Lies Matter

Law and Philosophy -     

Agenda Control, the Median Justice, and the Majority Opinion on the U.S. Supreme Court

Some scholars argue that the author of the majority opinion exercises the most influence over the Court's opinion-writing process and so can determine what becomes Court policy, at least within the limits of what some Court majority finds acceptable. Other students of the Court have suggested that the Court's median justice effectively dictates the content of the majority opinion: whatever policy the median justice most wants, she can get. We test these competing models with data on Supreme Court decision making during the Burger Court (1969–86). While we find substantial evidence for both models, the agenda control model gains greater support. This suggests that opinions on the Court on each case are driven, in general, by the interaction of three key variables: the policy preferences of the majority opinion author, the policy preferences of the median justice, and the location of the legal status quo .     

PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEES,PUBLIC SERVANTS AND DUE PROCESS

Abstract: The parliamentary system of government in its Australian form has a number of unresolved problems, notwithstanding its many virtues. One such problem is that of the role of public servants when called before parliamentary committees as witnesses. The current guidelines are mainly advice to public servants as to how they should avoid or defer questions which neither the minister nor the departmental secretary has authorised them to answer. Of course, this is useful and proper within its limits. However, it fails to address many of the dilemmas and career-threatening choices which can face public servants who find themselves being questioned in an aggressive, hostile manner by members of a parliamentary committee. Unfair treatment of witnesses is not a trivial matter and there are more than isolated instances. This article deals with an episode involving the Joint Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts in 1982. The case is now some years in the past, but it is still worth examining for what it teaches about gaps in our constitutional conventions. At the end of the article we suggest action in four areas. Intensive training and retraining is needed, first in the upper ranks of the public service, and secondly for chairpersons and members of parliamentary committees. Thirdly there is a need for MAB-MIAC to revisit yet again their guidelines on accountability and to instigate a review of the government's guidelines for public servants appearing as witnesses. Both sets of guidelines are anachronisms. Finally, we suggest that, in any future review of government policy in this area, consideration be given to the amendment of relevant legislation to bring due process and the protection of witnesses more closely into line with the rights available to persons appearing before a court.     

Estimation of body exposure to explosion

An ordnance-disposal expert was killed while disposing of a cache of explosives. The likely position of the body was reconstructed by modeling the explosion as an omnidirectional emission of particles from a model of the explosion site and noting the distribution of particles on a model of a human. The applications and limitations of this method in reconstructing the events and correlation with the injuries noted at autopsy are discussed.