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This article takes a closer look at a recent trial in which a man has been charged for having "sodomized" his pony Junior. The offence of "physical abuse of a sexual nature" related to animals was added in 2004 to the article 521.1 of the criminal Code which also condemns "aggravated physical abuse" and "cruelty". Whether animal-related laws are justified in the name of their protection and the prevention of unjustified suffering as they are subjected to humans, it appears that this piece of legislation actually condemns wrong sexual inclinations in a sheer moralistic way. The interpretation of the judges in this case reveals a pastoral conception of State intervention, strengthening the moral rationality which drives law-makers and judges in the realm of sexuality since the 1980's. Adapted from the source document.

<i>The Netherlands.
Job Classification and Merit in the Civil Service </i>

The Netherlands is the only EEC country where Civil Service is based on job classification. The Dutch System proves that the legal statute and the career System are not necessarily linked and that the non-career type System of employment is not incompatible with a career within the Civil Service. The resulting flexibility does not however go far enough towards solving all personnel management problems (e.g., instability among those in the top positions). However, such flexibility makes it easier to adapt to new developments such as eligibility of foreigners, and the use of certain management techniques common to the private sector (attempts to set up pay scales based on merit).

Foucault's analyses of the seventies dealt with a marqued distinction between a strategic model of power and a repressive model of law. As is shown the criticism made by Habermas and Luhmann, this opposition doesn't seem to be too complex nowadays. This work tries to show an understanding wether the last theory of Foucault on the "pouvoir pastoral" can still furnish us with a manner of thinking which is possible to use for the sociological analysis of contemporary juridical practices.

L'importance croissante du pouvoir local à l'échelle globale doit être comprise comme une expression de la place de plus en plus importante de la valeur d'autonomie locale. Elle doit être guidée par une conceptualisation théorique des gouvernements locaux et de leur réglementation juridique, et par une analyse pragmatique des rôles juridiques des villes dans les développements mondiaux actuels. L'autonomie locale peut promouvoir des valeurs importantes telles que la participation démocratique et la responsabilité, le multiculturalisme et le pluralisme, la séparation verticale des pouvoirs et l'efficacité économique. Cependant, une autonomie locale non contrôlée augmente la dynamique de nivellement par le bas, rend la coopération interlocale plus difficile, exacerbe les inégalités économiques et sociales et pourrait radicaliser les tensions religieuses, culturelles, politiques et idéologiques. Cet article cherche à développer cette idée d'autonomie locale en tant que principe juridique, et étudie ses significations possibles dans le contexte de la (dé)mondialisation.

After evoking the legal and social condition of Catholics who already formed a numerous minority among the population in Brabant, the author asks how and in what conditions a political sociability developed among them, notably during the revolutionary sequence of the 1780s and after 1795. He studies the forms of interconfessional tension, the anti-papism of the Protestants and the specific traditions of the Catholic clergy (particularly Jansenism). The study of political sociability in the main towns of Bois le Duc, Bread, and Bergen- op-Zoom, and especially of the masonic lodges and philosophical societies are signs of an evolution that the antipapist outburst of 1798 did not challenge.