Abolishing Some More Obsolete Crown Prerogatives

The Crown had many prerogatives (privileges) which other legal and natural persons did not have, due to the pre-eminent role of the sovereign. Some of these the Crown delegated to its subjects. That is, it franchised them, in return for money. In modern times??with the sovereign only having a formal role??it needs to be considered whether these Crown prerogatives should pass to the control of Parliament. Also, where they are obsolete, their abolition. A previous article has argued for the abolition of many obsolete prerogatives relating to the military. This article argues that the prerogatives of the Crown to levy pontage (a toll for the building, and repair, of bridges) and murage (a toll for the building, and repair, of town and city walls for defensive purposes) should be abolished. So too, the right of the Crown to waifs (stolen goods cast away by a thief in flight) and estrays (animals wandering in any manor or lordship whose owner is unknown). Also, that the prerogative of the Crown to unmarked mute swans in open water be restricted to the Thames??where it is only presently exercised. Finally, this article argues for the abolition of the palatinates of Lancaster, Chester and Durham??since the prerogatives once given to them by the Crown have now reverted to the same??and for the abolition of various long obsolete prerogatives given to the Cinque Ports.     

Advising Ministers – The Special Problem of Defence

Successive Australian Defence Ministers have been frustrated and occasionally embarrassed by the quality of advice and information provided to them by the Defence organisation. Decades of reviews and reorganisations have failed to find solutions to the special difficulties that Defence faces in providing accurate, timely information and advice to ministers across the broad spectrum of their responsibilities. This article argues that there are multiple explanations for the concerns that are frequently expressed about its policy advisory capacity – most of which are inherent to Defence organisations around the world. While the Defence culture of secrecy is partly responsible, other factors such as the scale of Defence's operations, the multiple cultures that exist within it (military, civilian, and intelligence) that make coherence harder than in more homogenous departments, the long‐time horizons of defence planning as well as the high costs of procurement, must also be considered. The erosion of trust between the organisation and minister has been exacerbated by the intense scrutiny of the media that overburdens ministers and adds another layer of complexity to their role. As history shows, there are push and pull factors that continue to embroil ministers in the minutiae of defence difficulties, while the complexity and scale of operations will undoubtedly continue to impact on the timeliness of advice.     

Protecting Medicare: the best defense is a good offense

Traditional Medicare is being threatened from two political directions. The current Republican coalition, on the right, simply dislikes social insurance in principle. It seeks privatization for its own sake. Another perspective, centrist and well established among political and economic elites, worries that the program is "unaffordable," whatever its basic merits. Defenders of traditional Medicare need to address both threats by explaining why the budgetary fears are misconceived and why privatization is simply a bad idea. In order to do this, they need to take the budgetary high ground, argue more strenuously for short-term cost controls, and criticize the extra spending that the Bush administration has used to encourage private plans within Medicare. Defenders of social insurance should also seek good policy and political allies by proposing that Medicare's network of providers, prices, and administration be made available to employers (and other pools) in much the way that self-insured groups currently rent networks from private insurers.     

Law, autonomy and advance directives

The principle of autonomy underpins legal regulation of advance directives that refuse life-sustaining medical treatment. The primacy of autonomy in this domain is recognised expressly in the case law, through judicial pronouncement, and implicitly in most Australian jurisdictions, through enactment into statute of the right to make an advance directive. This article seeks to justify autonomy as an appropriate principle for regulating advance directives and relies on three arguments: the necessity of autonomy in a liberal democracy; the primacy of autonomy in medical ethics discourse; and the uncontested importance of autonomy in the law on contemporaneous refusal of medical treatment. This article also responds to key criticisms that autonomy is not an appropriate organising principle to underpin legal regulation of advance directives.     

Building sustainable free legal advisory systems: Experiences from the history of AI & law

The enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI) as a source of solutions to problems is not new. In law, from the early 1980s until at least the early 2000s, considerable work was done on developing ‘legal expert systems.’ As the DataLex project, we participated in those developments, through research and publications, commercial and non-commercial systems, and teaching students application development. This paper commences with a brief account of that work to situate our perspective.The main aim of this paper is an assessment of what might be of value from the experience of the DataLex Project to contemporary use of ‘AI and law’ by free legal advice services, who must necessarily work within funding and other constraints in developing and sustaining such systems. We draw fifteen conclusions from this experience, which we consider are relevant to development of systems for free legal advice services. The desired result, we argue, is the development of integrated legal decision-support systems, not ‘expert systems’ or ‘robot lawyers’. We compare our insights with the approach of the leading recent text in the field, and with a critical review of the field over twenty-five years. We conclude that the approach taken by the DataLex Project, and now applied to free legal advice services, remains consistent with leading work in field of AI and law.The paper concludes with brief suggestions of what are the most desirable improvements to tools and platforms to enable development of free legal advice systems. The objectives of free access to legal information services have much in common with those of free legal advice services. The information resources that free access to law providers (including LIIs) can provide will often be those that free legal advice services will need to use to develop and sustain free legal advisory systems. There is therefore strong potential for valuable collaborations between these two types of services providers.     

Enhancing judicial skills in domestic violence cases: the development,implementation, and preliminary evaluation of a model US programme

ABSTRACT

The overwhelming number and complexity of domestic violence cases in criminal and family courts has resulted in the development of education programmes to assist judges. There is limited research on judicial education in this area. This paper reviews one such initiative entitled ‘Enhancing Judicial Skills in Domestic Violence Cases’ (EJS) that has been developed and implemented over the last 20 years by the National Judicial Institute on Domestic Violence, a partnership of the US Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women, National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and Futures Without Violence. We present findings of a preliminary evaluation of the programme based on the self-reports of 480 judges who had taken the four-day workshop between 2006 and 2010. Overall, judges reported the programme to be engaging and effective. At a six-month follow‐up, most of the judges identified specific benefits and behavior changes in the areas of access to justice, judicial leadership, victim safety, and abuser accountability as a result of participating in the programme. Critical issues in judicial education are highlighted based on the authors’ experiences in the development and implementation of this programme.     

A Soviet paradise à L'Américaine

An Examination of the Mystic Tendencies in Islam in the light of the Qur'an and Traditions. By M. M.Zuhúruddin Ahmad, M.A. LL.B., Professor of Logic and Philosophy at the Ismail College, Andheri (Bombay). 9” x 5½”. Pp. 248. Published by the author, Pali Road, Bandra (Bombay). 1932. Obtained in England for 10s. 6d.

The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. By Sir Muhammad Iqbal. 9” x 5½”. Pp. 192. Oxford University Press. London: Humphrey Milford. 1934. 7^s. 6d. net.

The Suez Canal: Its Past, Present and Future. By Lieut.‐Colonel Sir Arnold Wilson, K.C.I.E. 10” x 7". Pp. xv+224. Map. Oxford University Press. 1933. 15s.

The Capitulatory Regime of Turkey: Its History, Origin and Nature. By Nasim Sousa. 8½” x 5¾”. Pp. xxiii+378. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.

Catalogue of Wall‐Paintings from Ancient Shrines in Central Asia and Sistan. Recovered by Sir Aurel Stein, K.C.I.E., described by Fred H. Andrews, O.B.E., under the orders of the Government of India. Delhi: Manager of Publications.

The History of Buddhist Thought. By Edward J. Thomas, M.A., D.Litt. 9½” x 6½”. Pp. xvi+314. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co., Ltd. 1933. 15s.

The Eclipse of Christianity in Asia. From the time of Muhammad until the Fourteenth Century. By L. E. Browne. 9” x 6”. Pp. 198. Map. Cambridge University Press. 1933. 10s. 6d.

Oriental Studies. Edited by Jai Dastur Cursetji Pavry, with a Foreword by A. V.Williams, in honour of Cursetji Erachji Pavry. 9¾” x 6½”. Pp. xv+503. Frontispiece. Oxford University Press. 1934. 50s. net.

A History of Exploration. From the Earliest Times to the Present Day. By Brigadier‐General Sir Percy Sykes, K.C.I.E., C.B., C.M.G. 10” x 6”. Pp. xiv+374. Coloured frontispiece, plates, and maps. Routledge. 1934. 25s.

Peaks and Plains of Central Asia. By Colonel Reginald C. F. Schomberg. 8¾” x 5¾”. Pp. 288. Illustrations and three maps. London: Martin Hopkinson. 1933. 15s. net.

” La Croisière Jaune.” The Citroën‐Haardt Expedition through Central Asia. By Georges Le Fevre. Pp. xli + 342. 123 photographs. Plates. Maps. Paris. 1933. Edition de Luxe.

Le Pasteur de Tribus. Par Alexandre Syline. Paris: Librairie Gallimard. 1932.

First Russia, then Tibet. By Robert Byron. 9½” x 6¾”. Pp. xvi + 328. Illustrations. Macmillan. 15s.

The White Armies of Russia. The Chronicle of Counter‐Revolution and Allied Intervention. By George Stewart. 8” x 6”. Pp. xiii + 469. Maps and illustrations. New York: Macmillan Co. 21s.

Dans les Coulisses du Kremlin. By S. Dmitrievsky. Translated from the Russian into French by René le Grand. 7” x 4¾”. Pp. vii + 240. Paris: Lib Plon. 12 fr.

Foreign Investments in China. By C. F. Remer. 8¾” x 6”. Pp. xxi + 708. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1933. 25s.

Japan. By F. C. Jones, M.A. 7½” x 5”. Pp. viii+133. Maps. Modern State Series No. 1. General Editor, R. B. Mowat. Arrowsmith. 3s. 6d.

The Hundred Names. By Dr. Henry H. Hart. Published by the University of California Press and the Cambridge University Press. 1933. 11s. 6d. net.

Something Happened. By M. Cable and F. French. Pp. ii + 320. Illustrations. Map. Hodder and Stoughton. 5s.

The Jungle in Sunlight and Shadow. By F. W. Champion. 10” x 7¾”. Pp. xvi + 270. Illustrations. Chatto and Windus. 21s.

James Silk Buckingham, 1786–1855. A Social Biography. By Ralph E. Turner. 8½” x 5¾”. Pp. viii+463. Plates. Williams and Norgate. 21s.

On Hill and Plain. By Lord Hardinge of Penshurst, K.G. A Viceroy's Recollections of Delightful Days of Sport in India. 8” x 5¼”. Pp. xii + 110. Illustrations. John Murray. 1933. 7s. 6d.

Le Voyage d'Un Pelerin Chinois dans l'Inde des Bouddhas. Précédé d'un exposé des doctrines de l'Inde Antique sur La Vie et La Mort. By Henri Valentino. Paris. Editions G.P. Maisonneuve. 3 Rue de Sabot. 18 francs.

Indian India. By C. W. Waddington, C.I.E., M.V.O. London: Jarrolds. 1933.

Indo‐China: A Sportsman's Opportunity. By Archibald Harrison. 8½” x 5½”. Pp. 7+157. Plates and maps. Plymouth: Mayflower Press.

Secrets of the Red Sea. By Henry de Monfreid. Translated by Helen Buchanan Bell. 8½” x 5½”. Pp. vii + 317. Sixteen pages illustrated. Faber and Fabcr. 1933. 12s. 6d.

Into the Sun. By Frieda Das. 7½” x 5”. Pp. 312. Dent. 7s. 6d.

The Assyrian Tragedy. Annemasse, February, 1934.

The Naked Mountain. By E. Knowlton. Putnam.

First over Everest. By Air Commodore Fellowes, D.S.O., L. V. Stewart Blacker, Col. P. T. Etheton, Marquis of Clydesdale. Foreword by John Buchan, and account of the filming by G. Barkas. 9¾” x 6½”.Illustrations, maps, diagrams. Pp. xix + 279. Lane, Bodley Head. 12s. 6d.     

Miracle to meltdown: A pathology of the East Asian financial crisis

The financial crisis in East Asia was made more dramatic by the fact that the region's performance in terms of economic growth over the preceding decade had been widely perceived as a 'miracle'. What was it that transformed the region's fortunes, and what are the chances for a speedy economic recovery? Systematic analysis reveals that, while there is no unicausal explanation, and while few if any commentators anticipated the crisis before the event, the fundamental difference from previous international financial crises is the extreme indebtedness of the corporate sector of the crisis countries. Private sector repayment difficulties and the associated banking crises triggered the sudden withdrawal of capital and the collapse of exchange rates. Failure to address the underlying private sector debt overhang, and reliance instead on conventional macroeconomic policy solutions, have led to a decline in output and a depreciation in exchange rates which have been far greater than need have been the case.