A voice for change? Trust relationships between ombudsmen,individuals and public service providers

There has been a debate for years about what the role of the ombudsman is. This article examines a key component of the role, to promote trust in public services and government. To be able to do this, however, an ombudsman needs to be perceived as legitimate and be trusted by a range of stakeholders, including the user. This article argues that three key relationships in a person’s complaint journey can build trust in an institution, and must therefore be understood as a system. The restorative justice framework is adapted to conceptualize this trust model as a novel approach to understanding the ombudsman institution from the perspective of its users. Taking two public sector ombudsmen as examples, the paper finds that voice and trust need to be reinforced through the relationships in a consumer journey to manage individual expectations, prevent disengagement, and thereby promote trust in the institution, in public service providers, and in government.     

The ombudsman,tribunals and administrative justice section: a 2020 vision for the ombudsman sector

This article analyses the growing role for ombudsman schemes in the UK administrative justice system following the Government reforms post 2010. It argues that the ombudsman institution is perhaps the one example of an administrative justice body that looks set to emerge stronger over the period. But the ombudsman sector needs to guard against complacency, as the demands, expectations and publicity placed upon it are all likely to increase.     

Judicial review,litigation effects and the ombudsman

Abstract

Judicial review is widely understood to be a remedy of last resort, but there remains little research on the extent to which the process can achieve meaningful redress. This article applies the results of a study into ombudsman judicial review to chart the outputs of the various stages of the process at which an outcome can be secured. The claim is made that ombudsman judicial review does secure a small level of success for claimants both in and out of court but that the rate of such success is lower for citizen claimants than the norm in all judicial review cases. The explanation provided for this pattern is that organisationally ombudsman schemes have learnt lessons from being repeat players in judicial review and are better equipped to integrate rule of law values than many other public bodies. Citizen claimants, by contrast, include a high proportion of inexperienced litigants-in-person for which the judicial review process is ill-designed to facilitate.     

THE “END” OF MARRIAGE*

This article addresses four different meanings of the “end” of marriage. It rejects the broad interpretive assertion that Lawrence v. Texas and Goodridge v. Department of Public Health signal the destruction of the institution of marriage, though both are criticized for politicization and feeble legal analysis. Those decisions have provoked a backlash that may contribute to a rediscovery of and re‐valuation of the importance of the institution of (conjugal) marriage, as passage of state marriage amendments suggests. If Goodridge and Lawrence show that genderless unions are the ultimate form of marriage, they would lead to the end of democratic society as well as of the institution of marriage. The fragmentation of marriage by reduction to functional relationships is myopic. While current developments may make it harder for the institution of marriage to thrive, the institution of marriage is “here to stay.”     

Review of R. A. Safarov,Public Opinion and State Administration

Public opinion may be ranked with those social phenomena that are complicated and contradictory. One cannot name a branch of social science that has not studied one or another aspect of this phenomenon. It is currently under investigation by philosophers, sociologists, and psychologists. Lawyers, too, have made their contribution to the study of public opinion. In Safarov's monograph attention is centered on the role of public opinion in state administration in developed socialist society. The author has set himself the task of defining the significance of public opinion in the complex mechanism of developing, adopting, and implementing administrative decisions, and of characterizing the manner in which it is actually identified and used in the work of administative agencies.     

府际管理视角下的长株潭城市群公共危机管理合作模式研究

长株潭(长沙、株州、湘潭)城市群在公共危机管理中的合作受到长株潭城市群观念困境、体制困境、制度困境等诸多因素制约。本文运用府际管理的基本理论,结合我国政治行政体制的特点和公共危机管理合作的原则,提出从公共危机管理合作机构系统、法律与政策合作系统、善后合作系统三方面来构建长株潭城市群公共危机管理合作模式的建议,以期促使长株潭城市群走出观念、体制和制度困境,实现更好更快的发展。     

Legal Advice Privilege and its Relevance to Corporations

This article considers whether the rationale for legal advice privilege applies to corporations. It examines the rationale for legal advice privilege in the aftermath of the disagreement between the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords in the Three Rivers litigation, and argues that the rule of law rationale for advice privilege endorsed by the House of Lords is based largely on the needs and behavior of individuals. The paper examines the case for recognising advice privilege for corporations. Recent developments in corporate law and governance, especially in relation to directors' duties, have arguably reduced the need for a corporate privilege. Public and large private companies in particular already have sufficient incentives to obtain accurate legal advice about their affairs even without a privilege. There are also sound policy reasons for restricting the right of corporations to claim legal advice privilege given its costs to the administration of justice.     

“速度与激情”事件引发的民法思考

四川绵阳“速度与激情”事件多方位反映出民法的问题。公民的隐私权、肖像权等人格权应当得到法律保护；公权力机关在对公共场所进行合法监控时必须保护好被监督公众的隐私权等人格权；公权力机构对依法获得的公民信息因过错而公开的侵权责任。这些反映出的民法问题都应该进行深入思考研究。     

Beyond Constitutionalism: The Search for a European Political Imagination

Two recent books, Joseph Weiler's The Constitution of Europe and Larry Siedentop's Democracy in Europe, seek to address one of the defining issues in contemporary European legal studies; the search for a European public philosophy. Both site their critiques within a particular jurisprudential tradition, the modernist; one that is bound up with anxieties about legitimacy and constitutionalism. This review article suggests that the ‘new’ Europe has been too easily distracted by the lures of constitutionalism, and more particularly by the temptations of Treaties. Public philosophies are not found in Treaty articles. Rather, a public philosophy is a state of mind, a product of the political imagination. And it is the absence of such an imagination which lies at the root of contemporary concerns regarding constitutionalism and legitimacy; the concerns which underpin Weiler's and Siedentop's books. A discussion of these books, in the first two parts of this article, is followed by a discussion of Godfried Wilhelm Leibniz's ‘universal’ jurisprudence. It is suggested that such a jurisprudence is better able to furnish a public philosophy for the ‘new’ Europe; just as, indeed, it was for the ‘old’ Europe. Moreover, such a jurisprudence is far more than a mere theory of laws and constitutions. Leibniz's jurisprudence requires that we think, not merely ‘beyond’ sovereignty, or even beyond democracy, but beyond constitutionalism.     

Stepwise Progression: The Past,Present, and Possible Future of Empirical Research on Law in the United States and the United Kingdom

The article distinguishes empirical research on law from other modes of legal enquiry. It charts the changing fortunes of empirical research on law in the United States and the United Kingdom and accounts for the differences between them. In both countries, the development has been uneven and intermittent rather than gradual and linear, with a number of important differences in trajectories, in particular: the number of growth spurts; their timing; the present position; and whether the rise and fall of activity refers to research on civil and criminal justice or on civil justice alone. The different trajectories are explained in terms of path dependency (the fact that developments in the present are shaped by developments in the past); sequential development (emphasizing the importance of timing and that developments in one institution may be contingent on developments in another); and institutional responsiveness (an institution's capacity to respond to opportunities in its external environment).     

公安许可制度改革的系统思考

公安许可是公安机关为了防止危险而实施的一种事前控制机制,属于对社会干预程度较强的、成本较高的抑制性规制手段。对公安许可的过分依赖是形成公安被动型静态管理模式的主要原因,严峻的社会治安形势迫切要求改革现有公安管理模式,提高公安管理效能。因此,我们有必要对公安许可制度改革与公安行政管理以及刑事侦查之间的关系进行系统思考,客观分析公安许可的基本属性,探明公安许可制度改革的可行之路。     

Government lawyers and the training of senior civil servants. Maintaining law at the heart of the French state

To assess the influence of law and jurists in the conduct of contemporary French state, this article examines the role of the Council of State at ENA (École Nationale d'Administration), the main school for top civil servants. Although the study reveals the decreasing part of law in the bureaucratic capital over the past fifty years, it also shows how government lawyers have resisted this downsizing process. The teaching of a subject called ‘legistics’ provides top officials with a different view of law. Dedicated to promoting the political utility of law, legistics complies with managerial values while it sticks to the Weberian model of bureaucracy. As a result of the introduction of legistics, new techniques of legal drafting have been spreading within French public administration. Legistics thus plays a role in the contemporary reshaping of public legal practices, as well as in the renewing of legal legitimacy in the reform of public affairs.     

Transit Industry Gears Up and Responds to Climate Change Challenges

The transit industry in the United States is preparing for growth as the world deals with climate change and it is applying various methods to measure and monitor its impact on the environment. Working with local, state, and federal governments, transit agencies have adapted many commonsense solutions. Now the American Public Transportation Association is putting together standards and best practices to encourage the industry and inform the public about the benefits of public transportation to the environment, helping our nation join the rest of the world. It is also developing and applying new transit strategies that will attract more riders and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Portland, Oregon's Tri-Met, New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and the Utah Transit Authority are leading the industry. Portland, Oregon's Tri-Met General Manager, who chairs the industry's Sustainability Committee for the American Public Transit Association has been leading by example with an Environmental Management System that addresses greenhouse gas, pollution, waste, inefficiency, and congestion. New York and Utah are recording greenhouse gases with the Climate Registry. Many agencies are developing new strategies that are attracting more riders and experiencing an intermodal shift to buses and trains. Meanwhile, developing countries are able to increase service and pay for it by selling carbon credits.     

对监察专员(Ombudsman)制度的思考

瑞典创设议会监察专员制度的一百多年后,为解决三权分立与代议制的危机,更好的保护公民的权益,监察专员制度作为行政监督的一种手段在世界上广泛传播。监察专员具有地位独立、程序简洁、形象公正、权力独特等特征,深受公众信任。近些年来监察专员在保护人权、反对腐败、促进公民与政府之间的良好关系以及保护集体利益和分散利益等方面都起到了重要作用。监察专员制度对我国建立人大监督专员制度具有积极的借鉴意义。     

Tough on Crime,Tough on Civil Liberties: Some Negative Aspects of Britain's Wholesale Adoption of CCTV Surveillance During the 1990s

This paper begins by charting the remarkable rate of growth of public space closed circuit television (CCTV) surveillance in Britain during the 1990s, and proceeds to discuss the reasons for that growth. During the course of this discussion, a diverse range of problems associated with the expansion and use of CCTV in public places is identified. Thereafter, the paper concentrates on issues relevant to civil liberties.It considers the relationship between CCTV,fear of crime and concern for civil liberties by examining the findings of British public attitudes surveys which have focused on public space CCTV.Public concerns regarding the implications of CCTV for civil liberties which are common to those surveys are identified. The paper then examines the available evidence relating to those concerns. It is contended that the evidence uncovered and discussed in this paper substantiates the public's concerns regarding CCTV's threat to civil liberties. The paper concludes by calling for the statutory regulation of public space CCTV systems, on the ground that some of the uses to which they and their videotape evidence are being put infringe the civil liberties of many individuals and in particular, of members of certain social and minority groups.     

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.     

公共卫生与人权

本文是置人权于中国公共卫生场域中的阐释。起因是2004年后——2004年,人权在中国入宪——当人们试图以人权作为转型中中国公共卫生的基础理念时,却发现从旧体制（计划经济体制）走出来的中国公共卫生很难在实际上接受人权：是同样地保护每一个人,还是保护大多数人;是首先着眼于管理,还是强调国家对每一个人的健康权的积极责任,是在中国,公共卫生必须面对的问题。     

版权法上的公共领域研究

Public domain is a core rule of copyright law, under which various creative materials are available for an author to use without charge or liability for infringement, hence ensuring the effective implementation of copyright law. Public domain is characterized by openness, public ownership, irrevocability and formality. Based on the premise that the author’s work will not be interfered, public domain ultimately aims at the enlargement of its own universe and prosperity of the culture of human society. Its introduction into copyright law satisfies both historical and logical demands. Without its acknowledgement, copyright cannot be justified. In that sense, public domain and copyright can be deemed as twins. Public domain is not only an existing institution, but also an ideological tendency or a methodology. It has evaluative and inspective values towards copyright. It is an important precondition of copy-rights, and what is more, an important measure for controlling the expansion and realizing the purpose of copyright. Huang Hui, Ph.D, is a lecturer of civil law at Southwest University of Political Science and Law. Till now, he has released over 20 research articles in academic journals in China, such as Modern Law Science, Legal Forum, Academic Forum, etc. His magnum opus includes: Legal Philosophy Exposition of Unreasonable Outstretch in Intellectual Property Rights, Interpretation & Transfer: An exposition of de-intelligence of intellectual property rights, research on the protection of works in public domain, etc.     

Making sense of the case law on Ombudsman schemes

This article analyses the case law on ombudsman schemes in the UK, with the purpose of identifying some of the key trends that underpin this branch of law pre-the first Supreme Court decision in this area, JR55 v Northern Ireland Commissioner for Complaints. While the law on ombudsman schemes remains based on legislation and the various grounds of administrative law available in judicial review, distinct bespoke principles have also been relied upon. These principles are beginning to provide consistent guidance on how the law should be used and interpreted in cases involving an ombudsman scheme. One task of the Supreme Court in JR55 will be to confirm these principles, or rationalize any departure from them.     

Sudanese refugees in Victoria: An analysis of their treatment by the Australian Government

Following a brief historical account documenting developments in Australian Immigration politics and refugee and asylum seeker policies, this paper seeks to explain why Sudanese refugees in Victoria have recently been implicated in an increased involvement in crime by politicians and the media. It will be argued that the alleged increase involvement in crime has been constructed by the Government and the media – in order to justify the Australian Government's policy responses to the refugee crisis, to create public acceptance of such policies, and additionally for political gain. These policies were part of the Australian Government's wider policies on maintaining a homogenous Australian identity and have negatively impacted minority groups. Ultimately such policies encouraged racism and segregation in local communities, thus tarnishing Australia's multicultural standing.