scholarly journals Judges’ Virtues and Vices: Outline of a Research Agenda for Legal Theory

Author(s):  
Tomasz Widłak

This article focuses on the issue of applicability of virtue theory to legal theory in civil-law (statutory) jurisdictions and suggests research areas and problems in that respect. The author starts with an assumption that the notion of “virtue” and virtue ethics should be used for the purposes of legal theory starting from references to judicial ethics and normative theory of judicial decision-making. This approach looks especially promising for the purpose of systematizing the chaotic moral language that is being currently used in Poland in reference to judges, their skills, and qualities of their character, which in turn may lead to formulating an explanatory and normative theory of the judicial role that better addresses the observable deficiencies of legal deontology. The author suggests research that could proceed from interpretatively uncovering what are believed to be specific judicial virtues and vices, considering different aspects of the wider Polish and European legal culture of civil law countries (included but not limited to legal and ethical standards, public discourse, legal and other literature, historical and fictional examples, and role models). With respect to judicial ethics, existing virtue theories, including non-eudaimonistic ones, may be examined for the purpose of identifying the model of virtue best suited to the particular nature of the judicial profession. The aretaic (rather than deontological or consequentialist) perspective may enable legal scholarship to take a new path in the debate on the status and qualities of the judiciary, including the problems relating to judicial independence and the selection of candidates for judicial offices.

Author(s):  
Linda Tvrdíková

If we look at the literature about judicial decision-making and interpretation of law, we can find many texts which are dedicated to legal arguments, logic and legal reasoning – in those texts the rationality, analytical and logical thinking is glorified and an interpretation seems ‘just’ as a logical operation where judges subsume certain facts under general legal norm or norms, those norms are formulated linguistically, so it seems that the whole job of judges is to analyze texts. What we can see more rarely are discussions and texts exploring the role of intuitions, feelings and emotions and their role in judicial decision-making – at least in the Czech Republic. Those of our faculties are seen as the source of bias and distortion. Even if we look to the past, those themes are not so common among legal theorists and philosophers – especially in our tradition where we are still influenced by Hans Kelsen and František Weyr and their normative theory – but we can find exceptions and those are the American legal realists. In this paper, we will show that their observations and insights seem to be right. How can we know it? Because in last decades cognitive scientists have made big progress in the area of decision-making and it seems that we are not so rational as we thought us to be. They have explored that our thinking does not take place only through the deliberative system but, surprisingly, there is also another one system which influences our decisions. This system is automatic, fast, and intuitive – some call this system S1, Seymour Epstein an experiential system. This automatic system is more influential than our deliberative system because it is always heard – we can use Jonathan Haidt’s metaphor of an elephant and a rider. S1, the intuitive, experiential system, is an elephant and S2, the deliberative, analytical system is the rider – in legal theory, we have talked about the rider a lot but we do not explore the elephant sufficiently. This paper will try to uncover the nature of the elephant.


2009 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANN DATTA

The bibliography brings together more than 250 scientific papers and books written by Alwyne (Wyn) Wheeler over fifty years, from 1955–2006. This chronological list shows that from the beginning his research followed three themes: taxonomy of historically important fish collections; identification and distribution of the British and European fish fauna ; the status of British fishes in a changing environment. Until the mid-point in Wyn's career he published regularly on the identification of fish remains in archaeological sites in Britain and Europe. Wyn also wrote under an alias, Allan Cooper, and these have been listed separately. The bibliography concludes with a selection of the regular columns he contributed to angling magazines.


2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-258
Author(s):  
Mónica Domínguez Pérez

This study deals with children's literature translated from Castilian Spanish into Galician, Basque and Catalan by a different publisher from that of the source text, between 1940 and 1980, and with the criteria used to choose books for translation during that period. It compares the different literatures within Spain and examines the intersystemic and intercultural relations that the translations reflect. Following the polysystems theory, literature is here conceived as a network of agents of different kinds: authors, publishers, readers, and literary models. Such a network, called a polysystem, is part of a larger social, economic, and cultural network. These extra-literary considerations play an important role in determining the selection of works to be translated. The article suggests that translations can be said to establish transcultural relations, and that they demonstrate different levels of power within a specific interliterary community. It concludes that, while translations may aim to change the pre-existent relationships, frequently they just reflect the status quo.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fradhana Putra Disantara

This study aims to analyze the relevance of the �health emergency� status to the existing legal theory and condition as well as to identify the validity of the Circular Letter of the Rector of State Universities. To this end, this study applied the statute and conceptual approach. The study was conducted by inventorying primary and secondary legal materials to obtain a proper and critical review of the legal issues under study. The results showed that the determination of the �health emergency� status by the government was inappropriate due to the uncertainty of the regulations issued by the government to determine the current condition. Thus, the status of the COVID-19 pandemic is a �legal emergency� status. Further, the Rector�s policy through the Circular Letter is valid judicially, sociologically, and philosophically. The determination of the �legal emergency� status can be done by issuing a Perppu without a �state of emergency� from the President. Finally, it is suggested to firstly get an approval from the Ministry of Education and Culture regarding the issuance of the Rector�s Circular Letter. Besides, further study is needed as this study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic.�Keabsahan Surat Edaran Rektor Perguruan Tinggi dalam Pandemi Covid-19Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk menganalisa relevansi status �darurat kesehatan� dengan teori hukum dan kondisi yang ada dan keabsahan atas Surat Edaran Rektor Perguruan Tinggi Negeri. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah statute approach dan conseptual approach. Penelitian dilakukan dengan menginventarisasi bahan hukum primer dan sekunder, guna mendapatkan kajian yang seyogianya dan telaah kritis terkait isu hukum. Hasil penelitian menyatakan penetapan status darurat kesehatan oleh pemerintah kurang tepat, dikarenakan tidak menentu-nya peraturan yang dikeluarkan oleh pemerintah untuk menetapkan kondisi saat ini. Sehingga, status pandemi COVID-19 merupakan status darurat hukum. Kebijakan rektor melalui Surat Edaran adalah absah secara aspek yuridis, sosiologis, dan filosofis. Penetapan darurat hukum cukup dilakukan dengan menerbitkan Perppu tanpa pernyataan darurat dari Presiden. Saran peneliti adalah di perlukan persetujuan pada Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan terkait terbitnya Surat Edaran Rektor, dan dibutuhkan penelitian lebih lanjut dikarenakan penelitian ini dilakukan pada masa COVID-19 yang bersifat temporal.�


Author(s):  
Detlef Liebs

Abstract Four kinds of Romans in the Frankish kingdoms in the 6th to 8th centuries. Roman law texts from Merowingian Gaul make a difference between cives Romani, Latini and dediticii, all considered as Romans. This difference mattered only to slaves who had been freed. The status of Latin and dediticius was hereditary, whereas the descendants of one who had been freed as civis Romanus were free born Romans, who should be classified as a proper, a fourth kind of beeing Roman; it was the standard kind. The difference was important in civil law, procedural law and criminal law, especially in wergeld, the sum to be payed for expiation when somebody had been killed: Who had killed a Roman, had to pay different sums according to the status of the killed.


Author(s):  
Regina Marler

Modernist, feminist, experimental: the terms we now most associate with Virginia Woolf all presuppose a break with conventions and a rejection of the status quo in art and power relations. Yet all her life, Virginia Woolf kept returning in memory to her childhood home, to the crowded Victorian family in which she was raised, where boys went to the best schools that Sir Leslie Stephen could afford, and girls, however clever or gifted, were shaped for charitable work, for motherhood, for marriage to prominent men. This obsessive turning back is a kind of pained nostalgia: a lament, a grievance, a comfort—and the engine of even her most avant-garde work. This chapter explores the traditions and assumptions of that potent childhood world, in part through the prism of three conservative female role models her mother, Julia Stephen, chose for her daughters: Mrs. Humphry Ward, Octavia Hill, and Florence Nightingale.


Author(s):  
Nora V. Demleitner

Prosecutorial decisions play an important, and sometimes a decisive, role in a defendant’s ultimate sentence. They begin with the selection of charges and may end with a recommendation on clemency or expungement of a criminal conviction. The influence of prosecutors over the sentence, therefore, is far more extensive than that of any other official. The charging decision sets the starting point for the sentence range. The prosecution tends to control entry into diversion programs that may spare an offender a criminal record after complying with a set of requirements. Plea bargains, which have become more frequent even in Europe’s civil law countries, usually focus on the type and scope of the criminal justice sentence. Mandatory minimum sentences, mandatory aggravators, and stacked charges provide prosecutors with overwhelming bargaining power, causing many defendants to waive their right to a trial. Judges tend to follow the parties’ agreements and impose the recommended sentence. In many states prosecutors routinely weigh in on parole decisions and determine whether to proceed against defendants for supervision violations. Even in clemency decisions, they frequently submit a recommendation.


Resources ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicoletta Patrizi ◽  
Valentina Niccolucci ◽  
Riccardo Pulselli ◽  
Elena Neri ◽  
Simone Bastianoni

One of the main goals of any (sustainability) indicator should be the communication of a clear, unambiguous, and simplified message about the status of the analyzed system. The selected indicator is expected to declare explicitly how its numerical value depicts a situation, for example, positive or negative, sustainable or unsustainable, especially when a comparison among similar or competitive systems is performed. This aspect should be a primary and discriminating issue when the selection of a set of opportune indicators is operated. The Ecological Footprint (EF) has become one of the most popular and widely used sustainability indicators. It is a resource accounting method with an area based metric in which the units of measure are global hectares or hectares with world average bio-productivity. Its main goal is to underline the link between the (un)sustainability level of a product, a system, an activity or a population life style, with the land demand for providing goods, energy, and ecological services needed to sustain that product, system, activity, or population. Therefore, the traditional rationale behind the message of EF is: the larger EF value, the larger environmental impact in terms of resources use, the lower position in the sustainability rank. The aim of this paper was to investigate if this rationale is everywhere opportune and unambiguous, or if sometimes its use requires paying a special attention. Then, a three-dimensional modification of the classical EF framework for the sustainability evaluation of a product has been proposed following a previous work by Niccolucci and co-authors (2009). Finally, the potentialities of the model have been tested by using a case study from the agricultural context.


2020 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 78-92
Author(s):  
Marija Koprivica

The first collection of canon law translated from the Greek into the Slavic language in the ninth century supported the consolidation of Christianity among the Slav peoples. This article focuses on the nomocanon of St Sava of Serbia (Kormchaia), a collection which was original and specific in its content; its relationship to other contemporary legal historical documents will be considered. The article also explores the political background to the emergence of Orthodox Slav collections of ecclesiastical and civil law. The political context in which these collections originated exercised a determinative influence on their contents, the selection of texts and the interpretation of the canons contained within them. The emergence of the Slavic nomocanon is interpreted within a context in which Balkan Slav states sought to foster their independence and aspired to form autocephalous national churches.


2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Trevor G Gates ◽  
Margery C Saunders

Workers who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ)-identified have always been a part of the workplace in the United States, yet there has been a lack of awareness about how to advocate for the needs of these people. This lack of awareness was challenged by Congresswoman Bella Abzug. Abzug’s campaign for creating an equal working environment for sexual minorities initiated gradual changes in the public discourse concerning workplace and other broad equality measures for these communities. To frame these gradual transformations within a historical context, we use Lewin’s force field analysis framework to examine the change efforts of Abzug. Abzug had beginning success in thawing the status quo yet her visions for equality for LGBTQ people have yet to be realized. Using Abzug’s social action as an example, this article concludes that allies must continue to challenge societal oppression, power, and privilege and to demand civil rights protections for LGBTQ individuals.


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