscamos demostrar la necesidad de superar el "desafío kelseniano" con respecto a la supuesta imposibilidad de racionalidad en la interpretación y aplicación del derecho. Tratamos de cuestionar el modelo de ciencia kelseniana para el área jurídica e investigar si existe una objetividad en el uso de "buenos argumentos" capaces de imponer un mayor nivel de racionalidad a los operadores legales brasileños en el momento de la toma de decisiones.Metodología: Comenzamos a partir de una investigación legal más tradicional (aunque no dogmática), basada en una revisión bibliográfica crítica de la doctrina nacional y extranjera. Entendemos la ciencia jurídica como una ciencia de acción que debe ofrecer caminos teóricos viables para la toma de decisiones y la resolución concreta de problemas.Resultados: Concluimos que la idea de Kelsen de la interpretación del derecho es el resultado de su concepto positivista de la ciencia, basado en la prueba empírica de las ciencias exactas. Su rígida distinción entre las sentencias de hecho y los jueces de valor (inaccesibles para el conocimiento científico) y la afirmación de la prevalencia de la voluntad sobre la racionalidad en el acto de interpretar/aplicar una ley entra en conflicto con el deber constitucional de razonamiento racional de las decisiones judiciales.Contribuciones: Planteamos argumentos contra una visión relativista de la interpretación del derecho, que contribuye a la imprevisibilidad de las decisiones judiciales. Aclaramos diferentes aspectos de la teoría de Kelsen que se ocupan de la interpretación y aplicación de la ley que se discuten poco en la academia brasileña de derecho.

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.

Możliwość wystąpienia zdarzenia, jakim jest wypadek przy pracy stanowi niemal nieodłączny element każdej aktywności zawodowej. Stąd też bardzo ważnym jest odpowiednie uregulowanie tego pojęcia, zarówno w ustawach, jak i w orzecznictwie. Kwalifikacja prawna zdarzenia jako wypadek przy pracy przede wszystkim istotna jest dla poszkodowanego pracownika, bowiem pozwala to na uzyskanie przez niego prawa do odpowiednich świadczeń. Często jednak decyzje w tym zakresie poddawane są w wątpliwość i zaskarżane do sądów powszechnych. Najważniejszą linię orzeczniczą w tego typu sprawach tworzy Sąd Najwyższy. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest ukazanie ewolucji pojęcia „wypadku przy pracy” na przestrzeni kolejnych ustaw obowiązujących w Polsce, ale w głównej mierze poprzez skupienie się na wyrokach wydawanych przez Sąd Najwyższy. W opracowaniu zostanie omówiona obecniestosowana definicja wypadku przy pracy oraz jej poszczególne elementy, których wyjaśnienie zostanie poparte orzecznictwem.

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.

Based on the theory of path dependence, we show that legal tradition affects the administrative court’s rulings. It also complements the two other reasons for diversified verdicts: the experience of the judges and courts (specialization) and preference (bias) for one of the parties. This effect is persistent even if the verdicts are controversial and result in serious consequences for a party and when the penalty paid by the complainant is perceived as excessive but fulfilling the strict rules of law. We prove that judicial decision making is a function of path dependency stemming from a legal tradition of the court. To confirm this, logistic regression is applied to a sample of 337 erroneous excise duty documentation cases of heating oil sales from all sixteen provincial administrative courts in Poland. Increasing the specialization of judges and having them exchange experiences may be a remedy for the unjustified adjudication differences.

Some of the recent network citation analyses that in continental legal settings have suggested that the most cited decisions (in terms of network citation analysis those with the highest indegree, or authority score) tend to be related to procedural issues, or issues of a more general nature, capable of being referred to in a more varied situations. While it may seem intuitive that decisions with the highest indegree centrality or authority score would settle issues of a more general nature, hence making them more widely applicable to various kinds of subsequent cases, we were wondering, whether this trend would be noticeable in less exposed decisions. To this end, we have conducted a case study within the boundaries of the Czech legal system. We have chosen five decisions containing a chosen keyword based on their indegree centrality in a corpus of Czech apex courts’ decisions. Subsequently, we have constructed eleven strings of decisions (connected to one another by a citation) leading to these five decisions, again paying attention to their indegree. We theorize that the decisions with higher indegree centrality as well as decisions with higher authority score will be cited in situations seeking a case-law argument for either procedural issue, or an issue of a more general nature, or an issue of principle, while the decisions with low indegree centrality or low authority score will be cited for their substantive law merit. This paper seeks to demonstrate how the network analysis in combination with a qualitative approach may serve as a useful approach in further exploring this hypothesis. We show that the actual citation environment in Czech legal setting might be more complex than this hypothesis suggests, but that this methodological approach may be further useful in exploring the normative nature of judicial decisions in non-precedential legal settings.

The article analyses and assesses the line of judicial decisions of the Supreme Administrative Court regarding a temporary seizure of an animal from its owner or guardian following a breach of the obligation to treat it humanely. The article also analyses the legal status that social organisations, the statutory aim of which is the protection of animals, has in administrative proceedings. Next, the author presents the characteristics of resolutions of municipal councils on the municipal programme of care for homeless animals and prevention of animal homelessness, which in the court judicial decisions are classified as local legal enactment. Finally, the article presents the line of judicial decisions concerning the relation between a resolution introducing a by-law on maintaining cleanliness and order in a municipality and the requirements of animal protection set out in the Act of 21 August 1997 on the protection of animals.

The establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal's post-World War II is the clear sign of augmented figure of International Crimes especially. The culmination of flagship tribunals like Yugoslavia and Rwanda opened the new phase for several significant questions such as the maintenance of humanitarian principles throughout the investigation, relevancy of evidence, authenticity, and overall mechanism and its legality too. The chances of an independent investigation mechanism for international crimes may also not be denied. Under such a state of affairs, the issues of collection, preservation, and scrutiny of the evidence of the most serious International Crimes and violations of normative principles set out by International Criminal Law becomes crucial to know to ensure fair and transparent justice. Indeed, the investigation procedure required for such fairness and transparency demands unequivocal maintenance of humanitarian principles throughout the process and legality for the sake of legal authority behind. Consequently, the present paper counts the impact of the investigation mechanism on criminal for international crimes and the existence of the symptoms of humanitarian principles with its legality by analyzing several International Instruments, Judicial Decisions, and other fact findings on the record.

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.

[Propósito] Analizar el proceso de valoración de la prueba electrónica en el ámbito civil en la legislación colombiana, desde la óptica diferencial de la prueba documental, observando los elementos técnicos particulares de este medio de prueba. [Metodología] Esta investigación es de tipo doctrinal crítica, a través de la contrastación de las normas legales que regulan la valoración con las tendencias doctrinales que explican el proceso de la valoración probatoria, todo ello aplicado en paralelo al juicio de valor que debe efectuar el juez de la causa civil respecto de la prueba documental y de la prueba electrónica, con el fin de establecer las diferencias entre ambos medios de prueba y, más precisamente, respecto de su valoración judicial, para determinar las implicaciones diferenciales que conlleva un correcto ejercicio de valoración de la prueba electrónica y su repercusión en la decisión judicial como culmen de la actividad jurisdiccional. [Resultados] El proceso de valoración probatoria reviste una trascendencia especial en el proceso judicial, pues de allí se desprende la convicción del juez de la causa respecto de los hechos del proceso, de donde se estructura la regla de juicio; de allí que la valoración de la prueba electrónica implique un proceso diferencial y particularizado en términos técnicos, que difiere de la valoración de la prueba documental, en aras de llevar al proceso en forma correcta la representación de los hechos contenidos en medios electrónicos, lo cual implica la imperiosa necesidad de la formación básica del juez en temas de prueba informática, pues a las reglas de la sana crítica y la libre valoración de la prueba, como el estándar de prueba, se debe adicionar la valoración de aspectos técnicos y metodológicos de este medio de prueba, cuyos parámetros se establecen en esta investigación.

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.

Este artigo trata da contratação de familiares de candidatos em campanhas eleitorais, objetivando discutir a legitimidade ou não desse ato. Busca-se estabelecer a diferenciação entre os termos legalidade e legitimidade e, ao mesmo tempo, apresentar um rápido panorama quanto à utilização de recursos públicos no financiamento de campanhas eleitorais, para depois apresentar decisões judiciais de cinco Tribunais Regionais Eleitorais que analisaram a contratação, com recursos públicos, de familiares em campanhas eleitorais. Para sua realização, foi feita a opção de uma abordagem qualitativa, do tipo bibliográfica e documental. Foram consultados livros e artigos científicos de doutrinadores (MARTINS, 2020; MELLO, 2019; MENDES; VALE apud CANOTILHO et al., 2018; FRANÇA, 1995; BULOS, 2005, dentre outros). Também foi feita pesquisa de jurisprudência no site do Tribunal Superior Eleitoral. Concluiu-se que tal possibilidade contraria o conjunto normativo constitucional-administrativo existente, embora não exista proibição expressa na legislação eleitoral.

The literature on law and economics argues that economic considerations have an important implication for consistent and efficient legal practices. In line with this tradition, this paper aims to analyse legal verdicts through the lens of transaction cost to ascertain if judicial decision takes social cost into account. In so doing, the research draws upon the literature of transaction cost theory, which examines the implications of transaction cost for legal verdicts. Data for the analysis consist of legal verdicts collected from Bangladesh. The paper shows that judicial decisions are influenced by economic matters, especially social and transaction costs. When the issue of these costs is clear, judges take this into consideration in deciding who should own what rights. This research contributes to the literature of law and economics by providing new information, which is believed to help regulators, policymakers, and legal practitioners in deciding value-creating property rights.

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.

O presente trabalho tem por objetivo apresentar o uso do algoritmo como instrumento de construção da decisão judicial, quais os benefícios que o uso de referida ferramenta pode trazer para o processo judicial, bem como quais precauções deve-se ter com a utilização da Inteligência Artificial no momento de proferir decisões judiciais. Ainda, se faz uma análise de algumas ferramentas que já se encontram disponíveis para proferir decisões judiciais, demonstrando, assim, que há a necessidade de supervisão do algoritmo utilizado para a prática de atos processuais.

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.