Women's law: methods,problems, values

Conclusion The five areas of women's law that I have chosen to focus — money law, housewives' law, paid-work law, criminal law and birth law — represent different coordinating perspectives on women's legal position. These perspectives could certainly have been supplemented by others, for example, discrimination law. The feminist perspective can also be used in several traditional areas of legal science e.g., social insurance law, tax law, family law etc. I, however, have chosen a problematic other than the traditional one: first, to underline the importance of theory through the development ofconcepts anddiscussions of values in women's studies in general; and second, to indicate the especial fields in focus within the Institute of Women's Law at the University of Oslo. Through the perspective discussed in this article we think that we are on our way to describe, explain and understand women's legal status. The fundamental aim is to improve women's position both in law and society.     

Law, Diagram, Film: Critique Exhausted

What potential can be found in the work of Deleuze and Guattari for critical legal scholarship? The authors argue that their work can be deployed to re-think ??critique?? by directly addressing the place and role of the ??critic??. It is argued that the continued commitment to a stance of ??resistance?? in CLS is underpinned by never-ending dualisms which, if not confronted and replaced, can only make CLS ever more redundant. The authors ask: ??what is critique beyond the dualism of power and resistance, of state and nomad??? This question arises from a belief that critique is still capable of being effective, but only if there is the courage to experiment, and to think creatively. In this sense, the ??exhaustion?? of critique is framed as an opportunity to re-think and re-engage with the politics of law. The paper diagrams, through image and film, a critical thought: the potential of the artisan. Film is utilised not as representation, nor as illustration, but as a thinking mind in its own right, through which questions relating to the state, political action, and creative thinking can be (re)framed. Such a re-framing is essential, it is argued, for an engagement with the emergence of societies of control.     

Patrilines,surnames, and family identity:

The Imperial decrees emancipating the serfs of the Russian Baltic provinces (1816–1820) included the requirement that serfs, who would now become free peasants and obtain legal standing, have both a first name and a surname, the latter of their own choosing. The article examines the process through which Baltic peasants obtained surnames and analyzes the choices they made. In the Pinkenhof estate, in the province of Livland, emancipated serfs most often chose surnames that reflected their place of residence, but also frequently chose names from the natural world, occupations, and other similar sources. The acquisition of surnames helped to consolidate family and lineage identity, which had been difficult in the pre-emancipation perion when individuals bore only a first name plus the name of the place in which they were currently residing, the latter changing as they moved.     

Luhmann: Law,Justice, and Time

Time is central to Luhmann’s writings on social systems. Social systems, as systems of meaning, operate within three dimensions: factual, social and temporal. Each of these dimensions entails selections of actualities from potentialities (or contingencies) within horizons. Whilst the factual dimension involves selections based on distinguishing ‘this’ from ‘something else’, and the social distinguishes between alter and ego (asking with respect to any meaning whether another experiences it as I do), the temporal dimension operates with the primary distinction of before and after. In the temporal dimension, everything is ‘ordered only according to the when and not to the who/what/where/how of experience and action’ (Luhmann in Social systems. Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1995, p. 78). In this paper, we explore the connection between the temporal dimension of meaning within the legal system and its connection to justice. We begin by setting out succinctly the role played by justice within the legal system, as presented by Luhmann, particularly in his book Law as a social system (2004). From this beginning, we move on to consider the relationship between law, justice and time, taking two examples. The first is the temporality of judicial decisions. The second concerns the relationship between the temporal meaning of law’s own operations, and the presumption of innocence.     

Chapter 3: Pleadings,Notice, Parties,and Appearances

This chapter focuses on UCCJA s? 9 pleading requirements. Judges need the information this section requires litigants to provide in order to determine jurisdiction. This chapter also covers who is entitled to notice and opportunity to be heard, how notice may be given, and what the court can do to facilitate appearances of out-of-state parties and children.