The study of legislative committees*

ABSTRACT

Proving that legislative committees really matter is not simple. The assembled papers aim to demonstrate fruitful paths to analysing when committees influence policy, what they can and should do, and how to detect their importance to the political process.     

Who are Chinese Citizens? A Legislative Language Inquiry

By exploring the meaning construction of Chinese citizenship stipulated in Chinese legislation and its interaction with social identities and human nature in the Chinese society, the present study investigates the nature and evolution of the conception of Chinese citizens through three selected cases from Chinese legislations, which illuminate that Chinese citizens are essentially persons with independent personalities defined by the rights and obligations stipulated in legislation. This conception is further strengthened by the entitlement to private properties and equality before law. This conception of Chinese citizenship is concrete and meaningful in the sense that it is underpinned with reference to social identities as person, people and personality in Chinese legislations. The reference of the conception to human being constitutes the essence of Chinese legislation. The meaning construction of Chinese citizenship is indeed a dynamic process engineered in the social and cultural process. The findings on the evolution of the construction of Chinese citizenship in Chinese legislation suggest that the formation of legal identity through legislation varies greatly in different countries. Nevertheless, the realization of the conception of citizenship will necessarily be backed up by social identities as person, people and personality, which will be further strengthened and expanded by the legitimating of private properties and equality before law. Citizenship is achieved by social participants through mediation engineered within the social and cultural process.     

Out of the Fly-Bottle: Conceptual Confusions in Multilingual Legislation

Conceptual confusions permeate all forms of intellectual pursuit. Many have contended that multilingual legislation, i.e., one law enacted in different languages, is unviable when carried out by means of translation. But not many have realized that the same would also be true of drafting if their contention could be justified. My involvement in the translation of Hong Kong laws into Chinese in the run-up to 1997 exposed me to a whole world of myths and misconceptions about legal translation arising from our failure to command a clear view of the workings of language. Over the years I have endeavoured to come to grips with the problems inherent in legal translation, showing that the arguments against the possibility of exact translation, against the possibility of achieving equivalence between different language texts of the law, and against the possibility of bridging the conceptual gap between legal terminologies in different languages, are all ill-grounded and misguided. There are indeed enormous difficulties in drafting and translating multilingual law, but they are essentially of a technical nature, by no means theoretically irresolvable. The viability of multilingual legislation is simply grounded in our innate communicative intention to use signs and symbols to convey meaning. As language users, we are capable of making language work for us for any particular purpose. Just as we can translate the rules of chess from one language to another whereby players speaking different languages can play the same game called “chess”, we don’t see why we can’t do the same with multilingual legislation. The door has always been open!     

The first international proficiency test on ketamine and norketamine in hair

This paper discusses the organization of the first international proficiency test (PT) programme on ketamine (K) and norketamine (NK) in hair samples. The primary objective of the programme was to evaluate the analytical capability of participating laboratories on hair analysis for K and NK via comparison of results. Authentic samples, instead of spiked samples were used in the programme to mimic the analysis of incorporated illicit drugs in real-life situations. Eight of the ten participating medical or forensic laboratories from Australia, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Singapore and the USA returned results to the organizer. Quantification methods from these laboratories were confined to GC-MS and LC-MS/MS. Performance assessment based on z-score indicated that only three laboratories achieved satisfactory results for both the analysis of K and NK. It was concluded that the overall performance of the participating laboratories was fair and there is still room for further improvement. Additional similarly designed PT programmes are recommended to be organized in order to encourage reliable measurements of illicit drugs in hair samples. Taking into account the substantial effect on the consensus values within limited number of data points, a recommendation on the provision of reference values assigned by accurate methods will be of benefit to small size PT programmes in the forensic field.     

Which Public Goods are Endangered?: How Evolving Communication Technologies Affect The Logic of Collective Action

Public Choice - The theory in Mancur Olson's The Logicof Collective Action is built fromhistorically uncontroversial assumptionsabout interpersonal communication. Today,evolving technologies...     

Parental Demandingness and Executive Functioning in Predicting Anxiety among Children in a Longitudinal Community Study

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Theoretical models and empirical studies of anxiety have predominately focused on the main effects of various predictors such as executive functioning deficits on...     

Conclusion: prospects for analysing committees in comparative perspective

ABSTRACT

While theories of committees in the U.S. Congress can continue to play a central role in the still-growing comparative study of committees, they require careful, frequent modification. Moreover, more fruitful study of committees may require a wider framework, recognising more fully that committees are institutions embedded in wider social structures.     

Color separation of signature and stamp inks to facilitate handwriting examination

The questioned documents laboratory often encounters cases where handwriting that is to be examined intersects with some interfering factor such as a rubber stamp, typewriting or background printing. In these cases, line direction, beginning and ending features of letters and other fine details of the handwriting may be lost in the "noise" of the intersecting ink. The purpose of this paper is to show several new digital photography methods that may be used to "subtract" the effect of the intersecting ink, thereby enhancing that of the handwriting ink in order to enable the document examiner to conduct a complete examination. These methods have the advantage of being fast and do not involve the use of expensive material or equipment. Several new methods are described that may be used to separate the colors of the handwriting ink from that of the intersecting ink: the analog method and several digital methods such as RGB-HSB-CMYK, L*a*b color, and color separation using the Channel Mixer function of Adobe Photoshop. Successful application of these color separation methods to specific handwriting ink/rubber stamp ink color combinations shows that the effect of the intersecting ink may indeed be minimalized if not canceled altogether. Application of the suggested methods may well make the difference between a nonconclusive handwriting examination and a full analysis of the questioned handwriting.