Au nom de qui? The European Court of Justice between Member States,Civil Society and Union Citizens

Abstract: How does the quest for legitimacy of the European Union relate to the view the European Court of Justice(ECJ) accords to Union citizens, civil society and to private actors? It is submitted that the ECJ is currently developing a jurisprudence under which citizens, as well as their organisations and corporate private actors, are gradually, and in almost complete disregard of the public/private distinction, being included in the matrix of rights and—a crucial point—obligations of the treaties. The ECJ incorporates civil society actors and citizens, beyond notions of representative (citizenship) and participatory (civil society) democracy, into the body of law and thereby reworks its own and the Union's identity. Two core aspects are explored: the first is the reconfiguration of Union citizenship as a norm which triggers the application of the substantive norms of the EC Treaty. The second aspect of this evolution is the creation of ‘private governance’ schemes, i.e. processes in which, as a rule, private action is regarded as action that has to meet the standards of the Treaty. The analysis shows that the court is disentangling itself from the State‐oriented Treaty situation and drawing legitimacy directly from citizens themselves so that judgments should be pronounced ‘In the Name of the Citizens of the European Union’.

1 European Court of Justice 20 September 2001, Case C‐184/99, Grzelczyk [2001] ECR I‐6193, para. 31.

     

Post-mortem radiological CT identification based on classical ante-mortem X-ray examinations

Radiological identification is important in forensic medicine. Identification using comparison of individualising structures with ante- and post-mortem conventional radiographs has been known for a long time. New radiological procedures such as computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are being increasingly used for identification. In this paper, a new comparative approach using various radiological methods is described and its application demonstrated. This new approach is the comparison of ante-mortem conventional radiographs with projected images calculated from post-mortem CT data. The identification procedure will be illustrated with reference to the frontal sinus and the pelvis.     

Does Twitter Increase Perceived Police Legitimacy?

Social media use has become increasingly popular among police forces. The literature suggests that social media use can increase perceived police legitimacy by enabling transparency and participation. Employing data from a large and representative survey of Dutch citizens (N = 4,492), this article tests whether and how social media use affects perceived legitimacy for a major social media platform, Twitter. A negligible number of citizens engage online with the police, and thus the findings reveal no positive relationship between participation and perceived legitimacy. The article shows that by enhancing transparency, Twitter does increase perceived police legitimacy, albeit to a limited extent. Subsequent analysis of the mechanism shows both an affective and a cognitive path from social media use to legitimacy. Overall, the findings suggest that establishing a direct channel with citizens and using it to communicate successes does help the police strengthen their legitimacy, but only slightly and for a small group of interested citizens.     

Morphometric Comparison of Clavicle Outlines from 3D Bone Scans and 2D Chest Radiographs: A Shortlisting Tool to Assist Radiographic Identification of Human Skeletons

This paper describes a computerized clavicle identification system primarily designed to resolve the identities of unaccounted‐for U.S. soldiers who fought in the Korean War. Elliptical Fourier analysis is used to quantify the clavicle outline shape from skeletons and postero‐anterior antemortem chest radiographs to rank individuals in terms of metric distance. Similar to leading fingerprint identification systems, shortlists of the top matching candidates are extracted for subsequent human visual assessment. Two independent tests of the computerized system using 17 field‐recovered skeletons and 409 chest radiographs demonstrate that true‐positive matches are captured within the top 5% of the sample 75% of the time. These results are outstanding given the eroded state of some field‐recovered skeletons and the faintness of the 1950's photofluorographs. These methods enhance the capability to resolve several hundred cold cases for which little circumstantial information exists and current DNA and dental record technologies cannot be applied.     

Radiographic comparison of a fractured clavicle exhibiting a pseudo-arthrosis

Bone remodeling is a natural process that is potentially problematic for radiographic comparisons because it can occur after antemortem (AM) imaging, thus interfering with the comparability of AM and postmortem (PM) radiographs from the same individual. While the effects of age-related remodeling have been studied, limited attention has been given to trauma-related remodeling with respect to radiographic comparisons. This report adds to the latter topic by presenting a case of AM clavicle fracture that developed into a pseudo-arthrosis over a 12-month period prior to the individual's death. Even though remodeling was discernable along the fracture margins, adjacent skeletal features on the PM radiograph remained unaltered and constituted compelling evidence for the identification. This case illustrates the potential of using both normal and pathological anatomy concurrently to maximize the surety of findings from radiographic comparisons.     

Der Internationale Gerichtshof, Verfassungsdiskurs und Verfassungsvergleichung

Aufgrund seiner überwiegend zivilistischen Gerichtsfunktion kommen dem IGH keine verfassungsgerichtlichen Aufgaben zu. Diese werden allenfalls indirekt im Rechtsgutachtenverfahren oder inzident im streitigen Verfahren ausgeübt. In inter-institutionellen Fragen, etwa der Kompetenzabgrenzung zwischen den Vereinten Nationen und Spezialorganisationen, zeigt die Judikatur des IGH jedoch mitunter Ansätze eines verfassungsrechtlichen Diskurses vor allem bei der Auslegung von Gründungsverträgen internationaler Organisationen. Da der IGH an die Anwendung des internationalen Rechtes gebunden ist und da dieses das nationale Recht bloß als "Faktum" betrachtet, ist es dem IGH grundsätzlich auch verwehrt, verfassungsvergleichend tätig zu werden. Allerdings hat der IGH immer wieder internationale Verfassungen herangezogen und rechtlich beurteilt, zuletzt etwa im Gutachten zur Rechtmäßigkeit der Unabhängigkeitserklärung des Kosovo.     

Konjunktur und Krise des Europäischen Sozialmodells. Ein Beitrag zur politischen Präexplantationsdiagnostik

The article sheds light upon the political and scientific career of the conception of a “European Social Model”. In a first step, it gives a comprehensive review of the literature to answer the question for the common characteristics of the European societies. The authors claim that the European Social Model as realised in these societies is characterised by structures and processes of ordered diversity and social compensation. In a second step, the development of the political integration project which is also referred to as the “European Social Model” is lined out. The authors focus on the idea of a regulated capitalism by Jacques Delors, which in the 1990s has been reformulated into a eurokeynesian strategy, as well as on the discussion about a “Third Way” which finally led to the promotion of a ‘new’ European Social Model. It is shown that the principles of the ‘new’ European integration model conflict with and indeed contradict the old structures of the European Social Model, i.e. the shared characteristics of the European societies.