Forensic DNA retention: Public perspective studies in the United Kingdom and around the world

This review analysed public perspective studies on forensic DNA retention in the United Kingdom and around the world. The studies generally show strong public support for the long-term or indefinite retention of DNA from convicts and suspects. There is considerable support for the retention of DNA from all or some arrestees and potentially the entire population. This was predicated upon the belief that forensic DNA databases have crime-solving abilities, which the public rate highly. In the UK, it was found that the current Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 regime is broadly representative of the recommendations of the surveyed British public. Nevertheless, the studies highlighted a gap in forensic DNA education among the public, suggesting that public views may not be well informed. Overall, there was clear evidence of privacy concerns and the potential misuse of DNA records among the public, with a significant number opposing the retention of DNA from the innocent. It was found that most of the studies were qualitative or non-representative of the relevant population, limiting the generalisation of the results. There was also limited studies among a representative sample of primary stakeholders who are well-informed or directly exposed to the benefits, challenges and risks associated with DNA retention. A research into stakeholders rating of different forensic DNA retention regimes is therefore highly recommended. This is important because the studies suggest divergent views among criminal justice professionals and other members of the public, with the former expressing expansive views and the latter expressing restrictive views. The primary stakeholder's survey will help establish whether the relevant safeguards have been put in place to protect both public security and individual interests.     

论美国言论自由判例中的公共论坛原理——从2009年萨姆案谈起

公共论坛是指在传统上供人们聚集在一起以表达思想和交流观点的公共场所。美国联邦最高法院在言论自由司法判例中形成了公共论坛原理,该原理的本质意义在于明确公民在什么程度上有权为了表达的目的使用政府地产,而政府规制公民在公共地产上发表言论的权力限度又在哪里。这一原理近年来得到了进一步发展,2009年萨姆案赋予了公共论坛原理新的内容。公共论坛原理对于中国法治建设具有启发和借鉴意义。     

Privacy,stigma and public protection: A socio-legal analysis of criminality information practices in the UK

Criminality information practices involve public authorities in the UK (and elsewhere) gathering, retaining and sharing information that connects with an identifiable individual; all with the ostensible aim of upholding and improving standards of public protection. This piece first charts the landscape of contemporary criminality information practices in the UK today. The article then examines recent legal emphases and policy directions for public protection networks. Consideration is then given in the piece to privacy rights and values and the difficulties in providing an exact typology and grounding for these. The piece then outlines a suggested framework for correct legal regulation, as well as a through commentary on the work done by Catherine Bellamy et al. to empirically determine the extent to which public protection information sharing can in fact occur in correct adherence to legal regulation. A socio-legal analysis is undertaken of the nature of public protection networks as variants on Goffman's performance teams within a dramaturgical routine that foregrounds stigmatisation of perceived ‘risky’ individuals as an aspect of that routine. This piece also explores the processes of institutional isomorphism as a reaction to shifting policy directions and legal doctrines, acting as a driving force towards a hierarchical performance of criminality information practices by public protection networks. Three conclusions are offered up for consideration: firstly, that the growing complexity of the law and regulation relating to criminality information practices might improve privacy values in the criminal justice system and help to add precision to necessary processes of stigmatisation in relation to the aim of public protection. Secondly, that these shifts in the law still need ongoing revisions, in order that a hierarchical approach to criminality information practices can be arrived at over time. Thirdly, that if the permanency of potential stigmatisation through the indefinite retention of criminality information cannot change, due to the competing pressure on the criminal justice system from public protection duties, then consultation with ‘risky’ individuals where practicable, before criminality information connected to them is shared across public protection networks becomes essential as a privacy-enhancing value and practice.     

The two judgments of the European Court of Justice in the four cases of Privacy International,La Quadrature du Net and Others,French Data Network and Others and Ordre des Barreaux francophones et germanophone and Others: The Grand Chamber is trying hard to square the circle of data retention

On 6 October 2020, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Justice rendered two landmark judgments in Privacy International, La Quadrature du Net and Others, French Data Network and Others as well as Ordre des barreaux francophones et germanophone and Others. The Grand Chamber confirmed that EU law precludes national legislation which requires a provider of electronic communications services to carry out the general and indiscriminate transmission or retention of traffic data and location data for the purpose of combating crime in general or of safeguarding national security.In situations where a Member State is facing a serious threat to national security which proves to be genuine and present or foreseeable, such State may however derogate from the obligation to ensure the confidentiality of data relating to electronic communications by requiring, by way of legislative measures, the general and indiscriminate retention of this data for a period which is limited in time to what is strictly necessary but which may be extended if the threat persists.¹ In respect of combating serious crime and preventing serious threats to public security, a Member State may also provide for the targeted retention of this data and its expedited retention. Such an interference with fundamental rights must be accompanied by effective safeguards and be reviewed by a court or by an independent administrative authority. It is likewise open to a Member State to carry out a general and indiscriminate retention of IP addresses assigned to the source of a communication where the retention period is limited to what is strictly necessary or even to carry out a general and indiscriminate retention of data relating to the civil identity of users of means of electronic communication. In the latter case, the retention is not subject to a specific time limit.     

The importance of forensic evidence for decisions on criminal guilt

Recent studies have found that the general public perceives forensic evidence to be relatively inaccurate and to involve high levels of human judgement. This study examines how important the general public finds forensic evidence by comparing decisions on guilt and punishment in criminal cases that involve forensic versus eyewitness testimony evidence and examining whether a CSI effect exists. Specifically, this experimental survey study utilized a 2 (crime type: murder or rape) × 4 (evidence type: DNA, fingerprint, victim eyewitness testimony, or bystander eyewitness testimony) ? 1 (no victim testimony for murder scenario) design, yielding seven vignettes scenarios to which participants were randomly assigned. Results indicate that forensic evidence was associated with more guilty verdicts and higher confidence in a guilty verdict. Forensic evidence did not change the expected sentence length and did not generally affect the ideal sentence length. However, for rape, respondents believed that the defendant should receive a longer sentence when forensic evidence was presented but forensic evidence did not alter likely sentence that respondents expected the defendant to receive. The results of this study did not support a CSI effect. Overall, this study suggests that forensic evidence – particularly DNA – has a stronger influence during the verdict stage than the sentencing stage.     

法国土地征收公益性审查机制及其对中国的启示

在法国,只有国家可以为了公共利益的需要征收私人土地,并且按照司法最终原则,由行政法官判断土地征收的公用目的性。最高行政法院在长期审判实践中形成了"损益对比分析理论"。该理论的应用加强了对土地征收公用目的宣告行为司法审查的力度。在加强对行政机关裁量权司法监督的同时,损益对比分析机制并未超越行政行为合法性审查的界限,它为行政机关在多个合法方案间自由选择保留了足够的裁量空间。     

The joined cases of Dwyer,SpaceNet and VD and SR before the European Court of Justice: The judgments of the Grand Chamber about data retention continue falling on deaf ears in Member States

On 5 April and 20 September 2022, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Justice rendered three judgments in the cases of Dwyer, SpaceNet and VD and SR. It mainly reiterated its own applicable case law on the retention of and access to traffic and location data. In the VD and SR judgment, the Grand Chamber however expanded its scope to the area of market abuse.Legislation adopted by Member States and decisions rendered by most domestic courts, tribunals and judges do not fully comply with the case law of the Grand Chamber on the retention of and access to traffic and location data. In this particular context, the EU legislature should urgently adopt EU secondary legislation on the retention of personal data to provide legal clarity to all players involved.     

主观公权利的观念与保护规范理论的构造

"刘广明案最高法裁定"开拓性地将主观公权利观念与保护规范理论导入我国司法实践,引发争议。主观公权利观念是公权利理论的产物;保护规范理论是其技术性形态,用来从客观法解读主观公权利。公权利理论以国家法人说为理论基础,志向于在国家与个人之间建构起权利义务关系。在公权利理论的发展过程中,个人对国家的主观公权利成为重心,国家对个人的主观公权利淡出视野;同时,保护规范理论因法律秩序的转换与时代精神的变迁,而不断对其解释要素加以调适,使主观公权利的外延呈现出一种开放性。这个过程体现了法律的动态性,并有其政治哲学背景。"刘广明案最高法裁定"所表达的只是保护规范理论的基点,但通过导入该理论,为行政诉讼原告适格的认定提供一个法律论辩平台,应获积极评价。     

印度的公益诉讼制度

印度公益诉讼发端于20世纪70年代末,以司法能动主义理论为基础,在世界范围内首次将原告资格拓宽到了每一个公民,并且创立了书信管辖权制度、调查委员会制度等,以保证公益诉讼判决的实施。公益诉讼制度实施二十几年来,在创建责任政府、保护公民基本权利以及环境保护等方面都取得了显著的成就。鉴于印度和中国各方面的相似性,其制度对我国具有重要的借鉴意义。     

Challenging the Ongoing Injustice of Imprisonment for Public Protection: James,Wells and Lee v The United Kingdom

The Government has recently abolished Imprisonment for Public Protection, a highly controversial form of indeterminate sentence. Yet, at the time of writing, nearly 6,000 inmates are still serving such sentences, all of whom will have to convince a Parole Board that detention is no longer necessary for the protection of the public. This paper evaluates recent European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence which considered the legality of post‐tariff detention in the absence of suitable rehabilitative provision. The Court held that there would be a violation of Article 5(1) if prisoners were held without access to such provision. Consideration is given to the implications of this ruling for those serving such sentences and, more broadly, to the impact it may have on risk‐based sentencing policies.     

Minimum resale price maintenance in EU in the aftermath of the US Leegin decision

Leegin decision of the Supreme Court in 2007 affirmed that minimum RPM was to be evaluated under the rule of reason henceforth. Conversely, minimum RPM retains its position as a hard-core restraint in EU’s BER 2010 and the De Minimis Notice. The limited amount of case law reveal that in the absence of certain factors, such as significant market power of the parties, minimum RPM is unlikely to result in the detriment of consumers. Consequently, despite the retention of the maintenance of the single market as a significant aim in EU competition policy, minimum RPM practices are entitled to a more lenient approach, if the ultimate aim is to attain consumer welfare as stated by the Commission and through most judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union.     

The Influence of Public Sentiment on Supreme Court Opinion Clarity

We examine whether public opinion leads Supreme Court justices to alter the content of their opinions. We argue that when justices anticipate public opposition to their decisions, they write clearer opinions. We develop a novel measure of opinion clarity based on multifaceted textual readability scores, which we validate using human raters. We examine an aggregate time series analysis of the influence of public mood on opinion clarity and an individual‐level sample of Supreme Court cases paired with issue‐specific public opinion polls. The empirical results from both models show that justices write clearer opinions when their rulings contradict popular sentiment. These results suggest public opinion influences the Court, and suggest that future scholarship should analyze how public opinion influences the written content of decision makers’ policies.     

Judicial Review of Politics: The Israeli Case

In the tradition of studies questioning the impact of celebrated court rulings, this article discusses the effectiveness of the judicial review of politics conducted by the Israeli Supreme Court. The Israeli Supreme Court is generally viewed as a highly influential, almost omnipotent body. During the last two decades, the Court has intervened repeatedly in the so–called political domain, thereby progressively eroding the scope of realms considered non–justiciable. It has ventured to enter domains of 'pure' political power to review the legality of political agreements, political appointments (appointments of political allies to public positions), and political allocations (government funding to organizations affiliated with its political supporters). The prevalent perception is that these developments had a significant impact on Israeli political life. The present article challenges this view and argues that, on closer scrutiny, the influence of the Court on many of the issues reviewed here is negligible. First, many of the doctrines developed by the Court in order to review political measures proved ineffective. Usually, when the Supreme Court (acting as a High Court of Justice) engages in judicial review, it lacks the evidence needed in order to decide that administrative decisions on public appointments or public funding should be abolished because they were based on political or self–serving considerations. Second, the norms mandated by the Court hardly influence politicians' decisions in everyday life, and are applied only in contested cases. The reasons for this situation are not only legal but also socio–political. Large sections of current Israeli society support interest–group politics and do not accept the values that inspire the Court.     

Dissent,Legitimacy, and Public Support for Court Decisions: Evidence from a Survey‐Based Experiment

Scholars often argue that whereas unanimous rulings should boost public support for court decisions, dissents should fuel public opposition. Previous studies on public responses to U.S. Supreme Court decisions suggest that unanimity does in fact bolster support. However, a recent study has also found that dissents may increase support among opponents of a court decision by suggesting evidence of procedural justice. By examining how individuals react to dissents from the Supreme Court of Norway, this article is the first study outside the U.S. context of the public's reaction to unanimity and dissent. Breaking with the common notion of the negative effects of dissent on public support, the article shows that when the Supreme Court handles cases of higher political salience, the formulation of dissenting opinions can be a meaningful way of securing greater support for its policy outputs by suggesting evidence of procedural justice. Contrary to recent studies, however, this positive influence of dissent is irrespective of individuals' ex ante policy views.     

Naming Names: The Impact of Supreme Court Opinion Attribution on Citizen Assessment of Policy Outcomes

The manner in which political institutions convey their policy outcomes can have important implications for how the public views institutions' policy decisions. This paper explores whether the way in which the U.S. Supreme Court communicates its policy decrees affects how favorably members of the public assess its decisions. Specifically, we investigate whether attributing a decision to the nation's High Court or to an individual justice influences the public's agreement with the Court's rulings. Using an experimental design, we find that when a Supreme Court outcome is ascribed to the institution as a whole, rather than to a particular justice, people are more apt to agree with the policy decision. We also find that identifying the gender of the opinion author affects public agreement under certain conditions. Our findings have important implications for how public support for institutional policymaking operates, as well as the dynamics of how the Supreme Court manages to accumulate and maintain public goodwill.     

Lawyers' Perceptions of the U.S. Supreme Court: Is the Court a “Political” Institution?

Do legal elites—lawyers admitted to federal appellate bars—perceive the Supreme Court as a “political” institution? Legal elites differentiate themselves from the mass public in the amount and sources of information about the Court. They also hold near‐universal perceptions of Court legitimacy, a result we use to derive competing theoretical expectations regarding the impact of ideological disagreement on various Court perceptions. Survey data show that many legal elites perceive the Court as political in its decision making, while a minority perceive the Court as activist and influenced by external political forces. Ideological disagreement with the Court's outputs significantly elevates political perceptions of decision making, while it exhibits a null and moderate impact on perceptions of activism and external political influence, respectively. To justify negative affect derived from ideological disagreement, elites highlight the political aspects of the Court's decision making rather than engage in “global delegitimization” of the institution itself.     

Inaccurate Conception: ACB v Thomson Medical

This note considers the decision of the Singapore Court of Appeal in ACB v Thomson Medical in which the plaintiff sought damages for the upkeep costs of a child conceived using sperm from someone other than her husband as a result of negligence by a fertility clinic. The Court held that upkeep costs could not be recovered as a matter of public policy, but recognised a new head of loss, namely damages for loss of genetic affinity. In a controversial ruling, the Court quantified these damages at thirty per cent of the upkeep costs of the child. While holding that punitive damages could be recovered outside the categories recognised in Rookes v Barnard, the Court rejected such an award on the facts of the case.     

The supreme court and police practices: The unusually busy 2003–2004 term

The 2003–2004 term of the Supreme Court was the most important term of the Court for the law enforcement community in the last decade. The Court decided 11 cases dealing with issues concerning actions taken by police officers, the largest number of “police practices” cases decided by the Court in the last nine years. In addition, several of these cases are among the most important of the 49 police practices cases decided during this time period. The Court: 1) upheld the arrest of all the occupants of a car when drugs are found in it; 2) permitted police roadblocks seeking information from the public in certain circumstances; 3) refused to suppress physical evidence obtained from Miranda violations; 4) expanded the availability of warrantless car searches incident to arrest to include arrests of recent occupants of the car; and 5) upheld statutes requiring persons stopped on reasonable suspicion to identify themselves.     

Los alcances del control judicial en la expropiación

The declaration of public use in takings is, in most constitutional systems, a guarantee every individual has against the power of the State to seize his or her property. The institute is of fundamental importance for the protection of (other) individual guarantees from the expropriatory power of the State. However, our Supreme Court’s traditional precedents do not allow its judicial control. This paper analyses what is public use and what is the reason for its importance. Then, it shows that the Supreme Court’s criteria have varied the matter, containing in its development an important exception and several ambivalences. Finally, it explains why it is more adequate to our constitutional principles, to the rights our Constitution grants and to the very nature of the institute of takings for the declaration of public use to be subject to judicial control.     

A contractual model of the voting behavior of the supreme court: The role of the chief justice

Political scientists have long debated the role of the Supreme Court in public policymaking. Much of the debate has centered around the issue of judicial independence from political factors. Despite a rather extensive debate in the literature, the question of independence has rarely been subjected to systematic testing. This paper examines the role of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in linking decisions of the Court to the desires of Congress. Specifically, the paper focuses on the role of the Supreme Court Chief Justice as an agent of Congress that reacts to budgetary signals sent by the Congress. The resulting relationship between budgets allocated to the Court and decisions reached by the Court are analyzed from 1946 to 1988.