Identifying the determinants of aggregate judicial performance: taxpayers’ money well spent?

There have been a sizeable number of studies trying to identify the determinants of judicial performance on the country level. Such a design is appropriate to identify underperforming individual judges or underperforming courts or court districts. However, it is not appropriate to identify institutions conducive to judicial performance. A dataset produced by the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice contains very detailed information on the judicial systems of the 47 member countries of the Council of Europe. Drawing on robust regressions and using an objective variable, we find that (1) resolution rates are not a function of per capita income. In other words: poor countries can also afford them. (2) Countries belonging to the French legal tradition enjoy relatively lower resolution rates. (3) Resolution rates are negatively—and very robustly—correlated with court budget. As such, a higher budget will not “buy” more court decisions. (4) Resolution rates are never positively correlated with the presence of judicial councils. (5) Mandatory training for judges is correlated with higher resolution rates. Drawing on the subjectively perceived efficiency of the judiciary as the dependent variable we find that (6) countries belonging to both the French and the socialist legal tradition are less efficient and that (7) judicial councils are also negatively correlated with our measure of judicial efficiency, in other words: countries that do not have them should not introduce them.     

Avant-garde or Supplement? Advisory Bodies of Transnational Associations as Alternatives to the League's Minority Protection System, 1919–1939

This exegesis focuses on the work of minority committees of transnational associations in the interwar period. Most of their members considered the League system to be inefficient and supported the establishment of non-state alternatives, which included private investigations on the spot, publicity for specific problems of minorities, and attempts to reconcile representatives of ethnic minorities with those of the majority. Members of non-involved states were pre-destined especially to act as neutral moderators. Only those in close contact with League officials avoided being misused by political forces that did not seek reconciliation but border revision. They learnt that the League rules looked inadequate from the outside but turned out to be useful in coming to applicable solutions once they started their own alternative methods. Their publications and investigative journeys turned out to deepen the problems, whilst their reconciliation work became an appreciated supplement of the League system.     

Agile programming – Introduction and current legal challenges

Within the realms of software development, customers must specify the requirements of their new software before the start of the project. Today, this leads to considerable delays with respect to the start of the project. In addition, the integration of new requirements into a system already developed in parts is becoming increasingly time-consuming and cost-intensive. Yet the specifically necessitated functions of a software are often only revealed through the process of development. By means of agile programming, changes in the requirements of a software product can be handled flexibly in shorter development cycles. In the following, the framework of agile software development projects as it applies under German law is described and current legal problems of such projects – in particular, the issue of contract type and the new building contract law – are considered. The unplanned project design appears contrary to the legal approach. The article shows, however, that agile software products development provides customers with dynamic and quickly scalable products and that customers can leave the project after individual project steps. The new development of building contract law, which focuses on subunits and approvals, is also very much in line with the above-mentioned programming.     

Passivlegitimation für einen nachbarrechtlichen Ersatzanspruch nach § 364a ABGB

Stehen das Grundstück, von dem die Kontamination (oder eine sonstige St?rung) ausgeht, und das beeintr?chtigte Grundstück je im Miteigentum derselben Personen, kommt ein Anspruch eines Miteigentümers gegen den anderen nach § 364a ABGB nicht in Betracht. Dies gilt auch, wenn beim beeintr?chtigten Grundstück Rechtsnachfolge bei einem der Miteigentümer eintritt. Eine nachbarrechtliche Klage, wie jene nach § 364a ABGB, ist gegen alle Eigentümer der Liegenschaft, von der die St?rung ausging, als notwendige Streitgenossen zu richten.     

Invocation of coercion context in compliance communication -- power dynamics in psychiatric care

This article draws on observations from ethnographic fieldwork to develop a theoretical understanding of the power dynamics in psychiatric care. The aim is to analyze how psychiatric clinicians solve compliance problems by invoking "coercion context". It is suggested that clinicians take a rather instrumental approach to laws regulating coercive intervention. Clinicians may invoke a coercion context even with voluntary patients. For example, they may use wordings that connote coercion, or they may make use of how treatment wards are set up to accommodate involuntary patients, thus stalling voluntary patients who cannot exit through locked doors. A coercion context can also be invoked to solve mundane practical problems, e.g. when clinicians talk about "coerced showers". The management of information and maintaining a suitable "awareness context" with regards to coercion is an essential feature in clinical attempts to achieve compliance from patients. In conclusion, the notion of coercion context helps explain the confusing findings from previous research about patients' apparent misconceptions of their formal legal status. Furthermore, it is argued that research that rely on decontextualised, objectifications of "coercion" risk to miss the meaning coercion is assigned in everyday clinical practice.     

Interpersonal factors and personality disorders as discriminators between intra-familial and extra-familial child molesters

This article presents the results of research investigating the relation between interpersonal factors and personality disorders and intra-familial versus extra-familial child molesters. The sample contained 41 intra-familial and 43 extra-familial child molesters as well as a matched comparison group of 80 subjects. The analysis of the research results show that interpersonal factors, such as parental sensitivity, trust, and adult romantic attachment, discriminate between intra-familial and extra-familial child molesters. These findings structure the heterogeneous field of child molesters, as intra-familial child molesting seems to be related to relational attitude as well as personality disorders, whereas extra-familial child molesting is mainly related to personality disorders without showing significant deficits in the interpersonal factors that were measured. These results contribute to the explanation of this deviant sexual conduct and to the development and differentiation of the treatment of child molesters.     

Complex suicides--a review of the literature

The term "complex suicide" stands for suicides committed by using more than one method. A distinction can be made between planned and unplanned complex suicides (primary/secondary combinations). In planned complex suicides 2 or more methods are applied simultaneously in order to make sure that death will occur even if one method fails. In unplanned complex suicides the mode of performance is changed after the first method chosen failed or was working too slow or proved to be too painful. In planned complex suicides typically two of the generally common methods of suicide (e.g. ingestion of medicines, hanging, use of firearms, drowning, fall from a height) are combined. But also unusual combinations have been described such as the simultaneous firing of two guns, self-immolation in combination with other suicide methods or shooting oneself while driving a car. In unplanned complex suicides self-inflicted injuries by sharp force, especially cuts of the wrists, are often found as the primary act of suicide. In some cases the suicide switches from cuts to stabs (mostly to the heart region). Other methods often used after the first phase of suicide are hanging and jump from a height. In the literature the use of up to 5 suicidal methods applied one after the other have been described.     

New Economy,Risikokapital und die Mythen des Internet

In diesem Artikel wird aus einer neoinstitutionalistischen Perspektive die Funktionsweise risikokapitalfinanzierter Unternehmen analysiert. Als Beispiel dient dabei der Internet-Hype von 1995 bis 2000. Aufgrund des schnellen Wachstums der [nternetunternehmen und der Möglichkeit, Anteile von sehr jungen Unternehmen an den Börsen zu handeln, war diese Branche ein geeignetes Investitionsfeld für Risikokapitalgesellschaften. Insofern davon ausgegangen wurde, dass eine schnelle Marktpenetration über Erfolg oder Misserfolg von Unternehmen im Internet entscheidet, waren nicht kurzfristige Profitabilität, sondern Nutzerzahlen, Bildschirmbesucher und Umsatzsteigerungen wichtig. Da die Geschäftsmodelle risikokapitalfinanzierter Unternehmen vorrangig auf einem Nachfluss von Geldern aus dem Kapitalmarkt aufgebaut sind, ist es für sie von wesentlicher Bedeutung, die ?Meilensteine“ auch zu erreichen, die sie bezüglich Nutzerzahlen, Umsatzsteigerung und Ergebnisverbesserung aufgestellt haben. Kapitalmarktorientierte Unternehmen nutzten deswegen ausgeprägt Möglichkeiten, um Nutzerzahlen, Bildschirmbesucher, Umsatz und Unternehmensergebnisse zu schönen. Die so entstehenden ?Unternehmensrealitäten“ basieren darauf, dass die Geldnachflüsse aus dem Kapitalmarkt sich fortsetzen. Wenn sie ausbleiben, brechen die Unternehmen wie Kartenhäuser in sich zusammen.