Suchergebnisse

Examines the purpose of the international criminal justice system; view that international institutions (such as the UN) should be strengthened and regional bodies (such as the European Court of Human Rights) created to ensure respect of human rights. Summaries in English and Spanish p. 476 and 492-3.

Résumé L'intervention de la Cour pénale internationale (CPI) dans le nord de l'Ouganda a suscité l'opposition de partisans de la justice traditionnelle. Il n'y a cependant pas vraiment de consensus quant aux rituels de réconciliation, et les cérémonies de pardon hybrides qui sont organisées avec l'aide internationale et sous les auspices d'un conseil des chefs de création récente, ne sont pas aussi significatifs que les enthousiastes se plaisent à le penser. De plus, l'effort s'est concentré sur certains rituels des Acholi et de leurs voisins immédiats, et non pas sur le pays dans son ensemble. Quels que soient les problèmes posés par l'action de la CPI, la production de mythe autour d'une alternative « ethnique » spécifique nourrit les préjugés et ne fait rien pour une réconciliation nationale.

Structure of France's judicial system and its public perception; some focus on criminal justice; 14 articles.

Legal paternalism is commonly defined as interference with someone's choices and actions, against his will, which aim is to prevent harm to self. This type of paternalism is frequently believed to be incompatible with liberalism. However, is it possible to exclude paternalism from criminal law? Joel Feinberg's theory of "soft paternalism" preserves autonomy and justifies interference to prevent individuals from committing harmful self-regarding actions that are non-voluntary. In this paper, we analyze this version of paternalism, its principles and its consequences in criminal law. Adapted from the source document.

Even though the conflict is ongoing and despite the very limited success of its military offensive against the guerillas and its efforts to demobilize illegal armed groups, the Columbian government has since 2005 implemented measures of transitional justice. In this respect, the Columbian case runs counter to the idea according to which such measures can only take place in the context of the transition from war to peace or authoritarianism to democracy. The government sees this form of justice as a way of advancing towards peace, victim compensation and the reconciliation of Columbian society while simultaneously maintaining pressure on the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia), the ELN (National Liberation Army) and the new criminal groups that have emerged from old paramilitary structures. The application of the transitional justice process, which is based on two landmark laws (Law 975 of 2005, known as the "Justice and Peace" law, and Law 1448 of 2011, known as the "Law on Victims and the Return of Land"), nevertheless runs up against two major handicaps: the country's democratic immaturity and the persistence of criminality. Adapted from the source document.

According to the author, the law in Lebanon is clearly a political instrument used by the authorities: opponents are made out to be criminals; human rights hang in a delicate balance, and depend on the balance of power; political resposibility is diluted; special courts play a leading role; and pressure and direct intervention are common currency. But although the work of the Constitutional Council remains ambiguous, the construction of a law-abiding state is a recurrent theme in political discourse and mobilises many forces, parties and associations. (Monde Arabe Maghreb/DÜI)

The Role of the Spanish Minister for Justice.
In Spain, the task of codification is conferred upon the General Commission on Codification. This Commission is composed of five services in charge of civil law, commercial law, public law, criminal law, and the law on procedure respectively. Its functions are variously to draft codes at the request of the minister for justice ; to revise existing legislation ; to write reports and deliver opinions upon legal questions raised by the government or the minister for justice ; and the technical and precise amendment of draft legislation.

View that the UN Security Council, by creating an ad hoc court to judge war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, and by issuing a proclamation in Nov. 1994, aimed at judging crimes committed in Rwanda, has largely gone beyond its functions, in light of provisions of the UN Charter. Summaries in English and Spanish p. 422-3 and 437.

Robert Allen, Criminal Justice and Women, 1792-1811
The criminal courts established by the French Revolution depended on the active participation of ordinary citizens, including women. But while they took part in the judicial process as witnesses, plaintiffs, and defendants, women found themselves excluded from power, for only men could preside as magistrates or serve on the trial jury - the centerpiece of the new system of criminal justice. Nevertheless, women accused of crimes obtained a higher proportion of acquittals than men. Paradoxically, traditional male notions of women as guided more strongly by emotion than by reason, and as often incapable of independent action, may have worked to the benefit of female defendants. And yet, due to a provision in the law of July 19, 1791, the misdemeanor courts could hear cases of sexual impropriety and punish women whose sexuality seemed to threaten patriarchal authority.

Administrative Justice
Italian administrative justice is undergoing a crisis concerning as well its field of jurisdiction (based upon the distinction between subjective interests and legitimate rights) as its functioning. This phenomenon is particularly clear in view of the average time needed for court cases to come to an end, and the number of cases still to examine. Even more important : the system for protecting citizens has only a limited effectiveness, probably because it is still centered on squashing the decisions of administration. There is a pathological addition of the control of criminal courts which are more and more often the last possible instance. Will a reform be able to correct these flaws resulting from an accumulation of different layers of administrative justice regulations ?

This article examines the norms promoted by theories of jus post bellum and transitional justice in light of the ethical models that they invoke. The transitional vocation assigned to trials concerning mass atrocities ambivalently oscillates between a desire to provide a sentimental education that would affectively awaken a rejection of the crimes, and a staging of deliberative rationality. They oscillate between a consensual vision of the political, and a vision that tries to articulate the liberal pluralism and a post-modern conception of the dissensus. Finally, these trials ambivalently oscillate between a retributivist vision of punishment that seeks to individually judge those responsible for the crimes in the name of a struggle against impunity, and the desire to establish, or re-establish, a nation by means of a historical trial, in the name of a consequentialist vision of punishment. The objectives assumed by those trials thus result from a projection of expectations issuing from a moralization of law into the criminal domain. Adapted from the source document.