Access to donor insemination: Canadian ideals--UK law and practice

Reproductive technology has made a huge impact on society, exposing many long-standing, unresolved anomalies in our values and traditions. Access to medically assisted reproduction is particularly controversial, raising medical, legal and ethical issues. The 1980s saw increasing demands across several jurisdictions for clear legal rules, the hope being expressed in Canada that "the law may reflect the community's level of tolerance; but...also stretch or fashion it in the interests of a worthy goal." The Canadian Law Reform Commission recommended that, with regard to donor insemination, "protection for the traditional family should not be incorporated in legislation" and that "access should be limited only in terms of the cost and scarcity of resources", selection not being based on "family status, sexual orientation and so on". This paper attempts a comparative examination of UK legislation on reproductive technology in this light, with particular focus on the rationing of access to donor insemination.     

Sex and the sacred: sterilization and bodily integrity in English and Canadian law

Through an examination of cases of non-consensual sterilization for learning disabled persons in Canada and England, this article considers the role that law plays in framing the thoughts, beliefs, and norms that fashion the ways we think about bodies, sex, gender, and sexuality. The author asks how it is that Canadian and English law, while both claiming to protect bodily integrity, have reached opposing conclusions about whether non-therapeutic sterilization can be in a person's best interests. She hypothesizes that the answer could lie in the manner in which courts have constructed the bodies of learning disabled men and women in the sphere of sexuality and reproduction. Where the overriding concern in the sterilization cases is the containment of the sexuality of a learning disabled person perceived as "out of control" or "vulnerable to seduction", sterilization is cast as a just and humane solution that will advance the welfare of the individual concerned. Conversely, where the overriding concern is the preservation of the integrity of a law committed to the principle of equality, sterilization is thought to be a violation of the bodily integrity of the person. The author shows that these two views engender very different legal and cultural discourses about best interests and bodily integrity. The debate highlighted by the sterilization cases and the commentary surrounding them reflect larger tension within legal discourse between the commitment to liberal values and the maintenance of a particular social order.     

Crime clearance rates in Canadian municipalities: A test of Donald Black's theory of law

Donald Black's theory of law has been considered an important theory in the sociology of law. However, while the theory views law as a quantity variable, there has been limited empirical support from quantitative studies. This study offers a quantitative test of Black's theory using data from 579 Canadian municipalities. The results show that the quantity of law, in terms of crime clearance rates, varies positively with stratification, morphology, culture, and organization just as Black's theory has predicted. In addition, population size, population density, the property and violent crime rates, and policing resources also affect the clearance rates. These findings support the general notion that there is more law for certain groups and under certain social conditions. Also, most of the findings are consistent with Black's theory, thus supporting its viability as a sociological theory. In addition, two seemingly contradictory explanations, the resource explanation and the need/dependency explanation, are proposed to interpret the findings. These contradictory and yet complementary explanations perhaps reflect the reality of law in society.     

Improving the recognition of foreign judgments: model law on the recognition and enforcement of Foreign Judgments

This paper contains the Commonwealth Model Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Bill. The paper describes the background to the Model Bill, including its relationship with The Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements, and the present resumed Hague Conference work on a possible Convention on the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. The paper highlights the differences between these different initiatives and the relative advantages of the draft Commonwealth Model Bill.     

The impact of license plate recognition technology (LPR) on trust in law enforcement: a survey-experiment

Objectives

We examine the extent to which individuals' knowledge of an advanced police technology (license plate recognition or "LPR") may impact perceptions of police. Technologies with the capacity to track individuals' movements are becoming increasingly common in police practice. Although these technologies may yield positive benefits, their use may also heighten community concerns about increased surveillance, data storage, and data security, thereby potentially negatively impacting community-police relationships.

Methods

We utilize a survey-based experiment with randomized assignment of participants (n=405) to investigate the impact of individuals' knowledge of LPR use on a variety of police perceptions, including trust in police, community approval, respect for citizens, and respect for individual rights.

Results

Most respondents were unaware of LPR use prior to the survey. When compared with a control group, respondents who encountered brief mentions of LPR functions on the survey expressed significantly lower levels of trust in police. Additionally, "strong agreement" with other positive statements about police also appears to have declined in this sample in response to LPR information. Notably, the sample contained high pre-existing levels of trust and support for police, factors which may have moderated the impacts of LPR information.

Conclusions

These results support the hypothesis that awareness of LPR use may negatively impact perceptions of police, including trust in police. More generally, although technologies like LPR represent technological innovations, they may also yield unintended consequences, including the potential to undermine police-community relations if adoption decisions are not accompanied by sufficient transparency or community support.

     

论我国刑法分则及司法解释对片面共犯的认可

对片面共犯虽无统一的认识,但考察我国刑法分则和有关司法解释的规定,在一定范围内还是承认应以共同犯罪加以处罚的.