Judicial dialogue in three silences

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-42
Author(s):  
Valsamis Mitsilegas

The Taricco litigation before the Court of Justice and the Italian Constitutional Court has generated a number of fundamental questions about the relationship between EU law and national constitutional law and about the impact of EU law on domestic criminal justice systems. The ensuing dialogue between the two Courts has resulted in a considerable degree of mutual accommodation, while leaving a number of issues unresolved. The aim of this comment is to contextualize the Taricco litigation by focusing not on what the Courts have said, but on what the Courts have actually chosen to omit or sideline in their direct conversation, focusing thus on judicial dialogue via the two Courts’ silences. Three silences will be analysed here, one for each of the rulings in the Taricco litigation in sequence.

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-2
Author(s):  
Douglas A. Berman

The remarkable events of 2020 have disrupted and altered all sorts of plans, and this issue of FSR covers some of the many varied criminal justice and sentencing echoes of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and urgent new calls for racial justice. The intense and dynamic topics that have come to define 2020 in the United States necessarily impact, and may even consume our thinking, about modern criminal justice systems generally and federal sentencing realities in particular. Included in this FSR issue are reports and data and commentary that predate spring shutdowns and summer protests and related developments; but these materials now carry distinctive meaning and even a new urgency in light of 2020 challenges. It is impossible to fully assess in short order the impact of massive societal changes on the federal sentencing system, but we are hopeful this FSR issue can provided added perspective to a rapidly changing world that still often seems hard to fully grasp.


2021 ◽  
pp. 689-716
Author(s):  
Alisdair A. Gillespie ◽  
Siobhan Weare

This chapter considers the impact that COVID-19 has had on the English Legal System. The chapter is broken down into sections that mirror the parts of this book. The chapter begins by noting that the manner in which laws are passed differed because of coronavirus. The government were given wide-ranging powers to introduce new laws that restricted liberty. In many instances, these were not subject to Parliamentary debate or judicial analysis. The chapter also considers how the courts had to adjust to new ways of working. While traditionally, the courts rely on live proceedings, with everyone gathered in court, this was not possible throughout the pandemic. Remote hearings became the new normal until so-called ‘Nightingale Courts’ were introduced to allow for socially-distant trials to resume. However, this has led to significant delays in both the civil and criminal justice systems that will have a lasting impact. The chapter considers not only what has happened during the coronavirus pandemic, but also what lessons have been learnt that can carry through to the future.


Author(s):  
Stephen Garton

This article explores the impact of psychiatric theories and practices in the administration of criminal justice systems, largely in the Anglophone West. It focuses on the increasing use of psychiatric testimony in criminal trials, the struggle by doctors to expand the utility of this testimony beyond the strictures imposed by the M’Naghten Rules governing the insanity defense, and the increasing resort to psychiatric assessments at both the pretrial and posttrial stages to stream those deemed patients out of the prison system. By the interwar years psychiatric assessments and treatments were also being used extensively in prisons in some jurisdictions to govern decisions about parole and release. By the 1960s, however, a backlash against psychiatry and a loss of faith in rehabilitative strategies had curtailed its impact, although it remains an important element within most Western criminal justice systems.


Author(s):  
Bernardo Giorgio Mattarella

AbstractThe relationship between Judgment 238/2014 of the Italian Constitutional Court and EU law is, at first glance, apparently weak, as the subject matter of the former is not governed by the latter, nor there have been any judgments from EU courts regarding the case. However, if one considers the origin and purpose of the EU itself and the state of relations between Italy and Germany, one cannot help but examine the case from a European law perspective. Judgment 238/2014 is relevant to European law in several ways, all of which concern not only military cooperation in the EU but also the protection of human rights, the risk of forum shopping and, above all, how reliable member states are in their mutual relations. European law in turn is relevant to the present case not so much because it offers solutions but because it shows a method for settling clashes between legal systems and illustrates its inherent difficulties. Sentenza 238/2014 is an unpersuasive judgment and can be criticized from different angles: the legal one (international and constitutional law), the factual reconstruction and the judgment’s likely effects. There are, however, two possibilities of resolving the situation that Sentenza has produced: firstly the legal one, which involves the use of all possible tools to limit its effects; and secondly the diplomatic one, which implies further negotiations. European law does not provide a ground for a preference between these two options, but it suggests that none of these ways is neglected.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-142
Author(s):  
Valsamis Mitsilegas

By focusing on the adoption of EU minimum standards in the field of procedural rights in criminal proceedings, this article will assess the relationship between secondary law harmonisation, and the principles of effectiveness of EU law and of effective judicial protection in Europe's area of criminal justice. This article will begin by exploring the third pillar legacy on harmonisation, by focusing on what the EU has not done (i.e.to legislate on a horizontal instrument on defence rights) and what the EU has done (i.e.to legislate specifically on judgments in absentia with the specific purpose of clarifying, and in some instances limiting, the grounds for refusal in a number of EU mutual recognition measures). The analysis will then examine the impact of the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty and will evaluate critically the impact of EU harmonisation measures on defence rights on effective judicial protection. The analysis will focus on the relationship between EU law and national law, as well as on the relationship between EU law and the Charter and ECHR. Great emphasis will be placed on the strengthening of enforcement avenues offered by the normalisation of EU criminal law after Lisbon. These avenues have the potential to ensure that, even minimum, harmonisation measures in the field of defence rights can have a real impact on enhancing effective judicial protection and achieving the effectiveness of EU legislation on the ground.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-89
Author(s):  
András L. Pap ◽  
Jacob Verhagen

The Eighth forum on minority protection chose to focus on the treatment of minorities within the criminal justice system. During this forum, many issues were discussed, and solutions proposed. These included both long-standing historical issues, as well as contemporary areas of concern on a global scale. First, this paper will examine the background to the forum, its intents and purposes. Secondly, it will draw on the context according to which the topic of the eighth forum was chosen. Thirdly, the paper will take a look at notable contributions in the opening statements and each working group. At the end of the paper, we will examine recurring themes and proposed solutions throughout the forum. The intention of the paper is not to be analytical, but rather to highlight the main focuses of the forum and points of interest. As the event was a global forum, the contributions were on a global scale. Since the issues discussed are often universal and are often found at varying levels across national justice systems, it has import for European legal scholars and offers practical lessons for better understanding the relationship between minorities and the criminal justice system.


Author(s):  
Chrysanthi S. Leon ◽  
Corey S. Shdaimah

Expertise in multi-door criminal justice enables new forms of intervention within existing criminal justice systems. Expertise provides criminal justice personnel with the rationale and means to use their authority in order to carry out their existing roles for the purpose of doing (what they see as) good. In the first section, we outline theoretical frameworks derived from Gil Eyal’s sociology of expertise and Thomas Haskell’s evolution of moral sensibility. We use professional stakeholder interview data (N = 45) from our studies of three emerging and existing prostitution diversion programs as a case study to illustrate how criminal justice actors use what we define as primary, secondary, and tertiary expertise in multi-agency working groups. Actors make use of the tools at their disposal—in this case, the concept of trauma—to further personal and professional goals. As our case study demonstrates, professionals in specialized diversion programs recognize the inadequacy of criminal justice systems and believe that women who sell sex do so as a response to past harms and a lack of social, emotional, and material resources to cope with their trauma. Trauma shapes the kinds of interventions and expertise that are marshalled in response. Specialized programs create seepage that may reduce solely punitive responses and pave the way for better services. However empathetic, they do nothing to address the societal forces that are the root causes of harm and resultant trauma. This may have more to do with imagined capacities than with the objectively best approaches.


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