Die kleine Novelle zur Anpassung des BNatSchG an das europäische Recht

Zusammenfassung Durch Urteil vom 10. Januar 2006 hat der Europ?ische Gerichtshof die Umsetzung der Vogelschutz-Richtlinie (V-RL) und der FFH-Richtlinie (FFH-RL) beanstandet, insbesondere der Projektbegriff der FFH-Vertr?glichkeitsprüfung sowie bestimmte Freistellungen von den artenschutzrechtlichen Verboten wurden als europarechtswidrig verworfen. Die Korrektur dieser M?ngel ist durch die sog. kleine Novelle des Bundesnaturschutzgesetzes erfolgt. Nachfolgend werden die ?nderungen des Artenschutzrechts sowie die Auswirkungen der Aufhebung des Projektbegriffs vorgestellt.     

THE TYPOLOGY OF FISCAL DECENTRALISATION SYSTEM: A CLUSTER ANALYSIS APPROACH

The article suggests a novel theoretical framework for empirical measurement of fiscal decentralisation by taking the viewpoint that fiscal decentralisation should be regarded as a system. Then, we review in detail several institutional arrangements regarding fiscally decentralised systems including the following: federal versus unitary state, numbers of tiers of governments, taxing power, borrowing power and independence of local officials. After identifying these institutional arrangements, we can group different countries with similar institutionally fiscal decentralisation systems together in broad categories by using cluster analysis. This analysis reveals a typology of fiscally decentralised systems (FDS): high expenditure/revenue assignment FDS, low expenditure/revenue assignment FDS, revenue transfer FDS, most complete FDS, politically centralised FDS and unitary state FDS. We then employ regression analysis to examine the performance for each type of fiscal decentralisation system. Our empirical findings suggest that most complete FDS is positively associated with selective economic performance as well as various public governance indicators. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Physical restraint in polish psychiatric facilities

Physical restraint in the form of direct force, forced feeding and medication, mechanical restriction of bodily movement, or the threat of force was administered to close to 30% of patients admitted and hospitalized for a period of at least fourteen days. In transporting the patient to the admission room and then to his treatment ward, the dominant form of restraint used was direct force, or the threat of such force. During the following fourteen days of hospitalization, mechanical restraint and forced medication predominated. Restraint was applied most often, across each of the four phases of the study, to patients deemed dangerous to self or others. This relationship became significantly stronger as the period of hospitalization continued. Across the four phases, patients who protested their hospitalization were more likely to be restrained than patients who agreed to it or who did not object. During each of the four phases of the study, numerous patients who did not object to their hospitalization and who were not deemed dangerous were nevertheless subjected to restraint. The pervasiveness of physical restraint, the wide inter-hospital differences in its use, the apparent over-prediction of patient dangerousness, and the use of restraint with patients who were not deemed dangerous and who did not object to their hospitalization, confirms the need for legal and ethical regulation of physical restraint of psychiatric patients.