"Case notes." Ethos: Official Publication of the Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory, (199), pp. 34–35.

This volume contains a selection of papers presented at the 34th International Social Philosophy Conference (2017), an annual event sponsored by the North American Society for Social Philosophy. The theme of the conference was "Justice: Social, Criminal, Juvenile"; this volume invites wider discussion of the issues explored at the conference.

An evidence-based approach to crime and justice policy can go a long way toward ensuring that the best available research is considered in decisions that bear on the public good. However, the term "evidence-based" is characterized by a great deal of rhetoric. Indeed, there remains a marked disjuncture between calls for "evidence-based" policy and an understanding of what it means for policy to be "evidence-based." The calls for evidence-based policy nonetheless provide a powerful foundation for propelling a movement toward bringing (...) about rational, cost-effective, and humane policies for the betterment of society. This handbook showcases the state of research on evidence-based crime and justice policy and the challenges that impede its creation and use. The volume has three core objectives: to promote new and productive ways to think about evidence-based policy; to demonstrate how research can contribute to and guide evidence-based policy in juvenile justice, criminal justice, and alternatives to system responses; and to identify strategies that can increase reliance on evidence-based policy. To meet these objectives, each chapter is guided by several central questions: What do we know about evidence-based policy and practice in crime and justice? How can we improve knowledge of evidence-based policy and practice? How can we promote more use of evidence-based policy and practice? Taken as a whole, the volume emphasizes the critical need for policies that are grounded in high-quality research, that address critical research gaps, and that fully acknowledge the limitations of what extant research can do to inform policy decisions. (shrink)

Law as one sign system can be recorded and interpreted by another sign system—media. If each transaction in court is taken as a sign, it can be interpreted or transferred by different signs of media for the same purpose, though with different effects. This study focuses on the transformative effects of the semiotic revolution in media on law. The present research revealed that the evolution of media has driven the administration of justice to pay more attention to the process (...) of court proceedings. This research also discusses the semiotic conflict and compatibility between the sign subsystems within media upon interpreting the administration of justice. In addition, disequilibrium between different sign systems highlights the consequent need for intersemiotic translation, consciousness and evaluation as part of decision making on court domains. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

Islamic legal studies continues to be a productive field in combination with Middle Eastern history. Ever wider conceptions of ‘Islamic law’ and ‘law’ itself ha.

Thinking about justice -- The possibility of a justice convention -- The justice convention continued: Deliberating about the proper scope of public protection -- The justice convention continued: Deliberating about the appropriate response to wrongdoing -- The justice convention continued: Deliberating about criminal procedure -- The justice convention concluded: Deliberating about equality -- From natural law to human rights -- Nuremberg and beyond: the creation oa a system of international criminal justice -- Transitional justice: New democracies grapple with their past (...) -- The right to be let alone: determining the scope of personal freedom -- Justice in a lifeboat: Thinking about life-life tradeoffs -- Restorative justice: A challenge to the currrent system of criminal justice -- Sentencing offenders in noncapital cases -- Sentencing offenders in capital cases: The death penalty -- Justice and mercy. (shrink)

The public interest in the administration of justice requires access to justice for all. But access to justice must be “meaningful” access. Meaningful access requires procedures, processes, and institutional structures that facilitate communication among participants and decision-makers and ensure that judges and other decision-makers have the resources they need to render fully informed and sound decisions. Working from that premise, which is based on a reconceptualization of the objectives and methods of the justice process, the author proposes numerous specific (...) changes in decision-making processes and practices. These changes are required to achieve a standard of decision-making that is consistent with the public interest in the administration of justice within a constitutional framework under the social and political conditions of the early 21st century. The essay illustrates the application of the principles and methods of legitecture to analysis of problems of institutional design in law. (shrink)

This study reports on the preliminary outcome evaluation of the Magone Home Aftercare Program (MHAP), a faith-based juvenile justice residential facility in the Philippines that provides intensive aftercare treatment for adolescent males involved in the juvenile justice system after their time in a rehabilitation facility or community detention in their area of residence. Although evaluation studies are typically conducted using quantitative research methods, we believe a narrative research approach can be a useful methodology that elucidates “ why” and (...) “ how” or “ the story” behind the success of the program. As such, we evaluated the effectiveness of the MHAP in facilitating the reintegration of its beneficiaries through the stories they tell. Particularly, we analyzed and compared the life stories of MHAP beneficiaries who have been successfully reintegrated into their respective communities within the frame of redemptive narrative identity. The analysis of the interview data revealed that the life stories of these former beneficiaries contained redemption scenes in which they drew on adverse childhood experiences (extreme poverty, parental neglect, abuse, abandonment, and crime) in realizing their true selves (by gaining wisdom from the past, opportunities, new sources of strength, and desire to help others). Importantly, the redemption narratives also contained key life episodes that recognized the MHAP as the key to their successful reintegration into society. Such findings provide valuable information (i.e. how the program has achieved its objectives) to all levels of the MHAP, from program beneficiaries and front-line staff to decision-makers and funders, as well as community partners. (shrink)

Mutually critical conversations between theology, ethics, and law have been underdeveloped with respect to juvenile justice. I appropriate recent theological work on the rights and agency of children to critique adultcentric approaches to juvenile justice. I focus on recent trends in juvenile justice, including sentencing juveniles to life without the possibility of parole. In developing my polemic against such policies, I analyze Graham v. Florida and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and their implications (...) for juvenile justice. The final section constructively proposes juvenile justice reforms and advocates for the elimination of juvenile life sentences without parole. (shrink)

The economically deprived come into contact with the criminal court system in disproportionate number. This collection of original, interactive essays, written from a variety of ideological perspectives, explores some of the more troubling questions and ethical dilemmas inherent in this situation. The contributors, including well-known legal and political philosophers Philip Pettit, George Fletcher, and Jeremy Waldron, examine issues such as heightened vulnerability, indigent representation, and rotten social background defenses.

ABSTRACTSince 2010, there have been series of discussions by stakeholders to revamp Ghana’s current juvenile justice system to make it more relevant and sustainable within Ghana’s domestic context....

Fiscal equivalence in the public administration of justice requires local police and courts to be financed exclusively by the populations that benefit from their services. Within a polycentric framework, broad based taxation to achieve fiscal equivalence is a desirable principle of public finance because it conceptually allows for the provision of justice to be determined by constituent’s preferences, and increases the political accountability of service providers to constituents. However, the overproduction of justice services can readily occur when the benefits (...) of the justice system are not enjoyed equally. Paradoxically, the same properties that make fiscal equivalence desirable by imposing restraint and control between constituents and local government also create internal pressures for agents of the state to engage in predatory, revenue-generating behavior. (shrink)

The literature, although sparse, reports that covert administration of all types of medications is prevalent in nursing homes. Whether it is ever ethically defensible, however, to administer medications covertly to persons with significant dementia is a complex and contentious question. Some scholars contend that deception is inherently wrong and is never acceptable, while others believe that deception is intrinsic to providing care to persons with dementia. With an aim to begin to reconcile these polarized positions and to objectively study (...) this contentious issue, the authors undertake an ethical analysis of the covert administration of medications by utilizing the principles of respect for autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, and justice. Our approach examines covert administration within the context of all persons with significant dementia who are administered medications, and is aimed at providing ethical and practical guidance to clinicians who, when confronted with a patient who refuses medication, must choose the “least bad” option from among various courses of action, all of which have ethical implications. Components of a possible guideline for practice are proposed. (shrink)

Why, exactly, should we punish children who commit crimes more leniently than adults who commit the same offenses? Gideon Yaffe thinks it is because they cannot vote, and so the strength of their reasons to obey the law is weaker than if they could. They are thus less culpable when they disobey. This argument invites an obvious objection: why not simply enfranchise children, thereby granting them legal reasons that are the same strength as enfranchised adults, and so permitting similarly severe (...) punishment? Yaffe answers this question by arguing that child enfranchisement would objectionably undermine the values of political equality and self-government. This article explores some serious doubts about these arguments. It closes by questioning Yaffe’s reliance on a retributivist theory of punishment, contending that, once we reject retributivism in favor of more humane and productive alternatives, the thesis that child criminals deserve a break—which Yaffe assumes to be undeniably correct—becomes less plausible. (shrink)

Specialized Justice addresses the question of the desirability of specialization in the administration of justice. Should there be more, rather than less, sub-division of the judiciary into specialized tribunals? What is most desirable in terms of efficiency, speed, true justice, and cost? The author attempts to answer these questions both by examining theoretical paradigms and also by describing the results of an empirical study which he has undertaken. He concludes by examining variables that apply in different jurisdictions and which (...) should, if accounted for properly, allow generalized lessons to be extracted from the individual studies. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 6, Page 46-47, June 2012.

"ACT Administrative Appeals Tribunal Decisions." Ethos: Official Publication of the Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory, (200), pp. 42.

Administrative justice receives varying emphasis in different jurisdictions. This article explores empirical legal studies, which fall on either side of the decision making-and-review dividing line. It then seeks to link research on the impact of dispute resolution and on-going administrative practices. The article also highlights limitations in existing impact research, focusing on the tendency to examine single dispute resolution mechanisms in isolation from others. Furthermore it suggests some future directions for empirical administrative justice research. It also explores the potential of (...) legal consciousness research for empirical administrative justice scholarship, and suggests new territories for administrative justice researchers: criminal justice processes and administrative activities of private agencies. It concludes by presenting an argument that a mapping of administrative justice institutions, both historically and cross-jurisdictionally, can reveal much about how relationships between citizens and administrative agencies may shift across time and space. (shrink)

This article relates to the CJEU’s understanding of the concept of the spouse in Case C-673/16 and its effect on the process of law application by Polish administrative courts. The authors considerations are based on the assumption that the CJEU’s interpretation of EU law in Coman and Others is of a dynamic-deliberative nature, based on functional rules, and that at the same it time takes into account a specific legal and socio-cultural context in which one of the fundamental freedoms guaranteed (...) by EU law is implemented. This judgment, as authors underline, confirms that a proper understanding of the current legal context of the concept of a spouse requires that the social and cultural context and the plurality of values arising from different lifestyles be taken into account in the application and interpretation of the law, all with a view to empowering the individual in his or her relationship with the State and raising the level of protection of human rights. Authors observe in the practice od Polish administrative courts that this CJEU’s judgment is important in the argumentative layer, but not decisive for the resolution of the case in specific situations where there is a need to address the effect of same-sex marriage in a case related to the implementation of the EU right to free movement. In this context authors consider whether the justification for rulings of administrative courts may be sought in John Gray’s concept of modus vivendi liberalism. (shrink)