Bangladesh Politics: Confrontation,Monopoly and Crisis in Governance

Despite the restoration of parliamentary democracy in Bangladesh since 1991, political governance of the country is still mired by innumerable ills. It broadly features a wide array of confrontation, competition, monopolization of state institutions and resources by the party in power. This trend of politics has tremendously weakened the formal accountability mechanisms and put governance in crisis. This article depicts the nature of confrontational politics in Bangladesh, its causes and impacts on governance with supportive evidence from both primary and secondary sources. As case examples, it shows how bureaucracy and local government institutions are grossly politicized as a result of confrontational politics and their impact on governance.     

EU update

This is the regular edition of the Bristows column on developments in EU law relating to IP, IT and telecommunications. This news article summarises recent developments that are considered important for practitioners, students and academics in a wide range of information technology, e-commerce, telecommunications and intellectual property areas. It cannot be exhaustive but intends to address the important points. This is a hard copy reference guide, but links to outside websites are included where possible. No responsibility is assumed for the accuracy of information contained in these links.     

The red herring of adolescent mental health

An increase in adolescent distress and mental health symptoms has been clearly documented since the COVID-19 pandemic, as has increased exposure to adverse childhood experiences. Layer on top of these stressors being a youth of divorcing or separating high conflict families, and adolescent symptomatology can suddenly become a flashpoint for parental attention, division and conflict. Approaching cases using an ecological and family systems framework is necessary for accurate conceptualization and assessment of best interests in the context of child custody evaluations. Doing so ensures that adolescent mental health does not become a red herring in high conflict cases, leading to undue focus on the adolescent's mental health without considering other salient factors in the case, such as the broader parent conflict. Programs offered at the Center of Excellence for Children, Families & the Law at William James College designed to improve the lives of youth by addressing parental conflict are described.     

Evolution of forensic autopsy and current legal procedures in Turkey

The first documented forensic autopsy in Turkey was in 1843 during the Ottoman period. In this article, the evolution and current legal procedures regarding forensic autopsies with emphasis on current legal procedures following the declaration of Turkish Republic in 1923 are delineated.     

Political discourses on Europe and European integration in national election manifestos and party programmes

Through a textual analysis of national election manifestos, this paper critically discusses political parties' discourses towards Europe and European integration in three European Union (EU) member states: Germany, which has always promoted further integration; the United Kingdom, which has consistently been a keen supporter of intergovernmentalism; and finally the Netherlands, one of the original six and a willing, yet cautious, supporter of supranational cooperation. By analysing how political parties frame European integration in their discourses, we aim to investigate the variance in national political cultures with respect to identity and self-identification with Europe as a determining factor of support for the process. This paper concludes that although European integration is structured around a framework of interests in all the six party discourses under analysis, the construction of national identities and hence the articulation of national interest in EU membership as well as the visions for the political structure of the union varies significantly.     

Foreigners Dying in Istanbul

Abstract:  The study included 411 deaths selected from 14,647 medicolegal deaths autopsied in the Morgue Department of Forensic Medicine Institute Directorate, affiliated with the Ministry of Justice, between 1998 and 2002. Data were collected from court documents, coroner's investigation reports, and autopsy reports. The parameters of age, gender, nationality and origin, cause and place of death in foreigners dying in Istanbul were evaluated in the study. Out of 14,647 medicolegal deaths, 3.5% were foreigners from 34 different nationalities. The nationality with the highest rate of foreigner deaths (34%) was Romanian. Out of 411 deaths, 74.3% were male and 25.7% were female. Of all cases, 64.4% were tourists visiting Istanbul and 35.6% had a job in Istanbul. Of 146 foreigners employed in Istanbul, 94.5% did not have a work permit, while only 5.5% had a work permit.     

代聊手代聊行为的实行行为性界定

我国司法实践倾向于将组织卖淫活动中的代聊手代聊行为认定为协助组织卖淫行为,并以协助组织卖淫罪定罪处罚.其实,有些组织卖淫活动中代聊手代聊行为既不是正犯或者主犯的直接帮助行为,又不符合实行行为的构造,不能以刑法中的相关规定上升为实行行为.在组织卖淫活动中,这种直接作用于帮助犯、间接作用于正犯或主犯的帮助行为,应当被认定为间接帮助行为.作为间接帮助行为的代聊手代聊行为在组织卖淫活动中依附于组织卖淫罪中正犯或主犯行为,发挥着次要或辅助作用,符合组织卖淫罪从犯的该当性和违法性.     

EU update

This is the latest edition of the Bristows column on developments in EU law relating to IP, IT and telecommunications. This news article summarises recent developments that are considered important for practitioners, students and academics in a wide range of information technology, e-commerce, telecommunications and intellectual property areas. It cannot be exhaustive but intends to address the important points. This is a hard copy reference guide, but links to outside web sites are included where possible. No responsibility is assumed for the accuracy of information contained in these links.     

Automated region segmentation on cartridge case base

One of the significant problems encountered in criminology studies is the successful automated matching of fired cartridge cases, on the basis of the characteristic marks left on them by firearms. An intermediate step in the solution of this problem is the segmentation of certain regions that are defined on the cartridge case base. This paper describes a model-based method that performs segmentation of the cartridge case using surface height image of a center fire cartridge case base. The proposed method detects the location of the cartridge case base center and specific circular contours around it iteratively by projecting the problem to a one-dimensional feature space. In addition, the firing pin impression region is determined by utilizing an adaptive threshold that differentiates impression marks form primer region surface. Letters on the cartridge case base are also detected by using surface modeling and adaptive thresholding, in order to render the surface comparison operation robust against irrelevant surface features. Promising experimental results indicate the eligibility of the proposed method to be used for automated cartridge case base region segmentation process.