Provisional Court Protection in Administrative Disputes in Europe: The Constitutional Status of Interim Measures Deriving from the Right to Effective Court Protection. A Comparative Approach

Abstract: Interim protection in remedies against the public administration has proved to be one of the key issues in today's justice. In effect, the slowness of judicial proceedings means that final judicial decisions cannot guarantee the rights and interests of the litigants any more, because those decisions arrive too late. Thus, effective judicial protection is at stake. On the other hand, public administrations have traditionally disposed of privileges, one of the most important of them being the so‐called executive character of administrative acts. The national debate on the equilibrium between both principles—effective judicial protection and the executive character of administrative acts—needs to be exported to the Community law context. Community law should therefore learn from national experiences, as other legal orders, such as the Spanish one, have done, turning to comparative law in order to improve their own model of interim protection.     

Nondestructive Methods for Recovery of Biological Material from Human Teeth for DNA Extraction

The extraction of DNA from human skeletal remains applied to forensic, and evolutionary studies do not exclude risks, which are to be evaluated when working with unique specimens that could be damaged or even destroyed. In the present study were evaluated several nondestructive methods for recovering DNA instead of the most currently used pulverization method. Three different procedures to access inside the dental pieces (occlusal perforation, cervical perforation, and cervical cut) have been compared with the aim of recovering as many cell remains as possible to carry out a DNA extraction. Given the DNA quantitation results, a method was proposed that consists of a cervical cut to facilitate the access to the pulp cavity and a subsequent filing of the root canals down to the apex of the dental root. This methodology allows the recovery of both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, with the minimum deterioration for the dental pieces.     

Genetic variation of 15 STR autosomal loci in the Maracaibo population from Venezuela

Allele frequencies for 15 short tandem repeats (STRs) autosomal loci (D8S1179, D21S11, D7S820, CSF1PO, D3S1358, TH01, D13S317, D16S539, D2S1338, D19S433, vWA, TPOX, D18S51, D5S818 and FGA, included in the AmpFLSTR Identifiler, Applied Biosystems) were studied in the city of Maracaibo, Venezuela and were compared with other published Latin-American populations for the same loci. Population and forensic parameters were estimated.     

Is there progress in the autopsy diagnosis of sudden unexpected death in adults?

Sudden death is now currently described as natural unexpected death occurring within 1h of new symptoms. Most studies on the subject focused on cardiac causes of death because most of the cases are related to cardiovascular disease, especially coronary artery disease. The incidence of sudden death varies largely as a function of coronary heart disease prevalence and is underestimated. Although cardiac causes are the leading cause of sudden death, the exact incidence of the other causes is not well established because in some countries, many sudden deaths are not autopsied. Many risk factors of sudden cardiac death are identified: age, gender, heredity factors such as malignant mutations, left ventricular hypertrophy and left ventricle function impairment. The role of the police surgeon in the investigation of sudden death is very important. This investigation requires the interrogation of witnesses and of the family members of the deceased. The interrogation of physicians of the rescue team who attempted resuscitation is also useful. Recent symptoms before death and past medical history must be searched. Other sudden deaths in the family must be noted. The distinction between sudden death at rest and during effort is very important because some lethal arrhythmia are triggered by catecholamines during stressful activity. The type of drugs taken by the deceased may indicate a particular disease linked with sudden death. Sudden death in the young always requires systematic forensic autopsy performed by at least one forensic pathologist. According to recent autopsy studies, coronary artery disease is still the major cause of death in people aged more than 35 years. Cardiomyopathies are more frequently encountered in people aged less than 35 years. The most frequent cardiomyopathy revealed by sudden death is now arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy also known simply as right ventricular cardiomyopathy (RVC). The postmortem diagnosis of cardiomyopathies is very important because the family of the deceased will need counseling and the first-degree relatives may undergo a possible screening to prevent other sudden deaths. In each case of sudden death, one important duty of the forensic pathologist is to inform the family of all autopsy results within 1 month after the autopsy. Most of the recent progress in autopsy diagnosis of sudden unexpected death in the adults comes from molecular biology, especially in case of sudden death without significant morphological anomalies. Searching mutations linked with functional cardiac pathology such as long-QT syndrome, Brugada syndrome or idiopathic ventricular fibrillation is now the best way in order to explain such sudden death. Moreover, new syndromes have been described by cardiologists, such as short-QT syndrome and revealed in some cases by a sudden death. Molecular biology is now needed when limits of morphological diagnosis have been reached.     

Economic incongruities in the European patent system

This article suggests that the consequences of the ??fragmentation?? of the European patent system are more dramatic than the mere prohibitive costs of maintaining a patent in force in many jurisdictions. The prevalence of national jurisdictions, which are highly heterogeneous in their costs and practices, over the validity and enforcement of European patents, induces a high level of uncertainty and an intense managerial complexity which reduce both the effectiveness and the attractiveness of the European patent system in its mission to stimulate innovation.     

Leaderisation in foreign policy: performing the role of EU High Representative

ABSTRACT

This article examines how the mediatised context of foreign policy provides new opportunities for political leaders to both frame and project their own leadership role to new audiences. The past ten years have witnessed a sharp rise in political leaders’ use of new social media to communicate on a range of foreign policy issues. We argue that this new media context of foreign policy, combined with a bolstered leadership mandate, has been central to the construction of a more visible public leadership role for the EU High Representative in the post-Lisbon era. Departing from recent scholarship on performative leadership and new media in International Relations theory, we develop an original theoretical framework drawing on Erving Goffman’s dramaturgy of impression management. We employ the concept of “leaderisation” to analyse how mediatisation shapes the leadership process in terms of personification and drama to enable new forms of interaction with followers. We apply this framework in an illustrative case study focusing on the process of negotiating the EU Global Strategy. This diplomatic process provided the High Representative Mogherini with a stage on which she could frame herself in a central leadership position vis-à-vis European citizens to mobilise greater legitimacy for the EU as a global actor.     

Still a poster child for social investment? Changing regulatory dynamics of early childhood education and care in Denmark and Sweden

This paper investigates the regulation of publicly organized early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Denmark and Sweden, through the regulatory welfare state (RWS) framework. The analysis focuses on how alterations in funding and quality of care are shaped by governmental and nongovernmental actors at national and local levels of government. Through focused structured analysis, we examine how various actors have shaped the funding and quality of childcare in Denmark and Sweden, from the early 2000s to 2020, with special attention to the period during and after the 2008 financial crisis. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, concerns about quality in care were raised on the political agenda by various actors in both countries, leading to decisions to improve the quality of care. Yet, the regulatory dynamics differ: In Denmark, the debate led to a decision in 2019, to implement a minimum statutory requirement of regulatory quality standards. From an RWS perspective, this outcome can be qualified as “double expansion,” because regulatory quality standards, and public funding for childcare increased. In Sweden, the debates about quality of ECEC led, in 2016, to political guidelines about quality standard, but with no additional national funds, and no mandatory regulatory quality requirements. Analytically, this can be qualified as “regulatory-led expansion,” that is requirements for quality standards, although the lack of additional national funds suggests that it will be difficult to improve ECEC quality substantially. The RWS perspective, which focuses on national and municipal levels of governance, also gives insights into hidden inequalities between municipalities regarding funding and quality of ECEC, which are more pronounced in Sweden than in Denmark.     

The ‘relics of Joan of Arc’: A forensic multidisciplinary analysis

Archaeological remains can provide concrete cases, making it possible to develop, refine or validate medico-legal techniques.In the case of the so-called ‘Joan of Arc's relics’ (a group of bone and archaeological remains known as the ‘Bottle of Chinon’), 14 specialists analysed the samples such as a cadaver X of carbonised aspect: forensic anthropologist, medical examiners, pathologists, geneticists, radiologist, biochemists, palynologists, zoologist and archaeologist. Materials, methods and results of this study are presented here.This study aims to offer an exploitable methodology for the modern medico-legal cases of small quantities of human bones of carbonised aspect.