The experience of civil partnership dissolution: not ‘just like divorce’

Between 2012 and 2014 I interviewed some of the earliest civil partners to dissolve their partnerships about their experience of dissolution. When I presented my findings, most family lawyers responded that dissolution was ‘pretty much like divorce’. And so it was, in many respects; but I thought that such comments missed an important difference. This article focuses on the legal understandings of gays and lesbians who have undergone dissolution of their civil partnerships, and on their experiences of it. This seemed to me significant for three reasons. First, the experiences of lesbians and gay men have historically been marginalised, pathologised or absent from legal accounts and the dominant legal consciousness. In this research they would be put centre-stage. Second, the institution of civil partnership – transient though it may turn out to be – deserves study as the point of entry into legal recognition and regulation of same-sex couples’ relationships in the UK. And, third, it is this precise history that makes it different from marriage, and dissolution different from divorce, whatever the similarities in legal treatment.     

Non-Voluntary Return? The Politics of Return to Afghanistan

The forced removal of 35 Afghan nationals from the UK in April 2003 calls into question the viability of the government's voluntary repatriation schemes and undermines the voluntary nature of return programmes. This article draws on the results of research conducted in 2002 to explore the views of the Afghan community about return. We evaluate three motivations for promoting return programmes: justice-based arguments, where return is the 'end of the refugee cycle'; human capital explanations, which focus on individual decisions to reverse the effects of brain-drain; and burden-relieving explanations, where return is an alternative to repatriation. Our findings suggest that domestic interest based arguments, rather than those founded on the protection of human rights, are driving the policy-making agenda. Returns are portrayed as a means of relieving the burden on welfare services, and placating an increasingly anti-immigrant public opinion. As well as individuals forcibly removed from Britain, other Afghans are being urged to return by means of financial inducements, and sometimes under the threat of repatriation. In this context, we can discern a new category of 'non-voluntary' returns where individual choice has little real meaning.     

Unzulässige Klauseln in Bauträgerverträgen

Die Pflicht zur gesetzeskonformen, ausgewogenen Interessenwahrung in Bautr?gervertr?gen wird bei der Gestaltung der vom Bautr?ger verwendeten Vertragsformbl?tter oftmals verletzt. Konsumentenschutzorganisationen haben diese Praxis kritisiert und die Verwendung gesetzeskonformer Klauseln verlangt. Trotz der vielfach gerechtfertigten Kritik darf die Forderung nach Konsumentenschutz nicht dazu führen, dass es für den Bautr?ger unm?glich wird, die in der Natur des Bautr?gergesch?ftes liegenden grundlegenden Gestaltungs- und Abwicklungskriterien im zul?ssigen Rahmen anzuwenden.     

Pre-verdict Judicial Fact-finding in Criminal Trials with Juries

In criminal trials with a jury, judges have many opportunitiesto engage in adjudicative fact-finding before the jury retires.English law has no conceptual framework for examining this judicialfact-finding which encompasses two categories of collateralfact (preliminary and underlying fact) and foreign law. A thirdcategory of collateral fact (conditional fact) is decided bythe jury. The article examines the nature of judicial fact-findingand the history and rationale for this allocation of fact-findingresponsibility between judge and jury.     

‘Everybody Did It’—or Did They?: The Use of Oral History in Researching Women’s Experiences of Smoking in Britain, 1930–1970

From having been predominantly a masculine habit in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, cigarette smoking was adopted by flappers and film stars in the 1920s and 30s, symbolising new types of femininity. However, it was not until the economic and social dislocation of the Second World War that substantial numbers of women began to smoke cigarettes. This article draws on oral history material to explore the reasons why women took up smoking during and following the Second World War. It suggests that smoking among women became more acceptable in a wider range of circumstances following the War, reflecting the adaptability of the cigarette and its role in negotiating an increasingly diverse range of femininities. The article examines the impact of current anti‐smoking discourse on smoking narratives, as interviewees set up opposing discourses of social acceptance in their youth and awareness of the health risks today.     

The Power of Feminist Judgments?

Recent years have seen the advent of two feminist judgment-writing projects, the Women??s Court of Canada, and the Feminist Judgments Project in England. This article analyses these projects in light of Carol Smart??s feminist critique of law and legal reform and her proposed feminist strategies in Feminism and the Power of Law (1989). At the same time, it reflects on Smart??s arguments 20?years after their first publication and considers the extent to which feminist judgment-writing projects may reinforce or trouble her conclusions. It argues that both of these results are discernible??that while some of Smart??s contentions have proved to be unsustainable, others remain salient and have both inspired and hold important cautions for feminist judgment-writing projects.     

When a Career Public Servant Sues the Agency He Loves: Claude Ferguson, the Forest Service, and Off-Road Vehicles in the Hoosier National Forest

Claude Ferguson, who in his own words “met the test of his lifetime,” deviated from the norms of the U.S. Forest Service articulated by Herbert Kaufman in The Forest Ranger to became a government guerrilla against the organization he loved. This profile highlights several enduring themes: the inherent tensions between democracy and bureaucracy, the many masters of career bureaucrats, how organizational culture can both empower and constrain employees, and what it means to act responsibly, ethically, and with integrity as a public servant. In addition, this case demonstrates how the Forest Service has evolved since Kaufman's classic study. First, Kaufman depicted forest rangers as “valuing the organization more than they value[d] getting their own way,” yet this profile underscores that public servants do not check their worldviews, mores, or ethics at the door. Second, Kaufman described the Forest Service's efforts to routinize the decisions of its employees in an effort to prevent allegiances to, or co‐optation by, local populations. Yet in this Administrative Profile, Ferguson's hidden strategic tactics co‐opted local stakeholders to enlist their support for a cause he deeply felt was right and just.