Self-represented litigants: the overlooked and unintended consequence of legal aid reform

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) comes into force in April 2013 and is widely expected to lead to an increase in the number of self-representing litigants (SRLs) in the family courts. Taking a practitioner focus, this article considers the negative impact of this increase and considers possible measures for combating the practical pitfalls such a growth in SRLs presents.     

Corruption and reform in China: An analysis of unintended consequences

Although market-driven reforms are bringing hope for China's economic development, there has been an increasing visibility of corruption in the reform process. This article examines the relationship between corruption and reform in China by relating the corruption issue to certain reform policies. It finds that corruption results from unintended consequences of some intended reform policies, as these policies aimed at transforming China's socioeconomic structures at the same time inadvertently produce some political and economic conditions conducive to corruption. The unintended consequences are controllable, however, if a balanced reform agenda is developed.     

The unintended consequences of kingpin strategies: kidnap rates and the Arellano-Félix Organization

Kingpin strategies— the targeting of the top-levels of terrorist or drug trafficking organization hierarchies— has become a centerpiece of US and Mexican efforts to combat drug trafficking. This study addresses the unintended consequences of these strategies by assessing the impact of the arrest or deaths of Arellano Felix Organization leaders on kidnap and homicide levels from the late 1990’s to 2011. Based on the study, the arrest of important AFO “lieutenants” increased kidnap rates. Arrests or the deaths of organization “kingpins” did not result in increased homicides or kidnappings, if respected successors were ready to fill leadership vacuums. When leadership succession was in question, the arrest of “kingpins” did result in internecine conflict and thus increased homicide and kidnapping rates. Following internecine conflict, kidnap and homicide rates dropped, but not to pre-conflict levels. This is likely attributable to the use of kidnapping and homicide as a dispute resolution mechanism in the growing Tijuana consumer drug market.     

Beyond the property debate: animal welfare as a public good

Abstract

Animal protection is socially constructed through laws specifying which animals should be protected and how. Most jurisdictions codify animal abuse by specifying the legal protections granted to animals. While these vary between jurisdictions, western legal systems generally provide for better levels of animal protection by incorporating animal welfare and wildlife crime laws into criminal justice systems. UK legislation has long held that animal welfare is a public good, thus animals should be protected in the public interest. However, despite the protective provisions of animal protection laws they generally fall short of giving animals actual rights, protection exists only to the extent that animal and human interests coincide. Animals’ legal status as property dictates that much anti-animal abuse and wildlife crime legislation is about allowing animal exploitation commensurate with human interests. However, UK legislation in the form of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 subtly shifts this position in respect of domestic animals by imposing a duty of care towards companion animals. This paper argues that by requiring owners and responsible persons to give active consideration to the needs of individual companion animals, the Animal Welfare Act provides animals with a level of protection that amounts to a form of legal rights.     

环境公益诉讼制度刍议

传统诉讼法理论将原告资格限制为须与本案有直接利害关系。对于环境等社会公益 ,公民被认为不具有直接利害关系 ,其原告资格不被承认。这样 ,当环境等社会公益遭受侵害或有侵害之虞时 ,公民便无法通过司法手段来维护公益。环境公益诉讼制度的出现 ,既是诉讼法对其自身只顾及保护私人利益的狭隘性突破 ,也是对传统诉讼法律制度的超越。     

论公益行政诉讼制度的构建

本文在借鉴国外公益诉讼制度的基础上 ,指出公益行政诉讼是为了排除传统的原告适格理论的阻却而在无传统诉权人的情况下 ,为公益目地而设定的一项救济制度 ,分析了公益行政诉讼的范围 ,赋予了检察机关、社会团体和公民的起诉资格 ,并进一步探讨了通过纳入法律援助制度、设立前置程序、放宽原告起诉条件的审查标准及防止滥诉来保障公益行政诉讼制度的建立。     

Children's Medicaid enrollment: the impacts of mandates, welfare reform, and policy delinking

From 1984 to 1990. Congress enacted a series of mandates that expanded Medicaid eligibility for low-income children by gradually delinking Medicaid eligibility from welfare eligibility. The 1996 national welfare reform law nominally completed the delinking process when the statutory phase-in of children's Medicaid coverage was preserved even as the states were given increased flexibility for administering welfare programs. This article provides estimates of the impact of these fedcral policy changes on children's Medicaid enrollment rates and analyzes the degree of success in uncoupling children's Medicaid enrollment from welfare. Data from the Current Population Survey for 1979 to 1998 are used to provide standardized enrollment probabilities for the United States and individual states. The results show important enrollment increases associated with the period of the mandated expansions, followed by enrollment declines associated with welfare reform. The largest increases in enrollment during this period were in states with historically restrictive welfare eligibility, but rates also rose in states that previously had relatively expansive welfare eligibility. The net effect was a reduction in the extent of state-to-state variation in enrollment. The Medicaid expansion peaked in 1995, prior to the advent of national welfare reform. Since then, children's Medicaid enrollment has fallen, with the largest declines falling on families with the very lowest incomes. Consistent with the desire to delink children's Medicaid coverage from welfare, the association between Medicaid and AFDC/TANF enrollment weakened during the expansionary period, but there still was a relatively strong relationship between policy outcomes for these two programs. Despite the policy changes, Medicaid coverage of children is still influenced by state-level welfare policy.     

Harry and Louise and health care reform: romancing public opinion

The question whether the "Harry and Louise" campaign ads, sponsored by the Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA) during the 1993-1994 health care reform debate, influenced public opinion has particular relevance today since interest groups are increasingly choosing commercial-style mass media campaigns to sway public opinion about health policy issues. Our study revisits the issue of the Harry and Louise campaign's influence on public opinion, comparing the ad campaign's messages to changes in opinion about health care reform over a twenty-six-month period in Oklahoma. Looking at the overall trends just prior to the introduction of the Harry and Louise campaign, public opinion was going in the "wrong" direction, from the HIAA perspective. Moreover, public opinion continued in the wrong direction until the mid-point of the campaign. However, in either the turning point of the campaign in terms of message content and tone or in the lag period following it, public opinion reversed on each health reform issue and returned to pre-campaign levels. It appears from these findings that the campaign captured public opinion when support for issues that were unfavorable to HIAA members was increasing and turned public opinion back to pre-campaign levels. The campaign may result in many more such marriages of political interest groups and commercial advertisers for the purpose of demobilizing public support for health policy initiatives that are unfavorable to special interests.     

Analysing the economic justification for the reforms to social welfare and family law legal aid

The Ministry of Justice plans on saving £450 million per annum from the legal aid budget through reforms contained in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012.Over 60% of these savings will be found by removing whole areas of law and types of problem from the scope of legal aid support. One of the principal justifications for these reforms is the economic imperative; reducing legal aid expenditure is necessary to meet the Government's fiscal targets. This article examined whether these reforms will generate the substantial savings identified in the Government's impact assessment, or whether these costs will be passed on to other areas of government. Data from the Civil and Social Justice Survey were used to model the behavioural responses of people no longer eligible for legal aid under the scope changes. Economic costs were estimated for these responses where they will be incurred by the state, although many of these costs are likely to be underestimates. Many costs could not be estimated including, inter alia, the cost of increased criminality where people seek redress outside of the justice system. The analysis focused on family and social welfare law, which together represent 82% of the proposed savings from the scope reforms. Based upon this analysis, the Government is unlikely to save more than 40% of its prediction. At the same time, these minimal savings could generate inequality of access to justice and overburden an already struggling alternative advice sector. A significant uptake in funded mediation within family law is predicted.     

From rank-seeking to rent-seeking: Changing administrative ethos and corruption in reform China

There are two contrasting images of the contemporaryChinese bureaucracy: the first is one of stiffrevolutionary cadres working under a marginallyreformed mobilization regime; the second is one ofrationalization of administrative institutions withthe transformation of cadres into modern rule-orientedbureaucrats. By examining some prevailing informalbehaviors of Chinese public officials, this articleoffers an alternative image: a neotraditionalistofficialdom with a reconfiguration of somepatrimonial, revolutionary, and legal-rationalinstitutions, ethos, and modes of operation.     

Need-efficiency trade-offs in the allocation of resources: Ideological and attributional differences in public aid decision making

We examined whether ideological differences influenced perceptions of the underlying causes of public aid applicants’ predicaments, and whether in turn ideology-patterned attributions accounted for how resource allocators prioritized need- and efficiency-related goals in allocating aid. To examine the need-efficiency trade-off, participants (N=112) divided a hypothetical pool of aid applicants for subsidized health insurance into two “incorrect” allocation outcomes: false alarms (allocate aid to unneedy applicants) and misses (deny aid to needy applicants). Moreover, to examine beliefs about the absolute percentage of aid applicants who are truly in need of societal assistance, participants divided the remaining aid applicants into two “correct” allocation outcomes: hits (allocate aid to needy applicants) and correct rejections (deny aid to unneedy applicants). Results of a series of structural equation models indicated that conservatism was linked to the causal belief that aid applicants’ predicaments arise from dispositional rather than situational factors, which in turn predicted a preference for making efficiency-related over need-related resource allocation judgments (e.g., preferring misses to false alarms) and the belief that a relatively small number of aid applicants are truly in need of societal assistance (e.g., preferring correct rejections to hits). Results are discussed in terms of how ideologically driven attributions influence the manner in which people resolve need-efficiency trade-offs inherent in the context of public aid decision making.     

加强和创新社会管理 进一步推动司法鉴定改革与发展

不久前,中央领导同志明确提出了在新形势下加强和创新社会管理的重大任务,强调要扎扎实实提高社会管理科学化水平,建设中国特色社会主义社会管理体系。这对推动司法鉴定工作在＂十二五＂期间进一步加强和创新管理,推动司法鉴定体制机制改革与发展,提高司法鉴定的社会公信力,充分发挥司法鉴定制度功能作用,更好地服务经济社会发展、服务人民群众具有重要的指导意义。