Adoptions Gone Awry: Enhancing Adoption Outcomes Through Postadoption Services and Federal and State Laws Imposing Criminal Sanctions for Private Internet Rehoming

The federal government should invest in adopted children who make up the future of the country and are in dire need of rehabilitation and therapy because of their past circumstances. If the government steps in to rescue vulnerable children from inadequate or abusive birth parents by removal, it should also intervene when adopted families are faced with behavioral problems of adopted children that the adopted parents cannot address on their own. Postadoption services need to be accessible and effective to ensure the success of adopted families. Assisting families in crisis postadoption will lower the instances of dissolution and rehoming and keep adoptive families intact. In cases in which postadoption services fail, uniform federal legislation is necessary to make it a federal crime to advertise children for adoption on the Internet without proper certification and state legislation is required to make it a crime to pass on adopted children to strangers without judicial consent, to dissuade Internet rehoming. Internet rehoming of adopted children should be a serious crime as it is tantamount to child trafficking.© 2014 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
• Postadoption services need to be more accessible and more narrowly tailored to the needs of adoptive families to ensure the success of adoptions.
• Better postadoption services create better adoptive families and adoptive parents will not reach the point of dissolution or private Internet rehoming.
• Adoptive parents should be provided with information regarding all available postadoption resources after adoption is finalized and a government Web site should be created that lists all available resources.
• The federal government needs to provide funding to states that specifically target postadoption services.
• A uniform federal statute is required to punish parties who use Internet forums to avoid government oversight and privately rehome their adopted children.
• States should enact laws that criminalize the unauthorized interstate placements of children.

     

UNTIL DEATH DO US PART? WHY COURTS SHOULD EXPAND PRENUPTIAL AGREEMENTS TO INCLUDE TEN‐YEAR MARRIAGES

It has become apparent that marriage, while still strongly valued by society and government, has become less appealing to Americans as a whole. The changes taking place in society, whether economic or moral, have resulted in married couples becoming the minority in the United States. This decrease demonstrates that there is a need for reform, and that couples need to be provided with new options that will incentivize them to choose this union over cohabitation. This Note will discuss how expanding prenuptial agreements to allow couples to contract to the length of their marriage may help to accomplish that goal. This expansion will give couples the ability to tailor their relationship to fit their individual expectations and quell the reservations commonly associated with formalized relationships. Furthermore, such an expansion would be consistent with current law regulating premarital agreements and would still allow state governments to remain involved in regulation, making it less drastic of a reform than privatization.     

论劳动合同的解除及其违约责任

在市场经济蓬勃发展的今天,劳动合同被越来越广泛地采用,但对劳动合同的解除和违约责任的适用,在法律上也越来越表现出了漏洞。由于劳动合同的特点,决定了其与《合同法》规定的不同,从而也导致了解决劳动合同争议问题的困难。针对目前劳动合同履行过程中出现的一些问题做了探讨,尤其是对劳动合同的解除和违约责任形式做了论述,把传统的劳动者分为一般性的劳动者和特殊性的劳动者,在适用法律方面也各有其适用特点。     

试论我国有限责任公司司法解散制度之构建

我国现行《公司法》并没有规定有限责任公司的司法解散制度,以致大股东滥权或公司事务陷于僵局时,小股东的权利无法得到充分救济。通过对我国现行立法和司法实践的分析和对国外公司司法解散制度立法经验的借鉴,以赋予股东公司解散请求权为核心,从请求权主体、请求解散的法定事由、其它替代性的救济措施、特别清算程序和公告程序五个方面提出构建我国有限责任公司的司法解散制度的立法构想。     

Restoring Confidence: Replacing the Fixed‐term Parliaments Act 2011

This article considers both the Fixed‐term Parliaments Act 2011 (FTPA) and the political constitution, to place the former in its political and constitutional context. It begins by setting out the background to the FTPA – which was a part of a Coalition agreement – and considers difficulties with the most commonly‐made arguments in favour of fixed‐term parliaments. The second part of the article considers the impact and potential practical legal consequences if the FTPA is repealed without any replacement, arguing that it will only be possible to revive the ‘dissolution’ prerogative by express words in a new Act. The final part of the article addresses the question of whether the prerogative should be revived, before arguing both that it should not and that a statutory power to call an election should be conferred on the Prime Minister subject to a vote by simple majority in the House of Commons.     

论商业银行市场退出下金融安全与发展的法律完善

商业银行市场退出包括自愿型和强制型市场退出，后者具体包括撤销和破产两种方式。针对我国商业银行强制型市场退出法律制度存在的诸多不足，本文探讨了商业银行市场退出法律制度下金融安全与金融发展的平衡，亦提出了相应的完善对策：健全商业银行撤销和破产法律制度，建立商业银行的风险分散与补偿机制以及商业银行监管机制和风险预警机制。     

网络民粹主义：反话语表征与消解策略

网络民粹主义是社会底层通过互联网的技术赋权与话语赋权,以话语策略生产参与公共政策的博弈,如参与公共事件舆论、社会运动等,集体聚合来影响行政权力。网络民粹主义在本质上仍然为民粹主义,其具有民粹主义反抗精英、推崇人民、批判性、暴戾性、非理性的基本特征。结合网络民粹主义反话语表征,可以发现其内在机理与背后折射出当前社会的发展弊端。以此提出改善民生、阶层糅合,话语融合、平衡阶层,完善网络法律法规建设,网络社会组织的赋权,提升公众参与网络舆论表达的实践能力来对网络民粹主义的滥觞进行消解,从而使公共政策能够真正回归至公共利益的诉求。     

It is Just Good Business: The Case for Supporting Reform in Divorce Court

This article examines the ways in which divorce and child custody proceedings can impact employee productivity and suggests that it behooves businesses to become involved in supporting efforts to improve the process—both as a matter of community service and because it can impact their bottom line. This article further outlines some improvements that are being implemented or considered in various jurisdictions.

Key Points for the Family Court Community
• Divorce does not just impact the parties and their children. It also impacts the work productivity of the individuals involved.
• The population of individuals seeking court involvement in child custody issues has changed, and new processes must be developed to address their needs.
• There are new ideas about how to restructure the divorce process in ways that could benefit both the individuals and their employers.

     

The experience of civil partnership dissolution: not ‘just like divorce’

Between 2012 and 2014 I interviewed some of the earliest civil partners to dissolve their partnerships about their experience of dissolution. When I presented my findings, most family lawyers responded that dissolution was ‘pretty much like divorce’. And so it was, in many respects; but I thought that such comments missed an important difference. This article focuses on the legal understandings of gays and lesbians who have undergone dissolution of their civil partnerships, and on their experiences of it. This seemed to me significant for three reasons. First, the experiences of lesbians and gay men have historically been marginalised, pathologised or absent from legal accounts and the dominant legal consciousness. In this research they would be put centre-stage. Second, the institution of civil partnership – transient though it may turn out to be – deserves study as the point of entry into legal recognition and regulation of same-sex couples’ relationships in the UK. And, third, it is this precise history that makes it different from marriage, and dissolution different from divorce, whatever the similarities in legal treatment.