National Parliaments and EU Fiscal Integration

This article analyses the impact of the euro crisis on national parliaments and examines their response to the deepening of EU fiscal integration and the correspondent limitation of their budgetary autonomy. It argues that the sovereign debt crisis has provoked the emergence of new channels of parliamentary involvement in EU economic governance. National parliaments have acquired various rights of approval in the European Semester, strengthened the accountability of national governments, reinforced their scrutiny over budgeting, improved their access to information, and created domestic and supranational avenues for deliberation and political contestation of European integration. In these respects, they have undergone further Europeanisation. While these reforms do not outweigh the centralisation of EU powers, they represent an embryonic step in the parliamentary adaptation to the nascent EU fiscal regime. Yet they are unlikely substantially to influence EMU policy‐making processes, because of the democratic disconnect inherent in the EU's multilevel constitution.     

Understanding of forensic expert reports by judges,defense lawyers and forensic professionals

Forensic scientists strongly advocate the use of likelihood ratios for expressing the diagnostic value of evidence in technical forensic reports. They call this the logically correct approach. The correct comprehension of such likelihood ratios by jurists, however, appears to be particularly problematic. The present research has empirically investigated this issue for defense lawyers and criminal judges. For comparative purposes forensic professionals, many of whom use the logically correct approach, were included in the study as well.

Using fictitious forensic reports, it was shown that proper understanding of likelihood ratios by jurists is quite poor, due mainly, but not exclusively, to the prosecutor's fallacy. Forensic professionals outperformed jurists to a large extent but made many mistakes themselves. It is further shown that participants’ self-expressed supposed level of understanding of logically correct conclusions is quite high and thus not justified by their levels of proper understanding. Suggestions for how to improve the situation are presented.     

Implications of electronic developments for distance and face to face learning. Ten statements on the use of electronics in law teaching

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the teaching of legal professionalism in Ireland using interview data from the principal stakeholders in the legal profession education system including students (the trainee solicitors). The data was analysed phenomenographically in order to determine the extent to which there was variation in perceptions among these stakeholders as to what professionalism means and how best to teach or instil the notion. The findings indicate diverse perceptions among stakeholders that reflect a lack of shared understanding of professionalism and how to teach or instil professionalism. The study critically discusses the findings in light of relevant literature and concludes that a coordinated approach to understanding and fostering professionalism will help bridge this gap in perceptions and raise professional standards.     

TWO CITIES Urban Migration and Settlement in Nineteenth-Century Sweden

This article examines how migrants settled and formed families in two Swedish towns—Linköping and Sundsvall—with different occupational structures during industrialization. Sex- and socio-economic differentials in the rural–urban and urban–urban migration are discussed, as well as persistence rates in the new urban environment among different social groups. Analysis of in-migration and marriage patterns shows that social and geographical endogamy are equally significant in the two towns. Migrants tended primarily to marry migrants and town-born primarily to marry town-born. Moreover, relatively closed marriage boundaries were found among the in-migrants: those that came from an urban background tended to find an “urban partner.”     

Das informell-kooperative Verwaltungshandeln im Umweltrecht

Zusammenfassung  Informelles Verwaltungshandeln geh?rt zum umweltrechtlichen Alltag. Die technische Entwicklung und die zunehmende Komplexit?t umweltrelevanter Sachverhalte veranlassen den Staat dazu, jenseits der hergebrachten Handlungsformen des ?ffentlichen Rechts in den wirtschaftlichen Bereich einzuwirken und das ursprünglich subordinative Staat-Bürger-Verh?ltnis in eine auf Konsens zielende Kooperation umzustrukturieren. Der vorliegende Beitrag befasst sich mit der noch nicht abschlie?end gekl?rten rechtlichen Bew?ltigung informeller staatlicher T?tigkeit. Der Schwerpunkt liegt dabei auf dem sog. normvollziehenden Verwaltungshandeln. Besondere Berücksichtigung findet die Teilformalisierung informeller Verhaltensweisen de lege lata und im Referentenentwurf zum UGB.