The Second Coming of Dignity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Simon
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
Institutional Racism ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Determinate Sentencing ◽  
Legal Commitments

In this chapter, Jonathan Simon argues that the modern criminal system should adopt the value of dignity as its governing ideal. The chapter argues that the legality principle—once a primary engine for strengthening the criminal system’s democratic legitimacy—has exhausted its sociological and jurisprudential power. Surveying 150 years of criminal legal commitments, this chapter shows how the legality principle rose to prominence as a vehicle for reform and accountability, and then fell under pressure from mass incarceration and institutional racism. Accordingly, the legality principle should be supplemented with a dignity principle, “an increasingly prominent value in legal systems internationally since the middle of the 20th century.” Simon traces the development of various forms of dignity in Supreme Court jurisprudence, from police procedure to prison conditions, determinate sentencing, and mental health. The chapter concludes that “the great banner reading ‘nulla poena sine lege’ must now be, not lowered, but joined by another banner of ‘no crime and no punishment without respect for human dignity.’”

Access to Justice for Ethno-Racial Psychiatric Consumer/Survivors in Ontario

2011 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruby Dhand
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Institutional Racism ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
Complex Needs ◽  
Troubles Mentaux ◽  
Inappropriate Care ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Complex Forms ◽  
Face Complex ◽  
Legal Barriers

Ethno-racial psychiatric consumer/survivors face complex forms of discrimination as a result of the culture specific stigmatization of mental health disabilities, institutional racism and culturally inappropriate care. In an effort to achieve better access to justice for ethno-racial communities, we must strive to understand their complex needs, perspectives and conceptions of mental health. Thus, I identify and critique the legal barriers, which are perceived to differentially affect ethno-racial psychiatric consumer/survivors in Ontario, through an analysis of the Consent and Capacity Board [CCB]. I propose the hypothesis that factors such as race, ethnicity, culture, poverty and social exclusion are not fully addressed by the CCB. I use data collected from interviews with stakeholders to reveal the procedural, structural/systemic and discretionary barriers faced by ethno-racial psychiatric consumer/survivors within the CCB’s pre-hearing, hearing and post-hearing processes, along with recommendations to address these barriers.Les consommateurs/survivants de la psychiatrie ethnoraciale doivent surmonter des formes complexes de discrimination en raison de la stigmatisation culturelle des troubles mentaux, du racisme institutionnel et des soins culturellement inappropriés. Pour améliorer l’accès à la justice des collectivités ethnoraciales, nous devons nous efforcer de comprendre leurs besoins complexes, leurs perspectives et leurs conceptions de la santé mentale. Dans le présent travail, je relève et critique les obstacles juridiques, qui sont perçus comme touchant différemment les consommateurs/survivants de la psychiatrie ethnoraciale en Ontario, en effectuant une analyse des travaux de la Commission du consentement et de la capacité (la « CCC »). J’émets l’hypothèse que la CCC ne prend pas pleinement en compte des facteurs comme la race, l’ethnicité, la culture, la pauvreté et l’exclusion sociale. J’utilise des données provenant d’entrevues avec des parties prenantes pour illustrer les obstacles procéduraux, structurels/systémiques et discrétionnaires auxquels font face les consommateurs/survivants de la psychiatrie ethnoraciale lors des audiences préparatoires et des audiences de la CCC et dans le cadre des processus suivis par la CCC après les audiences, et je formule des recommandations visant à surmonter ces obstacles.

The concept of human dignity in the case-law of the Supreme Court of Canada on Charter Equality Rights

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 118-137
Author(s):  
Tatiana Vasilieva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Equality Rights ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Additional Burden ◽  
The Impact

This article explores the evolution of the Supreme Court of Canada’s approach to the application of the concept of human dignity in constitutional equality cases. Traditionally, in human rights cases, this concept serves only to strengthen the argument, to show that the violation affects the person’s intrinsic worth. It is only in Canada and in South Africa that there is experience in applying the concept as a criterion for identifying discrimination. In 1999, in Law v. Canada, the Supreme Court recognized the purpose of Article 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms of 1982 to be the protection of human dignity and stated that discrimination must be established based on assessment of the impact of a program or law on human dignity. However, in 2008, in R. v. Kapp, the Court noted that the application of the concept of human dignity creates difficulties and places an additional burden of prove on the plaintiff. It is no coincidence that victims of discrimination have preferred to seek protection before human rights tribunals and commissions, where the dignity-based test is not used. Subsequently, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected the use of the concept of human dignity as a criterion for identifying discrimination. The unsuccessful experience of applying the concept of human dignity as legal test has demonstrated that not every theoretically correct legal construction is effective in adjudication.

scholarly journals Knowing What We Want: A Decent Society, A Civilized System of Justice & A Condition of Dignity

Daedalus ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 151 (1) ◽  
pp. 170-180
Author(s):  
Jonathan Simon
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
Security Systems ◽  
Criminal Justice Reform ◽  
The Road ◽  
A Value ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Penal State ◽  
Decent Society

Abstract Human dignity as a value to guide criminal justice reform emerged strikingly in the 2011 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Plata. But with Justice Kennedy retired and courts generally reluctant to go far down the road to practical reforms, its future lies in the political realm shaping policy at the local, state, and national levels. For human dignity to be effective politically and in forming policy, we need a vocabulary robust enough to convey a positive vision for the penal state. In this essay, I discuss three concepts that can provide more precision to the potential abstractness of human dignity, two of which the Supreme Court has regularly used in decisions regarding punishment: the idea of a “decent society,” the idea of a “civilized system of justice,” and the idea of a “condition of dignity.” In brief, without a much broader commitment to restoring a decent society, and to civilizing our justice and security systems, there is little hope that our police stations, courts, jails, and prisons will provide a condition of dignity to those unfortunate enough to end up in them.

Let Them Plow

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camille Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
School Desegregation ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Regional Variations ◽  
The Supreme Court

Chapter Two examines a handful of pivotal Supreme Court cases brought against school desegregation at the turn of the century and the first few decades of the 20th century. The Cumming v. Georgia case in 1899 indicated a demand for equality on the basis of taxpayer status that was understood by the plaintiffs to be intertwined with race, a demand that was interpreted by the Supreme Court only in the language of taxation and federalism. This chapter also highlights regional variations and a number of cases brought at the height of Jim Crow segregation by people of color who fell outside the black-white paradigm, even if courts then imposed it on them.

Introduction

Living Law ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Miguel Vatter
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Charismatic Leadership ◽  
Alternative Conception ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Divine Providence ◽  
Divine Sovereignty ◽  
German Jewish ◽  
Higher Law

This chapter situates Jewish political theology as a discourse developed in the 20th century, mainly by German Jewish thinkers. It sets out the basic differences between this analysis and the discourse on political theology developed by Carl Schmitt, centered on the need for absolute sovereignty to “restrain” disorder and revolutionary upheavals. The chapter argues that Jewish political theology offers an alternative conception of divine sovereignty and its implications for democracy and revolution. Jewish political theology is both republican and anarchic, attached to the idea of a higher law above human sovereignty and to the egalitarian ideal of a politics beyond domination. This chapter presents the two analytical-conceptual guiding-threads of the investigation. The first is concerned with Max Weber’s category of charismatic leadership and the problem of its functioning within a constitutional idea of democratic legitimacy. The second guiding-thread is concerned with the process of secularization. This chapter argues that Jewish political theology reconceives divine providence in order to criticize the assumption of human progress in and through history.

scholarly journals The Penrose Effect and its acceleration by the war on drugs: a crisis of untranslated neuroscience and untreated addiction and mental illness

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory G. Grecco ◽  
R. Andrew Chambers
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Health Treatment ◽  
Clinical Training ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
Brain Diseases ◽  
Government Investment ◽  
Behavioral Healthcare ◽  
Penrose Effect

AbstractIn 1939, British psychiatrist Lionel Penrose described an inverse relationship between mental health treatment infrastructure and criminal incarcerations. This relationship, later termed the ‘Penrose Effect’, has proven remarkably predictive of modern trends which have manifested as reciprocal components, referred to as ‘deinstitutionalization’ and ‘mass incarceration’. In this review, we consider how a third dynamic—the criminalization of addiction via the ‘War on Drugs’, although unanticipated by Penrose, has likely amplified the Penrose Effect over the last 30 years, with devastating social, economic, and healthcare consequences. We discuss how synergy been the Penrose Effect and the War on Drugs has been mediated by, and reflects, a fundamental neurobiological connection between the brain diseases of mental illness and addiction. This neuroscience of dual diagnosis, also not anticipated by Penrose, is still not being adequately translated into improving clinical training, practice, or research, to treat patients across the mental illness-addictions comorbidity spectrum. This failure in translation, and the ongoing fragmentation and collapse of behavioral healthcare, has worsened the epidemic of untreated mental illness and addictions, while driving unsustainable government investment into mass incarceration and high-cost medical care that profits too exclusively on injuries and multi-organ diseases resulting from untreated addictions. Reversing the fragmentation and decline of behavioral healthcare with decisive action to co-integrate mental health and addiction training, care, and research—may be key to ending criminalization of mental illness and addiction, and refocusing the healthcare system on keeping the population healthy at the lowest possible cost.

scholarly journals Filiation and Assisted Reproductive Technology

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 701-729
Author(s):  
Hernán Corral
Keyword(s):  
Assisted Reproductive Technology ◽  
Assisted Reproduction ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Reproductive Technology ◽  
Human Reproduction ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Best Interest ◽  
Assisted Reproduction Techniques ◽  
International Standard

This article deals with the various filiation issues arising from the application of assisted reproduction techniques. The author asserts that assisted reproduction techniques produce a dissociation between the blood and genetic elements of procreation and people's will to become parents, which causes hard judicial dilemma in paternity suits. Legislative and judicial criteria developed both under European and American legal systems to solve this case are systematized in the article, wherein the author directs criticism to those criteria that tend to undermine the natural physiology of human reproduction in spite of the "intent of reproduction" concept. This latest concept is criticized as being a form of contractualization of filiation links. The author suggests that a deeper understanding of the human dignity, and of the international standard of the best interest of the child should be useful to protect children from being a part of the new market-of-human-beings that could arise from the massive application of assisted reproduction techniques.

Democratic Legitimacy and Election Rules of National Ethnic Minority1 Bodies and Representatives – Reflections on Legal Solutions in Hungary and Slovenia

2002 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Educational Facilities ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
And Control ◽  
Management Issues

Abstract‘[i]t is essential...that, where the numbers warrant, minority language parents possess a measure of management and control over educational facilities in which their children are taught. Such management and control is vital to ensure that their language and culture flourish. It is necessary because a variety of management issues in education, e.g., curricula, hiring and expenditures, can affect linguistic and cultural concerns.’2 – Supreme Court of Canada

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