scholarly journals Diminished responsibility and alcohol

2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 193-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuwan Galappathie ◽  
Krishma Jethwa
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Life Sentence ◽  
The Law ◽  
Diminished Responsibility

SummaryIn England and Wales diminished responsibility is a partial defence to the charge of murder. If successfully argued by the defence, it reduces the charge from murder to manslaughter and thus avoids the mandatory life sentence. Alcohol has been reported to be a feature in up to 80% of all homicides but for many years the judiciary have set an almost unattainable threshold for the disease of alcoholism to amount to a finding of diminished responsibility, in accordance with other aspects of criminal law. Reform of the law on murder is likely to take many years but it is timely to recap the current law on diminished responsibility and review advances in case law in England and Wales on alcohol.

Organised crime in English criminal law

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Sergi
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Organised Crime ◽  
Criminal Enterprise ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Enterprise Model ◽  
The Law

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider the rationale behind the approaches to organised crime in criminal law to understand the basis of the law on conspiracy in England and Wales and why this country has refused to amend conspiracy in favour of a membership offence or a criminal enterprise model, similar to the USA’s offences. Design/methodology/approach – The analysis is based on a legal comparison between the law of conspiracy in England and Wales and the USA’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) statute, as example of best practice targeting criminal enterprises. The legal comparison is also substantiated by case law examples and interviewees with prosecutors and lawyers collected both in London and in New York City. Findings – After briefly describing how the two systems (English and American) are intended to work, the paper will develop a discussion on the difficulties and advantages of introducing a RICO-style legislation in England and Wales and shall conclude that it is the way organised crime is socially perceived in the English/British scenario that justifies the choice to remain on the level of conspiracy and not move towards membership/enterprise offences. Research limitations/implications – This study shall be primarily intended as an opportunity to assess the criminal law tools in the fight against organised crime available in England and Wales. The comparative side of this research, the RICO statute, would require more attention which this paper cannot give for reasons of brevity. Therefore, the study is a preliminary study in comparative criminal law. Originality/value – The central idea of this work is to suggest that differences in criminal law are based on different perceptions of the wrongfulness of the offending. For the law to change in favour of a criminal enterprise offence in England and Wales, there is a need to reshape the wrongfulness of organised crime. A study into the wrongfulness of organised crime as a criminal offence, with a comparative outlook, has never been conducted before in England and Wales.

Determining a Suicide under Australian Law

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Jowett ◽  
Belinda Carpenter ◽  
Gordon Tait
Keyword(s):  
Case Law ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Practical Matter ◽  
The Law ◽  
Recent Government

This article examines the role of coroners in making legal determinations of suicide in Australia. Research indicates that the requirement to make findings of intent and capacity in unexpected, violent deaths can be difficult for coroners and recent government inquiries have suggested that the law contributes to the problem. A review of laws and commentary that guide coroners in Australian states and territories reveals not only that coroners are the only persons tasked with making routine legal determinations of suicide, but that such legal guidance lacks clarity. This article concludes that law reform would aid coroners by clarifying definitional issues, removing inconsistency between state jurisdictions and increasing the transparency of case law. Along with requirements for a determination of intent, which is a practical matter previously raised by the Victorian Coronial Council, such changes would go some way to ensuring that Australian suicide statistics are more reliably created.

Counterfactual Reasoning and Expropriation Compensation: An Argument for Elimination of Elimination Rules

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sjur K Dyrkolbotn
Keyword(s):  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Counterfactual Thinking ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Property Value ◽  
Counterfactual Reasoning ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Legal Professionals ◽  
Unique Mode ◽  
The Law ◽  
Law And Legislation

AbstractTo award compensation for expropriated property, it is usually necessary to determine what the value of the property would have been if there had been no expropriation. This requires counterfactual thinking, a form of “make-believe” reasoning that legal professionals and valuators often find difficult to apply. The challenge becomes particularly difficult and important when the scheme underlying expropriation influences the value of the property that is taken. In such situations, rules developed in case law and legislation often attempt to clarify when aspects of property value should be attributed to the expropriation scheme and disregarded from further consideration. This article critically addresses elimination rules of this kind, arguing that they interfere with counterfactual assessments in ways that can render these assessments more difficult, less predictable, and more open to manipulation. To illustrate the overarching point, it is argued that recent proposals for reform in England and Wales, aiming to constrain the scope of contrary-to-fact elimination in expropriation cases, might not work as intended and could potentially make the situation worse. More broadly, the article argues that counterfactual reasoning in expropriation cases cannot be circumvented by legislative and casuistic interventions. Just as the law of tort, the law of expropriation compensation illustrates why counterfactual reasoning should be recognised as an irreducible and unique mode of legal reasoning, one that should be addressed as such by legal theorists and lawmakers alike.

Exclusive possession or the intention of the parties? The relation of landlord and tenant in Northern Ireland

2017 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-223
Author(s):  
Mark Hayward
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
The Law

The seminal House of Lords judgment in Street v Mountford established that the test for distinguishing between a lease and a licence is whether the occupant has been granted exclusive possession of the premises. The test is objective: the relation of landlord and tenant exists where exclusive possession has been granted, regardless of the intention of the parties. However, this stands at odds with the law in both parts of Ireland, where s 3 of Deasy's Act states that the relation of landlord and tenant 'shall be deemed to be founded on the . . . contract of the parties'. This article analyses the historical background that led to Deasy's Act, surveys contemporary case law in both parts of Ireland on leases vs licences and argues that the law in this area in Northern Ireland differs from that in England and Wales.

Conditional intention

Legal Studies ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
General Problem ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Mens Rea ◽  
The Law

In this article I wish to deal with a problem about the analysis of intention in criminal law. The issue I want to take up has arisen primarily in the context of theft and theft-related offences. However, there is no reason to suppose that it is a problem confined to theft. It could arise in any area of the criminal law which involves intention as constitutive of mens rea.The general problem can be stated very briefly. How is the law to deal with an accused who intended to perform some act which, if performed with simple intention, would be an offence, when he intended to perform that act only if some contingency occurred? The case law on theft demonstrates that, far from being an arcane question, this is a live issue. This is for the simple reason that a great many intentions are intentions of this conditional nature.

Time for an English Commercial Code?

1997 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 516-536
Author(s):  
Dame Mary Arden
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Commercial Code ◽  
Unique Experience ◽  
The Common ◽  
Systematic Development ◽  
The Law ◽  
Lord Chancellor ◽  
Law Commission

Parliament has imposed on the Law Commission the duty to review the law of England and Wales “with a view to its systematic development and reform, including in particular the codification of [the] law … and generally the simplification and modernisation of the law”. There are a number of points which flow from this. First, as a body which reviews great swathes of the common law to see if they require to be modernised or simplified, the Law Commission has a unique standpoint from which to view the strengths and weaknesses of the common law method. Second, it has unique experience of law reform and the Parliamentary process. Third, in discharge of its functions, it has an interest in seeing that, if codification is appropriate, a recommendation to that effect is made to the Lord Chancellor. It need not be the Law Commission which carries out the recommendation, and indeed the Law Commission could not carry out a project purely of its own initiative.

scholarly journals ASPECTS OF INSOLVENCY IN CRIMINAL LAW

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (72) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Ivars Kronis
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Criminal Liability ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Behavior Patterns ◽  
Insolvency Law ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
The Law ◽  
Insolvency Proceedings

The article contains analysis of the legal norms that govern criminal liability for risks posed to insolvency. Based on case law and conclusions made by the law scholars, the preconditions have been studied the presence of which has to be proven in order to enable calling of a person to criminal account for leading to insolvency, filing of a fraudulent application for insolvency proceedings, hindering the insolvency proceedings and breach of the conditions of legal protection. The study enables deepen understanding of the preconditions to application of the law and helps to gain knowledge of criminal legal protection of insolvency and to avoid any behavior patterns that might be interpreted as criminal. The period since enactment of the new Insolvency Law that has changed the concept of insolvency as well as the course of procedure and therefore has affected the application of criminal legal protection has been too short for development of judiciary in this area. The few sources of scientific literature on the regulation of criminal legal protection of insolvency in the Criminal Law had been published before enactment of the new Insolvency Law. Five years of operation of the Insolvency Law is a kind of milestone for updating the issues of criminal legal protection of insolvency and extended assessment of the insolvency regulations in the Criminal Law.

scholarly journals ANALISIS KOMPARATIF SANKSI TINDAK PIDANA PADA HUKUM PIDANA ISLAM DENGAN HUKUM POSITIF

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-46
Author(s):  
Reski Anwar
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Focus Group Discussion ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Group Discussion ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Criminal Sanctions ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Islamic Values

Types of punishment provided for in the book the law of criminal law, namely criminal subject matter which consists of a criminal to death, imprisonment. As for the types of sanction or punishment in Islamic criminal law includes the law of jarimah adultery, penalty jarimah qadzaf, jarimah punishment of theft, jarimah punishment. Indonesia at the moment very much in need of a great variety of study on the concept of criminal sanctions in order to reduce islamic values through this Focus Group Discussion or conference, etc. Of a will can contribute to the renewal of a criminal law reform And there should have been a kind of work for punishment of the formulations in the form of social as well as the completion of matter outside the court (restorasi justice).

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