遏制行政自由裁量权滥用的对策探讨

依法行政是法治国家的重要标志,建设法治国家,实现依法行政,就必须对行政自由裁量权进行合理地控制,从完善行政立法、加强行政执法队伍建设、培养和提高民众的法治意识、加强行政监督、分离行政权与经济权等方面,遏制行政权力的异化和行政行为人的腐败,从而维护相对人的合法权益。     

滥用职权罪立法比较与借鉴

世界各个国家和地区都注重通过立法加强对滥用职权行为的惩治。我国滥用职权罪条文设计不合理 ,罪状不明确 ,主体范围过窄 ,刑罚设立不科学。应及时修改立法 ,将滥用职权罪与玩忽职守罪分列 ,明确其特征 ,扩大其主体范围 ,提高其法定刑。     

股东派生诉讼提起权滥用防止研究——兼评2005年《公司法》的相关规定

与其他任何制度一样,股东派生诉讼提起权也是一柄双刃剑。正当行使,可以保护小股东利益;若被滥用则会影响公司正常运营。由于其具有忽视公司独立人格和否定资本多数决原则的特殊性,故对滥用派生诉讼提起权的防止措施的规定便成为各国立法的重点。我国公司法也应对此有所反应,以充分发挥其平衡各方当事人利益的功能。     

Myths about workplace violence, harassment and bullying

The objective of this article is to examine myths about various forms of violence which occurs in the workplace. Harassment, bullying or hounding at work, is a problem which has increased in magnitude and needs to be addressed. We therefore analyse the nature, perception, accusations and prevention of such myths with the objective of clarifying the tangible and intangible effects on the health of the victim, and the results such harassment provokes on the organisation of the workplace.     

Barriers in Screening Women for Domestic Violence: A Survey of Social Workers, Family Practitioners, and Obstetrician–Gynecologists

Domestic violence (DV) is a pervasive and serious threat to women's lives and well-being. Medical social workers, family practitioners, and obstetrician–gynecologists are in key positions to screen and offer help. Florida NASW members and board certified family practitioners and obstetrician–gynecologists were mailed a psychometrically tested scale. A total of 388 surveys were analyzed. Education (especially the number of in-service hours) and the presence of institutional supports, decreased barriers to screening, increased screening behaviors, and lead to increased victim identification. Only 20.8% of participants always or nearly always routinely screened for DV; 24.0% reported that routine screening did not apply to their role. Self-Efficacy was the strongest predictor of screening behavior with Fear of Offending, Safety Concerns, CEUs/CMEs, and in-service hours contributing approximately equally to the prediction of screening behavior.     

Sexual Abuse as the Core Transgression of Childhood Innocence: Unintended Consequences for Care Leavers

ABSTRACT

The decision of the Gillard government to establish a royal commission in 2012 was acclaimed by care leavers. However, they were soon disillusioned: it was not the royal commission for which they had long struggled. Its terms of reference were too broad, encompassing a range of institutions never before the subject of official inquiries, yet also too narrowly focused on sexual abuse. Care leavers who suffered other forms of abuse were excluded. This paper argues that, while care leaver advocacy contributed to the decision to establish a royal commission, the agenda was a product of other pressures fuelled by state-based inquiries about cover-ups of sexual abuse of children, particularly by clergy. Sexual abuse could no longer be regarded as a sin to be handled in-house by institutions but a crime for which the state carried superordinate responsibility. The government had to intervene to address society’s “ultimate collective shame”. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has made a massive contribution to our understanding of child sexual abuse and to reforms in child protection policy and practice. But its mandate created unintended consequences, and questions remain about the unmet needs of care leavers who suffered other forms of abuse.     

“I Fought. I Screamed. I Bit”: The Assertion of Rights Within Historic Abuse Inquiry Transcripts

ABSTRACT

This article examines how treating historic abuse inquiry testimonies as retrospective assertions of rights can help to shed light on how this abuse was able to occur and how memories are recalled in an inquiry environment. It presents its approach as a possible framework for other historians seeking to analyse testimonies with sensitivity. It uses, as an example, a case study from the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse concerning two interrelated “homes” for girls, showing the ways in which abuse survivors can use their testimonies to assert rights denied them in the past and further the goals of public inquiries.     

“Children in a Terrible State”: Understandings of Trauma and Child Sexual Assault in 1970s and 1980s Australia*

ABSTRACT

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has shown us the multitude of ways that children were vulnerable to sexual violence. This article explores child sexual abuse outside of institutions, and the development of concepts of trauma in Australia in the 1970s and 1980s. From the mid-1970s, there was increased social, medical and legal focus on child abuse. Driven originally by feminists, there was a new interest in the psychological impacts of abuse, including analysis of the grief, despair, fear and anger experienced by survivors. The explosion of interest in child sexual abuse was mainstreamed in the Royal Commission into Human Relationships (1974–1978) and in discussion leading up to the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (1989). Across the 1980s, public recognition grew concerning the dangers of sexual violence against children, and, in particular, the increased knowledge and interest in intra-familial assaults. This article will chart the dramatic shifts in public consciousness around sexual abuse, particularly around ideas of harm and trauma. It will also suggest that despite a substantial change in cultural views on sexual assault, improvements for child victims were slow to filter through to the criminal justice system.     

“Soul Murder”: Investigating Spiritual Trauma at the Royal Commission

ABSTRACT

During its five-year tenure, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse established that faith organisations, with inadequate practices of organisational transparency and accountability, hierarchical structures of power, and patriarchal cultures, have poor track records in child protection and high levels of child abuse. Evidence from the Royal Commission hearings identified spiritual trauma as an outcome of child sexual abuse across several religious organisations including the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, the Salvation Army, the Yeshiva Jewish School in Melbourne and Sydney and the Satyananda Ashram in NSW. The Catholic Church had the highest levels of institutional child sexual assault and was the site of most of the narratives of spiritual suffering. This article examines existing research on spiritual trauma with regard to child sexual abuse, applies a five-point classification model developed by Kenneth Pargament and colleagues for identifying and analysing spiritual damage, and examines the evidence from both survivors and expert witnesses that was heard during relevant public hearings involving the Catholic Church at the Royal Commission. Institutional responses to spiritual injury will be considered and it will be argued that the Catholic Church is a distinctive institution that has produced a powerful culture of spiritual identity and belonging, where the impact of child sexual abuse has resulted in a loss of faith for many survivors, families and communities.     

Inequalities of Redress: Australia’s National Redress Scheme for Institutional Abuse of Children

ABSTRACT

The national redress scheme proposed by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is unique and unusual in the world of government redress. It is unique with its inclusion of both care leavers and non-care leavers (it is the only government scheme to do so), and it is unusual in focusing on sexual abuse alone (18% of government schemes do). These unique and unusual qualities come at a price for justice. Care leavers and non-care leavers are different groups with respect to their experiences of abuse and social status as child victims. Unless these group differences are explicitly recognised in guidelines for the monetary payment, care leavers will be disadvantaged. Two corrective measures are proposed: adopting an inclusive understanding of sexual abuse in closed and open settings, and addressing the negative bias that may result from care leavers’ lower social status as children compared to that of non-care leavers. Their lower status is likely to affect (that is, devalue) judgements of the severity and impact of abuse.