The Changing Law and Law Reform in Ghana

1971 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. A. Ollennu
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Social Life ◽  
The Body ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Social Conduct ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Concept Of Law ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Social Imperative

Many books and learned articles have been written on African Law within the last two or three decades. Almost every one of them has attempted a definition of law, custom and customary law, as a basis for its particular object. Among these definitions is Elias's adaptation of Goodhart's definition of law; this definition appeals to us as it serves many purposes. That adaptive definition is: “ ‘The law of a given community is the body of rules which are recognised as obligatory…’ This recognition must be in accordance with the principles of their social imperative, because operating in every community is a dynamic of social conduct, an accepted norm of behaviour which the vast majority of its members regard as absolutely necessary for the common weal. This determinant of the ethos of the community is its social imperative.” We would not of course include within the concept of law forms of social conduct which are concerned with the less important aspects of social life, which though well-established, yet pertain only to the sphere of social formalities and when violated, merely excite the displeasure or contempt of society; we are concerned with those norms the violation of which calls for the employment of “sanctions directly affecting the liberty, property, or status of the offender (such as imprisonment, fines or loss of civil rights)”. But we would include also those “concerned with serious business of society, the work that must be accomplished in order to secure and guarantee satisfactory conditions for collective life,” which Edgar Bodenheimer classifies as “customary law”.

scholarly journals Seeking the Common Good or Just Making Us be Good? Recent Amendment to New Zealand's Social Security Law

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Māmari Stephens
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Sufficient Conditions ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Social Security Act ◽  
The Common ◽  
Definition Of

New Zealand's social security system was born out of a vision of society consistent with a definition of the common good informed by Christian ethics. The past 30 years, in particular, have seen fierce ideological battles fought between the left and right over the extent, coverage, and generosity of the system. Yet a remnant of the vision of the common good remains, whereby individuals can have some access, by virtue of social security, to the sufficient conditions of social life to be free enough to find some level of fulfilment in that life. However, the freedom to be good, as is also required by a broad understanding of the common good, is under threat within New Zealand's social security law. Social security law asserts a vision, and not a coherent one, of what it means to be good in New Zealand society.  Newly minted social obligations in the Social Security Act 1964 go beyond the purposes of the legislation; being unconnected to relieving need, maintaining fiscal prudence, or even seeking paid employment as a means of achieving welfare. These modern moral obligations ensure that beneficiaries' freedom to choose to live life in a way consonant with the common good is frustrated, if not substantially abrogated, striking the wrong balance between the law's protection of individual autonomy and its implementation of social imperatives in pursuit of the common good.

scholarly journals Emotional Imperatives of Late Modern Society and their Possible Social Consequences

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-45
Author(s):  
Olga Simonova
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
The Body ◽  
Sociology Of Emotions ◽  
Emotional Culture ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Emotional Norms ◽  
Late Modern

The purpose of this article is to examine the main “imperatives” of contemporary emotional culture, which may provide special research optics for a deeper understanding of late modern society. The author begins with a definition of emotional culture — based on the body of works in sociology of emotions — and identifies dominant emotional norms and their corresponding perceptions, which bear the nature of imperatives in people’s everyday experience and serve as an extension of social values. These emotional imperatives include rational control over emotions, a compulsive desire to be and look happy, avoiding negative feelings, individual guilt from any sort of failure in social life, grievance that takes the form of righteous indignation, and others. These “imperatives” are in some respect contradictory, reflecting different aspects of life, but generally subject to the logic of late modern society, and can have important implicit social consequences such as broken social ties, “chronic” feelings of depression and frustration, fatigue, bad moods, increased anxiety and fears and many other implicit consequences, such as the emergence of new forms of solidarity. As a result of global events and the resulting social crises, these imperatives may change, thereby allowing us to trace how people’s lived experiences are changing. The list of emotional imperatives is not by any means full, and the same goes for their description, but through the outlined emotional imperatives the author attempts to describe theoretically contemporary cultural configurations of lived experience through leading emotional norms.

scholarly journals THE NOTION OF THE CLAIM: PROBLEMS OF DEFINITION

Lex Russica ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 28-40
Author(s):  
V. N. Ivakin
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Administrative Procedure ◽  
Legitimate Interest ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
The Common ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Latin Term

The main form of protection of civil rights (in the broad sense) is the form of action bringing, the impact of which has increased significantly as a result of the transition to a market economy. This form has gained even wider application with the adoption of the Code of Administrative Procedure of the Russian Federation of March 8, 2015, that has introduced the institution of an administrative action in relation to cases arising from administrative and other relations regulated in the context of public law. However, the question concerning the concept of the action, regarding which in the legal science several concepts are being applied, remains unclear and the paper examines different concepts dealing with the notion of the action. In particular, according to the author, the term “action” does not mean a legal act. This view is based on the common identification of the Russian term “isk” with the Latin term actio that literally meaning “action.” The article also subjects to extensive criticism an outdated doctrine about the action in procedural and substantive senses. Attention is also drawn to the shortcomings of the doctrine that treats the action as the unity of the two parties — procedural (the applicant’s claim to the court) and substantive (the applicant’s claim to the defendant). The author has examined the inconsistency of the doctrine of the lawsuit developed by G. L. Osokina treating the action as the claim to protect a right and at the same time to admit the existence of the right to bring an action in a procedural and substantive sense. Also, the article analyzes the shortcomings of the definitions of the action given by V. V. Yarkov and O. V. Isaenkova. In conclusion, the author substantiates and gives his own definition of the concept of the action as the request addressed to court by the person concerned, submitted and considered in a certain procedural order in order to protect the violated right. The concept under consideration is also defined as the right that requires confirmation, freedom or legitimate interest and the direct exercise of the right or the satisfaction of a legitimate interest for which another person is held liable.

scholarly journals From Science to Dance Ensaio Between Lab and Studio

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 205-243
Author(s):  
Ângelo Cid Neto
Keyword(s):  
Creative Process ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
The Body ◽  
Artistic Process ◽  
Science And Art ◽  
Neuroscience Research ◽  
Reflection In Action ◽  
The Common ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Definition Of

Abstract This text is a reflection in action of an artistic process based on a scientific research. ENSAIO is the choreographic project that resulted from the translation mechanisms of laboratory concepts to a bodily approach, where it proposes a possible mainstreaming of artistic and scientific processes combined. This project joined artistic higher education schools in dance and scenic arts (ESD and FCSH) and Polavieja lab, a neuroscience research lab in Champalimaud Foundation – Center for the Unknown. This text aims to reveal the creative choreographic and performative potentials hidden in this scientific research concerning neurosciences. Identifying cross materials to artistic and scientific processes, it was possible to design a structure of the creation process and the construction of a choreographic performance. The common platform has been found in the process of translation and the definition of the same concept substrate, which made possible the approach of the two instances: studio and laboratory. One of its key features is the promotion of the communication among its agents: scientists and dancers. And the possibility of modelling and absorption from what it comes from this sharing and collaboration. The methods and the choreographic procedures mirrored and promoted this sharing and, therefore, the involvement of the body. Where, the body is the agent able to reflect and trigger this process, a body as an essay that is constantly in research. A body able to coordinate between various media and to expand the reflection on itself. Although science and art are individual instances that inevitably specialise and segregated away. Therefore, this text focuses on examples of cross-thinking of both scientific and artistic cultures, and the articulation of the theoretical and practical bodies in a practice-as-research on the development of the ENSAIO creative process.

scholarly journals MISSION AND VALUES OF THE PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE IN UKRAINE: TO THE PROBLEM OF DEEP UNDERSTANDING

2021 ◽  
pp. 9-20
Author(s):  
O. Yu. Amelin
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Public Confidence ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
Information Tools ◽  
Stage Of Development ◽  
European Standards ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Commercial Organizations

The article is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of understanding the mission andvalues of the prosecutor’s office in Ukraine, the disclosure of the content of these conceptsat the present stage of development of the institution. Attention is focused on the analysis inthis part of the provisions of the Strategy for the Development of the Prosecutor’s Office for2021–2023.There is a tendency to spread the information tools of commercial organizations amongpublic authorities, in particular the prosecution authorities, and the replacement of previouslyused definitions of “role”, “principles”, “goals” by new borrowed definitions of “mission”,“values”, “vision” respectively.A cursory retrospective review of the formation of ideas about the content of thecategories of “mission” and “values” has been carried out. It has been found out that fromthe position of philosophy values are considered as specific social definitions of objects of thesurrounding world, which reveal their positive or negative significance for man and societyand are contained in the phenomena of social life and nature.Emphasis is placed on the need to unify the values (principles) common to all lawenforcement agencies, since most of them are the only or very close. Strategic documents ofthese bodies should reveal the provisions of the Constitution and the relevant legislation ofUkraine, to specify the latter and not contradict them.It is defined that the basic values for all public authorities, including law enforcementagencies, are: human and civil rights, the rule of law, responsibility and accountability, as wellas professionalism (or professional) and continuous improvement.It is proposed to treat the mission in a broad sense as an existential goal of the organization,an effective manifestation of its nature, sufficiently demonstrative and at the same timeunderstandable enough for the general public.The author’s definition of the mission of the prosecutor’s office, which meets therequirements of the time and takes into account its place in the mechanism of state power,the functional specificity of activity, the priority of approximation to European standards,ensuring openness and transparency, as well as strengthening of public confidence in it, wasformulated.The need for a number of changes in the Strategy for the Development of the Prosecutor’sOffice for 2021–2023 on a more clear and coherent presentation of its provisions on themission and values of the prosecution and details of some of them were noted.

Galen

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel King
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Common Language ◽  
Diagnosis And Therapy ◽  
Complex Approach ◽  
The Common ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Pain Symptoms ◽  
Specific Definition

Galen develops a robustly aetiological approach to diagnosis and therapy which centres on the differentiation of pain perceptions throughout the body. He develops a specific definition of pain as the perception of overwhelming and contrary-to-nature change which links the perception of pain with his understanding of disease. Throughout On Affected Parts, he argues for pain terminology and descriptions that facilitate the communication of experiences and perceptions between doctor and patient. Galen promotes, in this context, a type of ‘common language’ in which familiar terminology communicates effectively the common experiences of doctor and patient: modern categories of subjective and objective language are not effective tools to help understand this complex approach to pain description. Galen’s control of language in this context is mirrored by his attempts to control his patients’ narration of pain symptoms, which moulds their experiences to fit Galen’s understanding of pain, disease, and the body.

Thinking with the living body: the biopsychosocial model and the cosmopolitics of existence

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Schillmeier
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Biopsychosocial Model ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Living Body ◽  
Human Perceptions ◽  
The Common

This paper argues that the ‘biopsychosocial’ model of the body highlights the importance of the psychosocial dimension for a better understanding of health and illness. Most importantly, by emphasising the fundamental relevance of values in the make-up of living systems, the biopsychosocial model radically challenges the common sense operation of evidence-based biomedical operations that bifurcate the body into the subjectivities of human perceptions and the non-subjective qualities of the nature of bodies. The biopsychosocial model protests against the manner by which only non-subjective qualities gain explanatory power in analysing, diagnosing and treating somatic and mental health issues. To accentuate the explanatory importance of values in understanding embodied human life, I will introduce Émile Durkheim’s seminal work about human society as a realitysui generisthat introduces the scientific realm for a ‘special psychology’ (Durkheim) to analyse ‘values’ as an emergent accomplishment of human social life. Still, as important Durkheim’s account is in understanding societal values, it is only partially valid for the biopsychosocial model since it iterates the common sense operation of bifurcation by dismissing individual perceptions as valid sources to gain knowledge about the realities of human social values. To avoid bifurcation and to give importance to the subjectivities of every mode of existence, I will introduce Tarde’s monadology that emphasises the value-laden psychosocial processes and societal organisation in understandingallbodies and things—human and non-human alike. A monadological reading of the body universalises the ‘biopolitics’ of human affairs and unfolds what I call the ‘cosmopolitics of existence’. With the shift from the biopolitics of human affairs to the cosmopolitics of existence this paper wishes to contribute to novel ways of thinking the biopsychosocial body beyond bifurcating mind and nature.

scholarly journals The Sh(e)aring Economy. Debates on the Law on Takings

Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 54
Author(s):  
Nofar Sheffi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Relationship

Rethinking ‘sharing’ and the relationship between ‘sharing’ and ‘jurisdiction’, this meander proceeds in three parts. It begins with a journey to and through the forests of the nineteenth-century Rhineland, rereading Marx’s journalistic reports on debates in the Sixth Rhine Province Assembly about proposed amendments to forest regulation (including an extension of the definition of ‘wood theft’ to include the gathering of fallen wood) as a reflection on the making of law by legal bodies. From the forests of the Rhineland, the paper journeys to the forests of England, retracing the common story about the development, by legal bodies, of the body of common law principles applicable to ‘innkeeping’. Traveling to and through the ‘concrete jungles’ of the United States of America, the paper concludes with a reflection on Airbnb’s common story of creation as well as debates about the legality of Airbnb, Airbnb-ing, and ‘sharing’.

Derrida on Pornography: Putting (It) Up for Sale

Derrida Today ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Morris
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
English Translation ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Past ◽  
French Original ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Critical Discourses ◽  
Academic Debate

Over the past thirty years, academic debate over pornography in the discourses of feminism and cultural studies has foundered on questions of the performative and of the word's definition. In the polylogue of Droit de regards, pornography is defined as la mise en vente that is taking place in the act of exegesis in progress. (Wills's idiomatic English translation includes an ‘it’ that is absent in the French original). The definition in Droit de regards alludes to the word's etymology (writing by or about prostitutes) but leaves the referent of the ‘sale’ suspended. Pornography as la mise en vente boldly restates the necessary iterability of the sign and anticipates two of Derrida's late arguments: that there is no ‘the’ body and that performatives may be powerless. Deriving a definition of pornography from a truncated etymology exemplifies the prosthesis of origin and challenges other critical discourses to explain how pornography can be understood as anything more than ‘putting (it) up for sale’.

The Common as Body Without Organs

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (supplement) ◽  
pp. 46-63
Author(s):  
Vidar Thorsteinsson
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Fundamental Importance ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Social Production ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
Political Thinking ◽  
Conceptual Apparatus ◽  
Body Without Organs ◽  
Social Factory ◽  
The Common

The paper explores the relation of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's work to that of Deleuze and Guattari. The main focus is on Hardt and Negri's concept of ‘the common’ as developed in their most recent book Commonwealth. It is argued that the common can complement what Nicholas Thoburn terms the ‘minor’ characteristics of Deleuze's political thinking while also surpassing certain limitations posed by Hardt and Negri's own previous emphasis on ‘autonomy-in-production’. With reference to Marx's notion of real subsumption and early workerism's social-factory thesis, the discussion circles around showing how a distinction between capital and the common can provide a basis for what Alberto Toscano calls ‘antagonistic separation’ from capital in a more effective way than can the classical capital–labour distinction. To this end, it is demonstrated how the common might benefit from being understood in light of Deleuze and Guattari's conceptual apparatus, with reference primarily to the ‘body without organs’ of Anti-Oedipus. It is argued that the common as body without organs, now understood as constituting its own ‘social production’ separate from the BwO of capital, can provide a new basis for antagonistic separation from capital. Of fundamental importance is how the common potentially invents a novel regime of qualitative valorisation, distinct from capital's limitation to quantity and scarcity.

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