The Anti-pornography Civil Rights Ordinances, 1983–1991

2021 ◽  
pp. 167-215
Author(s):  
Max Waltman

The chapter analyzes attempted civil rights legislation against pornography (the “MacKinnon-Dworkin” ordinance). It delineates its underlying hierarchy theory: consciousness-raising, group representation, and intersectional legal analysis—a commanding approach to end oppression through civil lawsuits against producers and disseminators, avoiding criminal law. The contemporaneous critics’ charges of “rigidity” and “one-sidedness” are found wanting, inadequately apprehending hierarchy and subordination. The ordinances’ definitions are shown to target provably harmful material only, preventing overbreadth and vagueness. A legal argument is advanced that the ordinances are narrowly tailored to serve a compelling interest, the incidental restrictions on alleged First Amendment freedoms are no greater than is essential to further their interest, and the definitions are sufficiently analogous to other unprotected expressions (e.g., obscenity and group libel). The Seventh Circuit’s judicial invalidation in American Booksellers Association v. Hudnut (1985) is found based on ideology rather than law, political ideas rather than legislated rules.

2012 ◽  
pp. 251-251

2021 ◽  
pp. 260-308
Author(s):  
Max Waltman

The chapter compares Canadian and U.S. judicial challenges, tracing the development of Canada’s unconventional harm-based criminal obscenity law under the 1982 Charter’s substantive equality guarantees. It highlights the Canadian Supreme Court intervener LEAF—a women’s organization instrumental in Butler (1992), where the law was saved as an equality provision against freedom of expression challenges. Butler is contrasted with the more categorical U.S. First Amendment law. Despite Butler’s promises, it is shown that since then, pornographers have mainly been protected by Canadian courts, which use desensitized contemporary standards, flawed empirical evidence, surgically inserted loopholes, and wishy-washy judicial reasoning where harm is concerned. In light of LEAF’s successful intervention, the civil rights model is explored as an alternative to criminal law that would better represent the groups whose interests are most threatened by pornography—groups with substantially stronger incentives than the government to invest time and effort in challenging the pornography industry.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 66-79
Author(s):  
S. L. Morozov ◽  

The advent of the electronic currency and the effecting of electronic payments has caused new forms of thefts and types of acquisitive crimes. The judicial investigative practice of criminal cases of embezzlement committed using bank cards and other types of electronic payments has encountered problems with the qualification of such acts. The author identifies the most common enforcement problemsand their causesby a retrospective study of judicial practice, the changing norms of the criminal law. At the same time, a ten-year period of work of the judicial investigating authorities was studied. On the basis of traditional general scientific methods of cognition, as a result of a system-legal analysis of the considered set of specific situations, the author gives an author's view of the complex of causes that cause a lack of uniformity in judicial investigative practice. Using the hermeneutic approach, the author paid special attention to the application by the courts of the interpretation of the criminal law by the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in different years. In conclusion, ways of resolving contentious issues of qualification of thefts and fraud in the field of electronic means of payment are proposed. It has been ascertained that high-quality and uniform law enforcement can provide additional clarification on the delimitation of related and competing theft from the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. It is concluded that in general, the current concept of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation does not contain contradictions with the novels of the criminal law, but can be improved. The rationale and edition of possible additions to the relevant decision of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation are given.


Author(s):  
Сергей Иванович Вележев ◽  
Антон Михайлович Седогин

В статье рассмотрены актуальные вопросы уголовно-правовой охраны нефтяной отрасли Российской Федерации от преступных посягательств корыстной направленности. Иллюстрирован существенный ущерб, причиняемый преступными группами охраняемым общественным отношениям на национальном и международном уровнях. Проведен статистический и сравнительно-правовой анализ наиболее эффективных норм законодательства России и Казахстана, применяемых в ходе борьбы с подобной противоправной деятельностью. Предложено направление дальнейшего совершенствования российского уголовного закона. Нефтяная промышленность является одной из ведущих отраслей Российской Федерации, структурными сегментами которой являются в том числе объекты добычи, хранения, переработки и транспортировки нефти, а также объекты транспортировки, хранения и сбыта нефтепродуктов. Данные обстоятельства требуют принятия мер по ее защите от противоправных действий по хищению нефти и нефтепродуктов. Наряду с охранными, режимными и организационными мерами, которые осуществляют хозяйствующие субъекты, немаловажное значение имеет защита отрасли от преступных посягательств уголовно-правовым способом. В статье указывается необходимость совершенствования законодательства по обеспечению безопасности деятельности нефтяной отрасли, учитывая ее значение для экономики страны. Отмечается, что положительные результаты в поиске возможных путей совершенствования законодательства дает применение сравнительно-правового анализа уголовных норм СНГ по борьбе с преступностью в этой сфере деятельности. The article examines current issues of the criminal law protection of the oil industry of the Russian Federation from criminal attacks for mercenary reasons. The considerable damage caused by criminal groups to protected public relations at the national and international levels is illustrated. A statistical and comparative legal analysis of the most effective norms of the legislation of Russia and the Republic of Kazakhstan applied in the fight against such illegal activities has been carried out. The direction of further improvement of the Russian criminal law is proposed. The oil industry is one of the leading industries of the Russian Federation, the structural segments of that are the objects of oil production, storage, refining and transportation, as well as the objects of transportation, storage and marketing of oil product. Under these circumstances it is required totake measures for protection it from unlawful actions connected with stealing of oil and oil products. Along with security, safeguards and organizational measures that are implemented by business entities, protection of the industry from criminal attacks by a criminal law method is of no small importance. The article indicates the need to improve legislation to ensure the safety of the oil industry, based on its importance for the country's economy. It is noted that positive results in the search for possible ways to improve the legislation are provided by the use of a comparative legal analysis of the criminal norms of the CIS in the fight against crime in this area of activity.


2021 ◽  
pp. 001083672110326
Author(s):  
Kathrin Bachleitner

This article is interested in the formation of war legacies and how they interact with social identities. It suggests a bottom-up approach towards examining the societal processes in which individuals create a legacy of war. It posits that through their narratives of conflict, by remembering what happened to them as a group, they mould the meaning and boundaries of how the group will be membered post-conflict. The validity of the theorised link between war memory and group membership is then tested in the case of Syria. In 200 interviews, Syrians provided their narratives of the conflict and their vision of a future Syrian state and society. The findings show that most respondents’ narratives follow a civic rationale, forming a society around civil rights and political ideas rather than around ethnic/sectarian divides. With this, the article contributes a new route for international relations scholars to understand the formation of war legacies through individuals’ narratives of conflict and explains their effects on ties of group belonging while also offering a glimpse into the Syrian ‘we’ amid the ongoing war in Syria.


Author(s):  
Андрей Петрович Скиба ◽  
Андрей Владимирович Ковш ◽  
Александра Николаевна Мяханова

В статье проводится сравнительно-правовой анализ ряда норм катарского уголовного законодательства, а также российского уголовного и уголовно-исполнительного законодательства. Рассматриваются виды наказаний, связанных с лишением свободы, и их содержание по Уголовному кодексу Катара. Дополнительно обращается внимание на систему и содержание отдельных наказаний (в виде смертной казни, пожизненного лишения свободы и лишения свободы на определенный срок). Формулируется авторская редакция статей 57-62 Уголовного кодекса Катара, касающихся системы основных видов наказаний и их содержания. The article provides a comparative legal analysis of a number of norms of Qatari criminal law, as well as Russian criminal and penal enforcement legislation. The types of punishments related to deprivation of liberty and their content under the Qatari Criminal code are considered. In addition, attention is drawn to the system of punishments, the content of individual punishments (in the form of the death penalty, life imprisonment and imprisonment for a certain period). The author's version of articles 57-62 of the Criminal Code of Qatar concerning the system of main types of punishments and their content is formulated.


Author(s):  
Olha Peresada ◽  

The article considers topical issues of definition and qualification of crimes against human life in Ukraine and abroad. It is proved that the problematic issue of criminal law protection of human life is a significant differentiation of approaches to determining the moment of its onset, which reflects the medical and social criteria for the formation of an individual who has the right to life. It is shown that Ukrainian criminal law gives a person the right to life from birth, while the correct approach is to recognize the beginning of human life and appropriate criminal protection from the moment of onset 10 days after conception, which is consistent with European experience (in particular, France) and sufficiently reflects the medical features of the period of formation of a full-fledged embryo. The article also addresses the issue of the fact that Section II of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine combines encroachment on two different generic objects - public relations for the protection of life and public relations for the protection of personal health. This provision of the criminal law of Ukraine does not correspond to the international practice on this issue. In addition, it is reasonable to believe that the two relevant categories of the object of criminal encroachment cannot be considered similar, as such an approach in certain cases can significantly complicate the classification of a criminal offense. It is emphasized that, given the exceptional importance of criminal law protection of human life, it is necessary to formulate a separate section of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which covers only crimes against life as the main object of criminal encroachment.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sachin S. Pandya ◽  
Marcia McCormick

This paper reviews the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020). There, the Court held that by barring employer discrimination against any individual “because of such individual’s . . . sex,” Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also bars employment discrimination because an individual is gay or transgender. The paper then speculates about how much Bostock will affect how likely lower court judges will read other “sex” discrimination prohibitions in the U.S. Code in the same way, in part based on a canvass of the text of about 150 of those prohibitions. The paper also discusses the religion-based defenses that defendants may raise in response under Title VII itself, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.


2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 156-162
Author(s):  
Andriy Samko ◽  
◽  
Dmуtrо Pilipenko ◽  

The article analyzes the peculiarities of applying a measure of procedural coercion in the form of detention in the criminal procedural legislation of the Republic of Belarus, as well as in the criminal process of Ukraine and the Republic of Kazakhstan. The positions of scientists in the field of criminal procedure, who conducted research on this issue, are analyzed. The key positions of the proceduralists regarding the basic regulatory aspects of the application of a preventive measure in the form of detention are considered. Attention is focused on the fundamental provisions of the functioning of the system of procedural compulsion and the application of a preventive measure in the form of detention in custody in particular. The analysis of the positions of the legislators of the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan and Ukraine regarding the issue of normative regulation of the procedure for applying a measure of procedural coercion in the form of detention is carried out. The authors of the article emphasize the key aspect of the preventive measure in the form of detention in the form of its extraordinary impact on the observance of human and civil rights and freedoms in criminal proceedings. This circumstance is especially relevant in respect of the right of participants in criminal proceedings to freedom and personal inviolability. In this regard, theoretical concepts are considered and the content of international law on this issue is analyzed. The practical feasibility and normative possibility of using other, more humane methods of influencing suspects accused in criminal proceedings are analyzed. The article focuses on the normative procedure for the application of bail as an alternative procedural measure of isolating a person during detention in the legislation of the above states. The article analyzes the procedural features of the normative regulation of the use of pledge in the legislation of Ukraine and the Republic of Kazakhstan. The author's position on these issues, as well as proposals for optimizing the criminal procedural legislation of the Republic of Belarus regarding the regulation of the use of detention are formulated.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 72-82
Author(s):  
Vadim V. Khilyuta

Criminal law institutions and basic concepts are being reformatted. This work focuses on the objective signs of theft and the mode of activity - the seizure of someone elses property. The existing law enforcement practice and the current recommendations of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on the qualification of thefts are critically perceived. The article focuses on provisions of the general theory of criminal law on the classification of theft. This study aims to substantiate the need for correlation of objective signs of theft in relation to the expansion of the boundaries of the object of theft and the method of activity. During the study, traditional methods of the sociolegal and formal-dogmatic analysis were used: documentary, comparative-legal, analytical, systemic, and logical. On the basis of the results of the study, adjustments were made to understand the objective side of theft and expand the boundaries of the method of action. The seizure of other peoples property cannot characterize the mechanism of embezzlement and reflect all aspects of qualification. The prospect of identifying theft with the extraction (receipt) of property benefits carries the risk of erasing the boundaries between embezzlement and other economic crimes. The author proposes models for the development of criminal legislation to establish criminal liability for crimes against property (property crimes). To modify the object of theft, its purpose, and mode of activity, the author proposes to identify a new group of crimes (crimes against the circulation of objects of civil rights) that would cover illegal acts against property and compulsory relations. Further scientific study requires a detailed separation of embezzlement (as attacks on bodily goods), crimes against the circulation of civil rights (as attacks on non-bodily goods), and crimes in economic activity (as attacks on the procedure for performing operations in the economy), summarizing their characteristic features and designing new formulations of crimes in the property sphere.


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