Environmental administration,the courts and public policy, 1980-1989

Of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's seven major enabling statutes, six contain citizen suit provisions which reward anti-EPA plaintiffs. This fact, coupled with the agency's increasing use of the courts to bolster its enforcement efforts, yield a multitude of avenues through which courts have affected the policies and administration of the agency. This article discusses how the courts have affected the EPA in the 1980s and then briefly assesses the implications of such court-agency interaction for the successful operation of public agencies in the next decade. ^{? ?}This paper, particulary sections three and four, draws heavily upon a more detailed presentation examining the impact of federal court decisions on the policies and administration of the EPA from 1970 through 1988, published as O’Leary, R. Administrative Law Review, vol. 41. no. 4 (Fall, 1989).      

Forensic Assessment of Adults Reporting Childhood Sexualized Assault: a Lifespan Developmental Analysis

Many adults reporting childhood or adolescent sexualized assault (CSA) seek remedies through civil proceedings, thus necessitating a forensic assessment to determine the nature and extent of any psychological injuries related to such assault. Such assessments pose challenges, as CSA often occurred years earlier and may have affected not only immediate functioning but also later psychological maturation. The present paper explains how a lifespan developmental analysis can assist such assessments. The concepts of psychological development, attachment, developmental trajectory and risk and resilience can help in evaluating whether and how CSA affected normal psychological development, in determining the influence of risk factors other than CSA and in considering resiliency factors. Risk, resilience and psychological function must be examined in the domains of individual abilities and attributes, relationships and significant life activities both pre- and post-assault. Data on pre-assault risk, resilience and function can be used to estimate a “but for the assault” developmental trajectory that can then be compared to the individual’s actual developmental trajectory. This analysis, together with analysis of the severity of CSA, can assist in determining whether and how the CSA that is the basis for civil proceedings contributed to later life psychological injuries.     

Parent–Child Relations and Adolescent Self-Image Following Divorce: A 10 Year Study

This Australian study explored the links between self-image, family structure (divorced or intact), parent–child relations, and gender at 3 intervals over 10 years during adolescence (mean ages 14.7 at Time 1, 17.9 at Time 2) to early adulthood (mean age 24.9 at Time 3). The sample comprised 37 families at the point of divorce when interviewed in 1981–82, and 41 intact families of similar age, gender, and socioeconomic background. Initial measures of self-image (Offer Self-Image Questionnaire: OSIQ) and parent–child relations (Parent Bonding Inventory: PBI) were repeated in 1985 and 1990–91. ANOVAs showed that divorced fathers were perceived as significantly less caring than those from intact families at each interval. There were no family group differences on the control scale, nor on either scale for mothers. Correlations between PBI scales and OSIQ were significant for the sample as a whole, but were stronger for those from intact than divorced families. ANOVAs showed that when mothers' and fathers' parenting styles were seen as highly caring and also not over controlling (i.e., optimal), adolescent self-image was significantly better, irrespective of gender or family structure. Examination of the joint influence of both parents showed that at Times 1 and 2 adolescent self-image was significantly better when one or both parents, compared with neither, were optimal. At Time 3, this comparison was significant only when both parents were optimal. Self-image was related to whether or not a custodial parent was seen as optimal but not to the gender of the child or custodial parent.     

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.     

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.     

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.