System maintenance and legitimation: An historical illustration of the impact of national task forces and committees on correction

Historically, national bodies have addressed the problem of change and reform within the correctional system. The thesis of this article is that special task force commissions, such as the National Advisory Commission on Corrections which generated extensive standards and goals for corrections in 1973, inhibit rather than promote changed within the system they are changed with reforming. This negative impact takes place for several reasons: First, the establishment of such commissions will tend to reduce pressures for change. Second, the members of such commissions, by virtue of their socialization and training, are more adept at processing the language of the system than dealing with its substance. Third, commissions, by making recommendations for change, revise the language through which the system is conceptualized, which in effect legitimizes the system in its existing form.Commissions iterate and legitimize the status quo rather than promote system-wide change. The changes which do occur are only those which are necessary to insure that the system will remain stable. In an attempt to illustrate the arguments, excerpts from Corrections, published by the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals (1973) are compared with Transactions, published by the National Congress on Penitentiary and Reformatory Discipline (1870).     

Sentencing Commissions as Centers for Policy Analysis and Research: Illustrations from the Budget Process

Sentencing commissions have become centers for policy analysis and research, studying the problems of prison crowding and resource limits (Reitz 1997). However, more information is needed regarding how commissions perform this function. This paper focuses on the role of sentencing commissions as centers of policy analysis during state budget processes. Also discussed is an important stage for policy research, the evaluation of alternative policies by means of computer simulation, a modeling tool frequently employed by sentencing commissions. Following a discussion of computer simulation principles, several prominent simulation models used by sentencing commissions are reviewed. Finally, the activities of Virginia's sentencing commission demonstrate how commissions serve as policy research centers.     

部门联合立法的规范化问题研究

两个或两个以上国务院部门联合立法,已经成为我国行政立法实践中的一种惯常立法形式,在实现法律、行政法规的精细化和可操作性方面发挥了重大作用。与单个部门立法相比,部门联合立法的功能主要体现为实现部门“条条”之间的立法权责整合、防止多部门职责交叉领域立法的碎片化和部门本位主义、提升部门立法的公正性与效率性、节约行政立法成本和减少部门立法冲突、为制定行政法规进行先行制度实验等诸多方面。在部门联合立法的过程中,难免会出现各种部门权限冲突与利益协调的难题。为推进部门联合立法的规范化治理,应当对部门联合立法的时机选择、事项范围、效力等级、立法主体关系以及备案审查等方面进行充分的制度分析与研究。     

Three Strikes Legislation and Sentencing Commission Objectives

Between 1993 and 1997, state legislatures across the country passed legislation popularly known as "three strikes and you're out" laws. These laws appeared at a time when sentencing commissions existed in many states, and the commissions were involved in the legislative debates leading to the votes on three strikes laws. Thus, the passage of three strikes laws can shed light on one type of interaction between sentencing commissions and legislatures. This article posits a variety of objectives for sentencing commissions during three strikes debates, each a response to the recurring "pathologies" that appear when legislative, judicial, and executive branch officials create sentencing policy. A survey of states that have passed three strikes laws indicates that sentencing commissions have not made any systematic difference in the legislative debates on these statutes. Commissions have little reason to oppose these laws absolutely, and could lose political credibility by doing so. Commissions have incentives instead to argue for limiting the scope of these statutes. Where commissions have been involved in the debates about habitual felon legislation, they have emphasized limits on judicial discretion, focused on the quality of legislative deliberations rather than on legislative outcomes, and devoted little attention to prosecutorial charging decisions.     

Truth as Justice: Investigatory Commissions in Latin America

In recent years, Latin American countries have sought to come to terms with prior periods of widespread human rights violations, relying increasingly on investigatory commissions. Investigatory efforts have been undertaken by democratically elected governments that replaced military dictatorships, by UN-sponsored commissions as part of a UN-mediated peace process, and by national human rights commissioners. This article examines truth commissions in Chile and El Salvador, an investigatory effort in Honduras, and a proposed commission in Guatemala. It compares the achievements and limitations of these commissions within the political constraints and institutional reality of each country, focusing on four major goals: the effort to create an authoritative account of the past; vindication of victims; recommendations for legislative, structural, or other changes to avoid repetition of past abuses; and establishing accountability or the identity of perpetrators.     

贸仲委上海、华南两分会与贸仲委之争的，法律问题研究（一）——贸仲委上海、华南两分会不是独立的仲裁委员会

贸仲委上海分会、华南分会是1988年经国务院批准由中国贸促会成立的贸仲委的分会，不是地方政府批准成立的独立的涉外仲裁委员会；与《仲裁法》第10条规定国内新设仲裁委员会必须进行司法登记不同，《仲裁法》第七章确认并规定了中国贸促会设立涉外仲裁委员会和制定涉外仲裁规则的职权，但并未规定已设立近半个世纪的中国涉外仲裁委员会需要进行新设立司法登记，据此，两分会所进行的司法登记应予撤销或由登记部门撤回；两分会违法宣称为独立涉外仲裁委员会的行为因违法自始起无效，不得再受理贸仲委上海分会、华南分会仲裁条款案件，而应由贸仲委秘书局受理以维护当事人仲裁权利的正当行使。     

The hidden cost of some trustees-trustee commissions

There is a widespread variation in trustees’ approachto the taking of commissions for investing trust money and therequirements to disclose these commissions to beneficiaries.The net result is that settlors, beneficiaries and their advisersneed to be aware that a trustee's remuneration may not be clear,even from a set of audited accounts and that there may be arisk of conflict between the trust terms and a duty or regulatoryobligation to disclose.     

Child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church: a review of global perspectives

Child sexual abuse by Catholic priests is a global issue. Reports of abuse proliferated in the US in 2002, giving the appearance that it was an American phenomenon. However, by 2010, it was clear that abuse in the Catholic Church had affected countries around the world. Scholars in the US have published reports evaluating the nature, scope, and causes of the problem. Similarly, public inquiries and commissions have investigated the crises in other western and English-speaking countries, and research is ongoing. The reports have produced similar findings and recommendations for preventing abuse in the future, including better education and training about abuse; the need to respond quickly and thoroughly to victim–survivors; transparency in response to abuse; and coordinated responses with civil authorities.     

Sentencing Councils and Victims

This article explores the place victims have, and should have, in bodies that formulate sentencing guidelines, with particular reference to sentencing guidelines in England and Wales and the Sentencing Council's obligation under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 to have regard to ‘the impact of sentencing decisions on victims of offences’ when devising guidelines. The issues are situated in political and penological contexts; the place of victims in sentencing commissions or advisory bodies in the USA, England and Australia is analysed and the meaning and significance of the Sentencing Council's obligation towards victims is considered, relating the specific obligation to broader issues concerning the place of victims within bodies that formulate sentencing guidelines. While incorporating victims within sentencing commissions might undermine commissions’ aims, it can play an important role in helping to boost public confidence in criminal justice, a touchstone for all western governments’ criminal justice policies.     

Procuracy of Leningrad Oblast

The Procuracy of Leningrad Oblast has uncovered that certification commissions admitted ex-convicts into the police force.     

Whose Constitution? Constitutional Self‐Determination and Generational Change

Constitutions enshrine the fundamental values of a people and they build a framework for a state’s public policy. With regard to generational change, their endurance gives rise to two interlinked concerns: the sovereignty concern and the forgone welfare concern. If constitutions are intergenerational contracts, how (in)flexible should they be? This article discusses perpetual constitutions, sunset constitutions, constitutional reform commissions, and constitutional conventions, both historically and analytically. It arrives at the conclusion that very rigid constitutions are incompatible with the principle of intergenerational justice. Recurring constitutional reform commissions at fixed intervals would give each generation of citizens a say without leaning too much on the side of flexibility.     

Who do I turn to? Resolving complaints by mental health consumers and carers

The current Australian system for handling complaints by mental health consumers and carers against service providers is complex and difficult to navigate. Complaints may be made to a range of people and organisations, including the relevant mental health service, community or official visitors, Health Services Commissioners, Chief Psychiatrists, Public Advocates, Ombudsmen and Members of Parliament. This Legal Issues column provides an overview of the law relating to complaints handling by community or official visitors, health service commissions and offices of the Chief Psychiatrist. It argues that while health service commissions may provide the best current avenue for complaints, there is a need for independent, centralised complaints bodies in Australian jurisdictions with similar powers to that of the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland.     

Innocence Commissions: Due Process Remedies and Protection for the Innocent

Currently the American criminal justice system has no institutional mechanism to evaluate the conviction of an innocent person. An innocence commission would fill this gap. The commission would automatically review any acknowledged case of wrongful conviction, whether the conviction was reversed on post-conviction DNA tests, or through development of new evidence of innocence. Upon review of these cases, the commission would recommend remedies to prevent such miscarriages of justice from happening again. This paper commences with a review of the primary areas of wrongful conviction, followed by recommendations made with respect to the substantive components constituting innocence commissions. To empirically demonstrate the fiscal soundness of creating an innocence commission, data was gathered pertaining to the state of Arizona. Statements from criminal justice professionals and politicians in support of innocence commissions conclude our discussion.     

Termination of the Prospective Payment Assessment Commission and the Physician Payment Review Commission--GAO. Notice of termination of commissions

The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 requires the Comptroller General, after the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has been established, to provide for the termination of the Prospective Payment Assessment Commission and the Physician Payment Review Commission. This notice announces the termination of the two commissions.     

The Orwellian Military Commissions Act of 2006

In three decisions in 2004 and 2006, the Supreme Court of theUnited States rejected the sweeping claims by President Bushthat his role as Commander in Chief entitled him to detain personsindefinitely and, if he chose, to subject them to war crimestrials before military commissions that did not have all ofthe procedural protections of courts martial. The Court's rulings,however, left open the possibility that, notwithstanding thetreaty obligations of the United States under the Geneva Conventions,Congress could authorize the President to take the steps thathe could not take unilaterally. In the Military CommissionsAct (MCA) of 2006, Congress did just that. However, despiteits title, the MCA does far more than authorize military commissions.Most significantly, it eliminates the statutory right of aliensdeclared by the government to be ‘unlawful enemy combatants’and detained indefinitely on that basis, to seek a writ of habeascorpus from a federal court. To be sure, the MCA provides someright of access to federal court for persons convicted of warcrimes by military commissions or found to be unlawful enemycombatants by a military ‘combatant status review tribunal’or equivalent body, but even then, it severely curtails opportunitiesfor judicial relief. In this and other respects, the MCA purportsto confer rights that, upon close inspection, prove illusory.For example, it uses the language of the Geneva Conventions,even while forbidding courts to look to international and foreignsources to construe that language. The MCA is, more broadly,an exercise in misdirection. It is, in a word, ‘Orwellian’.     

Hearing Voice: A Theoretical Framework for Truth Commission Testimony

The article proposes a new way of thinking through truth commissions by discerning the manner in which they usher in new political configurations through voices and vocalizations. It contributes to our understanding of truth commissions by way of proposing a pragmatic ontology of bonds between the body, voice, and testimony by elucidating the central features that make them vocal assemblages, composed of five sub-institutional capacities: (1) they affect and are affected by bodies in a complex topological relation; (2) they are driven by an apology, which itself proffers a non-human body of transformation; (3) they potentiate reconciliation through spontaneous vocalizations; (4) they are ontogenetic openings that reassemble national pasts, presents, and futures; and (5) they are temporally experiential predecessors to political action. While victim testimony is taken as a historical crowning of the edifice for nations seeking to mend their past injustices, I contend that public reparation flourishes only if the state is open to the alternative orientations the voice proffers—that is, following recent observations of transitional justice, truth commissions have the potential to seek out alternative context-specific forms of justice in place of a universal law of reconciliation. By way of a brief discussion of Aboriginal artist K.C. Adams’ diptych series, Perception, the article proposes that voices pose a nuanced figuration of auto-affection as a communicative possibility towards the (re)presentation and (re)invention of the (survivor) self.     

论中央部委间关系的协调

中央部委作为国务院的职能部门,难以凭一己之力单独执行政策,必须有其他部委、地方政府及地方各部门的配合,形成合力来实现行政目标.在法律有冲突、职能存交叉、部门本位主义、缺乏宏观引导的境况下,多个部门制定的行政规章和规范性文件之间常有矛盾,政策执行过程也时有冲突.因此,协调中央部委间关系的路径在于：优化法治环境,法律主动介入协调；优化组织结构,明确部委职能；平等信任兼容,建立常设协调机构；多方协同联合,成立独立机关或合理授权；规范政策制定和执行程序,促成部委间关系的健康平稳有序发展.     

论新形势下侦查讯问人员应具备的基本素质

当前,我国刑事犯罪出现了许多新情况、新特点。如何在犯罪嫌疑人归案以后组织好审讯室里的较量,是对侦查讯问人员综合素质的严峻考验。从这个角度出发研究新形势下侦查讯问人员应具备的政治、业务、心理等基本素质具有重要的意义。     

Truth, Reconciliation and Justice: The South African Experience in Perspective

The lecture examines the role and objectives of truth and reconciliation commissions in societies undergoing major political transitions, with particular reference to the model of South Africa, and compares this method to others suggested by international criminal law for accommodating both retributive and restorative responses to past conflicts and crimes against humanity.     

Algorhythm of making forensic medical expert examinations by medical documents in obstetric-gynecological practice

Most of the suits brought against medical professionals concern obstetricians-gynecologists. The experienced clinicians take part in commissions of experts to certify validity of diagnosis, treatment, operations, manipulations. Current state of obstetric-gynecological expertise is characterized. Algorithm of making obstetric-gynecological examinations is proposed. Criteria on forensic-medical assessment of medical care conducted in comparison with current standards of this care are formulated.