Suchergebnisse

The cases decided by the Court of Justice concerning free movement of goods and services are often seen in terms of a difficult balance between trade and consumer protection. This paper suggests that their major consequences are not for the consumer at all, but for quality of life in European societies. Legislation which restricts what can be sold, and who can sell it, has consequences for equality, autonomy, social cohesion, and identity which are greater in importance than any consumer-protective effect. That the Court's focus is so unbalanced – it ignores these social concerns - is to do with several factors. Firstly, the Court has a transactional fixation, seeing contracts as essentially private matters which are of no concern to wider society. This view point is common in economic law, but unrealistic, and embodies some very controversial implicit political standpoints. Secondly, when the Court approaches the judicial review of national measures which restrict free movement it does not in fact engage in balancing at all, but seeks to reconcile interests, and to push integration forward. The ability of a national community to determine its own quality of life and express its values is something which evades easy reconciliation with a single market. On the contrary, integration brings unavoidable costs in autonomy and social concerns, and denial of this fact is harmful to both Europe and the EU. This argument proceeds by an examination of the case law concerning free movement, and the process of judicial review found within that law.

The University of South Wales was commissioned by the Welsh Government to undertake focus groups to explore parents' views about parenting practices and approaches to child discipline. The purpose of the focus group research was to inform the development of questions for use in future quantitative work around this issue. The findings from this research and the quantitative work that follows will be used to inform the development of Welsh Government policy in relation to the Programme for Government commitment to work to make physical punishment of children and young people unacceptable through the promotion of alternative, positive approaches to parenting. Fourteen focus groups were conducted in eight local authority areas around Wales with mothers and fathers of children and young people aged between birth and 18 years. Each focus group was semi-structured in nature. Hypothetical scenarios and possible approaches to discipline were presented to all of the focus groups and participants were asked to think about their attitude to each of the approaches, in each of the scenarios. The focus groups transcripts were analysed for emerging themes, which alongside evidence from quotes supporting these themes, were used to address the specific research questions raised in the research brief. The main findings were: Parents perceive certain sources to have expertise in managing children's behaviours; these include other parents, some care/health education professionals and some TV professionals. They had not considered government sources, such as leaflets, websites and press releases or web-sites in general, as 'expert' sources. The findings of this report indicate that it would be useful to explore the knowledge and opinions of a much wider sample using a questionnaire developed from the findings from the focus groups. Such a study would enable a representative sample of the Welsh population to express their views on appropriate parenting via a medium which would enable them to retain anonymity. Such research could explore the important issues identified within this report, which should be considered in developing future policies in this area.