Notes on public protection against hazards and nuisances: the Israeli experience

Scientific, detailed regulations for the abatement of noise, odour and air pollutants did not prove very successful; Israel reverted to the Subjective norm of 'disturbing'. Courts proved more adaptive to change than legislators, and made use of those regulations to shift the onus of proof in keeping balance between sanity and development.     

The protection of marriage and family: a constitutional responsibility to enable all-embracing interaction as a means without an (objective) end

China-EU Law Journal - The constitutional duty to protect marriage and family is a rather recent task for public authorities. While these particularly personal forms of social interaction have...     

The fight against crime and/or the protection of privacy: a thorny debate!1

This article analyses a recent legislative provision adopted by the Belgian legislator imposing on all communication service providers the requirement that they retain traffic data for a minimum period of 12 months, in addition to the recent European debates about Echelon and traffic data retention in the light of the requirements of Article 8 of the Council of Europe Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The equilibrium between state security requirements and privacy protection imperatives leads the proposal of a certain number of limitations, as regards to cyber‐surveillance by governmental authorities in order to maintain the efficient functioning of our democracies.     

Delay reduction in the federal courts: Rule 50(b) and the Federal Speedy Trial Act of 1974

During the 1970s, 94 federal district courts implemented two major policy initiatives, Rule 50(b) of theFederal Rules of Criminal Procedure and the Federal Speedy Trial Act, that were designed in Washington to combat delay in the processing of federal criminal cases. Both of these initiatives established a national priority of delay reduction in criminal cases, encouraged local district court planning for delay reduction; established reporting procedures for monitoring local compliance, and provided for the determination of quantitative goals for the time to disposition of criminal cases. Neither initiative mandated specific activities for delay reduction; this determination was left to the discretion of local federal district courts. This research examines the effectiveness of Rule 50(b) and the Speedy Trial Act by constructing a 150-month time series of three measures of case processing time. A multiple-intervention time-series model found that both of these initiatives contributed to the dramatic reduction in the time to disposition in federal criminal cases. These effects persisted after controls for changes in case characteristics and judicial resources were introduced.Points of view expressed in this research are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position of the U.S. Department of Justice.     

Between Mendez and Brown: Gonzales v. Sheely (1951) and the Legal Campaign Against Segregation

On March 26, 1951, three years before the historic Brown decision, in Gonzales v. Sheeley ( 1951 ) , Judge Dave Ling of the United States District Court of Arizona ruled that the segregation of Mexican American students in a separate "Mexican School" was unconstitutional. In this article, we trace the legal arguments in Gonzales through two prior cases, Mendez v. Westminster (1946 ) and Delgado v. Bastrop (1948 ). We analyze how racialism, the social science critique of racism and legalism, shaped the arguments in the three cases. Our analysis suggests that Gonzales was a departure from Mendez and Delgado because it was the first case in which a court made an unqualified argument against segregation. The trajectory of the legal arguments across the three cases highlights how new cultural ideas about race were slowly incorporated into civil rights case law, a process that was also shaped by the institutional norms and practices of the legal system.     

安娜法的权威解释：英国米勒案和德纳森案

尽管1709年英国颁行了现代著作权制度起源的安娜法,然而却并没有解决著作权制度的基本理论问题,而只“是为书商的关于永久性著作权主张的法律争论打基础。”现代著作权制度的基本理论问题在迟至半世纪后英国米勒诉泰勒案(下称米勒案)     

Desperately seeking donors: the 'saviour sibling' decision in Quintavalle v Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (UK)

The recent House of Lords decision in Quintavalle v Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has raised difficult and complex issues regarding the extent to which embryo selection and reproductive technology can be used as a means of rectifying genetic disorders and treating critically ill children. This comment outlines the facts of Quintavalle and explores how the House of Lords approached the legal, ethical and policy issues that arose out of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority's (UK) decision to allow reproductive and embryo technology to be used to produce a 'saviour sibling' whose tissue could be used to save the life of a critically ill child. Particular attention will be given to the implications of the decision in Quintavalle for Australian family and medical law and policy. As part of this focus, the comment explores the current Australian legislative and policy framework regarding the use of genetic and reproductive technology as a mechanism through which to assist critically ill siblings. It is argued that the present Australian framework would appear to impose significant limits on the medical uses of genetic technology and, in this context, would seem to reflect many of the principles that were articulated by the House of Lords in Quintavalle.