Juvenile Waiver 2014: A Review of State Statutes

Juvenile waiver has received much attention from the public, practitioners, and scholars. Prior studies have documented the increased use and effects of waiver. In this study we examine the current state of the law regarding juvenile waiver. We replicate 1995 and 2003 studies that examined state waiver statutes and detail the changes in prosecutorial, judicial, and legislative waiver since 2003. While the juvenile crime rate has dropped dramatically, it is unclear why legislatures’ fascination with juvenile waiver has also decreased. In this study we determine that juvenile waiver remains popular with legislatures, although there are signs of change.     

行政诉讼中民事诉讼规范之“适用”——基于《行政诉讼法》第101条展开的分析

行政诉讼与民事诉讼之间的关系决定了行政诉讼中民事诉讼规范有一定的适用空间。在我国,民事诉讼规范在行政诉讼中的适用,经历了适用——参照——适用的一个制度史变迁过程。2015年经修正后实施的《行政诉讼法》第101条规定了民事诉讼规范在行政诉讼中的适用,其内容可以分为“诉讼程序”和“检察监督程序”两部分。在“诉讼程序”中,立法以“等”作不完全列举的例示性规定。从判例中我们可以看到,与原告法定代表人资格确定、二审裁判方式等相关的民事诉讼规范,也都在可以“适用”之列。毕竟,行政诉讼和民事诉讼的立法目的各异,所以,在行政诉讼中适用民事诉讼规范,应当确立不抵触立法目的和补充性两条规则。     

Covert action and congressional oversight: A deontology

Abstract

Covert action, i.e. covert operations whose main object is not the collection of intelligence, is a child of the Cold War. Almost haphazardly, it came to be conducted by the CIA, the nation's principal foreign intelligence service. Covert action, in its early years surrounded by secrecy, did not become legally subjected to congressional oversight until the Hughes‐Ryan Amendment, 14 years after the Bay of Pigs. In this legislation, and in the follow‐on Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980, covert action came under a separate oversight process than the collection of intelligence. In the Intelligence Authorization Act of 1991, in which covert action for the first time was officially admitted by name as an activity of the U.S. Government, certain loopholes were addressed which had been revealed by Iran‐Contra (the issues of timely notification of Congress, involvement of third parties, and involvement of other U.S. Government agencies). Issues still remain, including the conduct of liaison with foreign intelligence services, which is outside of the covert action oversight process—although at times such liaisons are made as much for the purpose of establishing influence as for collecting intelligence.     

Parliamentary Questioning in 17 European Parliaments: Some Steps towards Comparison

All democratic parliaments have some procedures to allow representatives to put questions to ministers. However, there are no two parliaments with exactly the same procedures. Cross-national comparisons are hindered by the lack of agreed-upon scientific criteria to group similar procedures, which are too often classified on the basis of their names rather than on their substantive characteristics. To overcome this problem, this article devises a typology of parliamentary questions based on relevant procedural features in 17 European countries. A ranking of parliaments according to the criteria of the effectiveness of procedures is developed and a discussion of the relationship of this ranking to the coalitional characteristics of the parliaments is provided. Finally, the article develops some tentative arguments to explain what influences the development of more or less effective questioning procedures, testing the hypothesis that countries dominated by coalition governments tend to have more effective procedures. In contrast with the authors' expectations, with regard to the countries included in the present analysis, the frequent presence of coalition government is associated with weaker procedures.     

Legislative Oversight under the Nigerian Presidential System

Oversight function is a major component of the activities of modern legislatures irrespective of the form of government in practice. This study examines the extent to which the Nigerian legislature, characterised by infrequent appearances on the political scene and operating in an environment largely dominated by the executive arm, has performed its oversight role. The study, which is basically empirical, argues that the Nigerian legislature has been incapable of effectively performing its oversight role because, in addition to constraints like executive interference, crippling internal conflict, inexperience and high rate of members turnover hampering legislative efficiency, the legislature has compromised its role. However, occasional flashes of a measure of assertiveness by the legislature suggest that with effective mitigation of its internal problems its performance will improve as legislative culture deepens.     

List of Contributors

The emergence of regional parliamentary assemblies (RPAs) in Africa has been on the ascendancy since the mid-twentieth century. The essence of these parliaments is to contribute to regional economic and political integration through oversight, legislation and representation. However, the ability of Africa's RPAs to perform these functions has been challenged by institutional and legal factors. Using five regional parliaments (the East African Legislative Assembly, the Economic Community of West African States Parliament, the Inter-Parliamentary Union of Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the Pan-African Parliament and the South African Development Community Parliamentary Forum) as case studies, this paper examines the impact of these challenges on the functionality and viability of Africa's RPAs. It finds that given that these parliaments lack legitimacy of authority and enabling status of operation, they exist merely as deliberative, consultative and advisory bodies rather than independent organs of regional economic communities with full legislative and oversight powers. Consequently, the paper recommends, among other things, the amendment of their constitutive acts to grant them full legislative and oversight functions, and the election of their members by universal adult suffrage in order to give them legitimacy of authority.     

An Examination of Oversight and Review in the Child Welfare System

Abstract

Child welfare agencies are accountable to the community not only because they spend public dollars, but also, most critically, because they are charged with protecting vulnerable children. Over the past three decades multiple oversight processes have been initiated as part of an effort to improve accountability in public child welfare. In agencies around the country an array of advocates and monitors regularly review the performance of individual caseworkers. While caseloads grow in number and complexity the ranks of the workforce have not kept pace. The result is too many people watching too few workers serve too many vulnerable children and families.

This paper examines the cumulative effect of five groups of “watchers” that oversee child welfare services. It suggests that every group of watchers should be able to demonstrate that their activities contribute directly to the achievement of system goals.     

Not yet a democracy: establishing civilian authority over the security sector in Brazil – lessons for other countries in transition

Brazil is considered one of the more successful examples of democratic transition and consolidation in the developing world; and one of the fastest developing and emerging countries. This article contends that Brazil is not yet a fully established democracy, because it lacks the proper civilian checks and balances ensuring full authority over the armed forces, police and secret services. There are five main reasons for this: first, the Constitution does not provide a generalised guide for the institution of civilian oversight. Second, a change of cultural perceptions vis-à-vis the security sector entities is needed. Third, piecemeal rather than holistic or comprehensive legal and institutional transformation has occurred, with little civilian oversight of the armed forces. Fourth, the large structures still held by each of the armed forces require re-articulation and fundamental transformation. Finally, there is no fully fledged civil society participation in security sector life through the media and academia. These problems weaken democracy in Brazil. The course of democratisation in Brazil and the role the security sector played in the transition are examined before discussion of some of the more recent legal and political developments in the security sector, as part of the democratic consolidation. The conclusion presents insights from Brazil’s experience and lessons for states facing similar transition challenges.     

Exercising control and gathering information: the functions of interpellations in Hungary (1990–2014)

The article investigates the factors shaping the number and content of interpellations, a form of parliamentary questions by members of parliament (MPs) in post-regime change Hungary. Four theoretical propositions regarding the functions of interpellations are examined in this context: political control; policy-oriented information seeking; parliamentary group leadership; and constituency service. A new database of 4096 observations for the period between 1990 and 2014 is compiled in order to analyse these hypotheses. Computer-assisted content analysis techniques and count data regressions are used to describe the text of interpellations in terms of their geographical and policy content. Results show that opposition MPs interpellate more, whereas representatives of single-member districts and regional lists interpellate less than their peers. Representatives from single-member districts and regional lists make more reference to local issues in general, but not to their own district or county. Finally, policy specialisation increases the likelihood of submitting pertinent parliamentary questions.     

现行《监狱法》的立法缺陷及其弥补措施

现行《监狱法》在立法规格与规模、立法内容和立法技术上都存在着一些缺陷,这些缺陷的存在给《监狱法》的执行和国家刑罚制度的完善带来了诸多消极影响。通过提高立法规格、增强法律体系的协调性和法律条文的可操作性、增加责任性条款等措施,可以弥补现行《监狱法》的立法缺陷。