The importance of an industrial court in the interpretation of labour statutes

The paper highlights the National Industrial Court of Nigeria’s (NICN) importance over the general courts in the interpretation of labour statutes. It compares the judicial interpretation of some provisions of labour statutes by the general courts in Nigeria (represented herein by the Supreme Court of Nigeria’s interpretation of same provisions) with the interpretation of the NICN of same provisions. It argues that the NICN’s interpretation is more favourable to labour rights than that of the general courts. It makes use of the rules of judicial interpretation and Ronald Dworkin’s discussion on interpretation as a framework and adds to it by comparing the judicial interpretation of some provisions of labour statutes by the general courts with that of the NICN. It noted that the NICN’s interpretation was more purposive and promoted labour rights than that of the general courts. The Supreme Court cases used to represent the position of the general courts were those decided before exclusive jurisdiction on employment and labour matters was conferred on the NICN in 2010. Presently, even though the general courts no more have jurisdiction to hear and interpret employment and labour matters the NICN’s interpretations continues to promote labour rights.     

法条与法理的实证分析——以刑法分则为例

烛光有两个地方未曾到达：太远的地方和蜡烛下面。法律实证分析也是一样。对法律实证分析来说，象公平、正义、本质、本原这些范畴都似乎有些遥远，而法律条文本身，也很少成为法律实证分析的对象。本文认为，对法律条文其实可以进行实证分析。…….     

The Mobility of Stolen Guns in Quebec

Research on crime guns has traditionally focused on the time-to-crime measure. This study shifts the focus to guns that entered the illegal firearm market through thefts. This subset of guns allows us to examine the same process and objective underlying the time-to-crime measure—that being the recovery process. Two new measures are proposed. The first, time-to-find, assesses the time span between a gun’s theft and seizure by police. The second, distance-to-recovery, introduces a spatial dimension to the crime gun repertoire by measuring the distance a firearm travels between its points of theft and seizure. Using a mix of national (Canada) and provincial (Quebec) data on crime guns, this study’s findings show that these two new measures are tapping into a unique phenomenon: whereas time-to-crime accounts for a gun’s complete lifecycle, time-to-find and distance-to-recovery reflect a gun’s criminal lifecycle. At the multivariate level, the most influential factor explaining both time-to-find and distance-to-recovery is the registration status of the gun. Non-registered crime guns took longer to find and traveled lengthier distances between the moments and points of theft and seizure. Our explanation for this is that non-registered guns may be stolen from sources that are more problematic to begin with and, thus, result in the gun’s transition toward a segment of the illegal market that is also more problematic and in demand than the pool of firearms represented by registered guns. This would embed the firearm more deeply into the illegal market, making it more difficult to retrieve and more likely to be dispersed across a wider geographical plane than guns which are registered to begin with.     

Practical reason and the ontology of statutes

Conclusion A common working assumption of theories of statutory interpretation is that the object of interpretation is uncontroversial. It is assumed that dispute only centers on the epistemics of interpretation. The assumption is unsound. Theories of statutory interpretation are importantly different from other sorts of theories. The subject matter of other sorts of theories can be identified uncontroversially. In the case of statutory interpretation, the object of interpretation is controversial. What counts as the object of interpretation therefore needs specification. Without the required specification, criteria of evidence and warrant justifying an interpretation are not well-defined.An adequate theory of statutory interpreation must contain both epistemic and ontological components. It must provide criteria for treating information as evidence relevant to, and standards for, interpreting a statute. Providing such criteria in turn requires also giving an account of the object of interpretation — what a statute consists in. Practical reason theories fail to provide acceptable criteria and standards for interpreting a statute. These accounts therefore fail to supply an adequate epistemic components for a theory of statutory interpretation. As to the ontological component, things are less clear. I have argued in sections II and III that this component is partly a matter of substantive political theory. Although practical reason theorists fail to offer a substantive political theory for defining the proper object of interpretation, their accounts are in principle ontologically unobjectionable. At most, practical reason accounts are incomplete. Of course, practical reason accounts might still be defective for other reasons. They may invoke a defective substantive political theory. Or the constraints imposed on properties of a statute or relations between them may not in fact affectuate the goals set by the theory. Such failings would be normative, not metaphysical. Since practical reason accounts are epistemically inadequate and ontologically incomplete, legal theorists should find the accounts less attractive than they do, even putting aside the normative soundness of the accounts.I thank Barry Adler, John Harrison, George Rutherglen, William Stuntz and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. I am particularly grateful to Larry Alexander for discussions and comments on previous drafts of this article. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Making sense of referral fee statutes

State and federal prohibitions of referral fees have long plagued the health care sector because their broadly worded provisions threaten established and socially valuable business arrangements. Congress has recently instructed the Department of Health and Human Services to issue regulations that clarify the scope of the most threatening of these prohibitions, the Medicare and Medicaid felony referral fee statute. This article examines three possible analytical models for imposing a limiting construction on referral fee statutes by testing the models against three beneficial practices that the statute jeopardizes: physician recruitment, fee discounting, and efficiency bonuses. The article recommends primary reliance on an earned/unearned analysis that detects a prohibited referral fee by asking whether the fee is fully earned by legitimate, nonreferral services.     

论企业在经济法中的主体地位

企业是市场经济的参加者,它的存在是市场经济发生的首要条件,同时也是经济法规制的主要对象.从法理角度分析,企业具有经济权利能力和经济行为能力,并以自己的名义参加到具体的经济法律关系中去享受经济权利、履行经济义务,因而是经济法律关系的主体.非法人企业虽然不具有法人资格,但却具有主体地位,并且是与自然人和法人并列的第三类主体.