Shielding Members of Parliament Against Court Summons

Author(s):  
Mark Asante ◽  
Thomas Prehi Botchway

Immunities, though part of the law of the land, are to a certain extent an exemption from the general law. Certain rights and immunities such as freedom of speech belong primarily to individual members of parliament and exist because the House cannot perform its functions without unimpeded use of the services of its members. Ostensibly, the degree to which members of parliament are immune from legal inquiry may presumably accord them greater probability to abuse their mandate. In general, a court summons is the beginning of a legal case. It signals the issue that needs to be adjudicated. However, the introduction of immunity invalidates some tenets of modern democracy such as a court summons. The authors seek to examine some of the uncertainties and ambiguities that might have arisen out of the court decision in the case Republic v Mahama Ayariga with much consideration of other cases. The chapter provides a thorough picture of the systems of parliamentary immunity and recommends ways of curbing observed challenges with the practice.

Author(s):  
Cécile Laborde ◽  
Aurélia Bardon

There is already an important literature on religion and political philosophy, focusing especially on controversies about religious symbols, freedom of speech, or secular education. The introduction explains the distinctive approach of the volume. Instead of focusing on specific political controversies, the book explores the conceptual, structural architecture of liberal political philosophy itself. The authors distinguish four different themes: the special status of religion in the law; state sovereignty, non-establishment, and neutrality; accommodation and religious freedom; and toleration, conscience, and identity. The chapter explains the particular questions raised in each of these four themes, and briefly presents the twenty-two contributions gathered in the volume.


Legal Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Rebecca Probert ◽  
Stephanie Pywell

Abstract During 2020, weddings were profoundly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. During periods of lockdown few weddings could take place, and even afterwards restrictions on how they could be celebrated remained. To investigate the impact of such restrictions, we carried out a survey of those whose plans to marry in England and Wales had been affected by Covid-19. The 1,449 responses we received illustrated that the ease and speed with which couples had been able to marry, and sometimes whether they had been able to marry at all, had depended not merely on the national restrictions in place but on their chosen route into marriage. This highlights the complexity and antiquity of marriage law and reinforces the need for reform. The restrictions on weddings taking place also revealed the extent to which couples valued getting married as opposed to having a wedding. Understanding both the social and the legal dimension of weddings is important in informing recommendations as to how the law should be changed in the future, not merely to deal with similar crises but also to ensure that the general law is fit for purpose in the twenty-first century.


2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-574
Author(s):  
Boas Kümper

The report surveys in two parts the development of the law on project-related planning and thus relates in particular to the planning and approval of space-consuming infrastructure projects such as traffic routes and power lines. For this purpose, German administrative law has long provided for the specific instrument of plan approval (Planfeststellung). In this context, the Federal Administrative Court has extensive first-instance jurisdiction and uses this to shape large parts of German approval law, including beyond the actual area of plan approval law, be it in terms of legal protection and procedure, be it with regard to the requirements of substantive environmental law. On the other hand, the revision of the law on environmental protection induced by the decisions of the Aarhus Compliance Committee and the European Court of Justice has been used by the German legislator to extend procedural specifics of the plan approval to other approval decisions of environmental relevance. This firstly indicates the contours of a general law on project approval and, secondly, the nature of the plan approval as an instrument for the implementation of projects in the public interest is more strongly emphasized.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 080
Author(s):  
Zaka Firma Aditya

Tulisan ini hendak membahas mengenai konsistensi putusan-putusan mahkamah konstitusi dalam pengujian undang-undang berdasarkan asas preseden. MK beberapa kali dipandang tidak konsisten karena kerap mengeluarkan putusan yang bersifat overrulling. Namun, sebenarnya tidak sedikit juga putusan MK yang konsisten mengikuti preseden. Meskipun penggunaan asas preseden hanya dikenal di negara yang menganut tradisi common law, MK ternyata juga menerapkannya. Putusan MK tentang pengujian UU Pencegahan Penodaan Agama adalah salah satu bentuk dianutnya asas preseden di MK. Putusan ini secara konsisten menyatakan bahwa UU Pencegahan Penodaan Agama tetap konstitusional karena akan terjadi kekosongan hukum apabila UU Pencegahan Penodaan Agama diputus inkonstitusional. Dalam perkara tersebut, MK mempertahankan ratio decidendinya terhadap konstitusionalnya UU Pencegahan Penodaan Agama karena meskipun MK sadar bahwa UU a quo banyak mengandung kelemahan. Konsistensi standing MK terhadap UU Pencegahan Penodaan Agama ini merupakan salah satu bentuk dari dipraktekannya doktrin preseden.This paper will discuss the consistency of the constitutional court decision in the judicial review cases based on the principle of precedent. MK several times deemed inconsistent because often issued a ruling that is overruling. However, there were actually a lot of MK decisions that consistently followed the precedent. Although the use of the precedent principle is only known in common law tradition, the Constitutional Court apparently also applies it. The Constitutional Court’s decision regarding the Blasphemy Prevention Act was one form of the principle of precedent in the Constitutional Court. This decision consistently states that the Blasphemy Prevention Act remains constitutional because a legal vacuum will occur if the Blasphemy Prevention Law was decided to be unconstitutional. In this case, the Court retained its ratio decidendi to the constitutionality of the Blasphemy Prevention Law, even though the Court was aware that the Law contained many weaknesses. The consistency of the Constitutional Court on the judicial review of the Blasphemy Prevention Act is one form of the practice of precedent doctrine.


Yuridika ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sriti Hesti Astiti

The law of bankruptcy basically has to pay more attention and give a proportionate legal protection between the interests of debtors to creditors, even also the interests of other credi-tors, who do not have a file in the bankruptcy process. Unfortunately, the legal protection for the other creditors which is regulated in Article 10 Law No. 37/2004 contains many weak-nesses and give many erroneous interpretation in the field of its structure, culture and the substance. Therefore, the legal enforcement and the conservatoir measures in bankruptcy law which has been intended to protect the legal interests of what we called “the other credi-tors” in the commercial court decision becomes unpredictable.Keyword : bankruptcy, other creditors, debtors.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 255-269
Author(s):  
Frauke A. Kurbacher

In his late work Perpetual Peace. A philosophical sketch from 1795/96, Kant gives us some hints on the relation between migration and cosmopolitanism. In his “general law of hospitality”, which is not a law of guest, but guarantees a right of migration, he reminds us all as citizens of the world. But a special antinomy of the law of world citizen provokes reflection on the fact, that any law could not protect us sufficiently - especially in the case of human rights - if a certain morality is missed in general. We need an understanding of what it means to be a world citizen. In spite of some recent discussions, which try to define or exclude the question of migration as an only special problem, it has to be recognized that it is a question of world-wide importance which belongs to the main questions of freedom in the world.


Author(s):  
O. Vasylchenko

Ukrainian law guarantees freedom of speech and expression. This is in line with international and regional instruments (Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Declaration of Human Rights) to which Ukraine is a party. Unfortunately, Ukraine is no exception, due to the conflict with the Russian Federation. The Revolution of Dignity of 2014 and the subsequent illegal activities of the neighbouring state (annexation of Crimea, occupation of the territories in the South-East of Ukraine) affected the legislative and regulatory framework of Ukraine regarding freedom of speech and freedom of expression. In order to counter aggression, the state has adopted a number of laws aimed at counteracting foreign interference in broadcasting and ensuring Ukraine’s information sovereignty. The implementation of these laws has been criticized for being seen by NGOs as imposing restrictions on freedom of expression and expression. However, censorship and selfcensorship create another serious restriction on freedom of speech and the press. The Law on Transparency of Mass Media Ownership, adopted in 2015, provides for the disclosure of information on the owners of final beneficiaries (controllers), and in their absence – on all owners and members of a broadcasting organization or service provider. In 2019, Ukraine adopted a law on strengthening the role of the Ukrainian language as the state language, which provides for language quotas for the media. According to the Law on Language, only 10% of total film adaptations can be in a language other than Ukrainian. Ukraine has adopted several laws in the field of information management to counter foreign influence and propaganda. According to the report of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, for the period from January 1, 2017 to February 14, 2018, the State Committee banned 30 books published in the Russian Federation. Thus, for the first time faced with the need to wage an “invisible” war on the information front, Ukraine was forced to take seriously the regulation of the media and the market. By imposing a number of restrictions on a product that can shake sovereignty and increase the authority of the aggressor in the eyes of citizens, the legislator, guided by the needs of society, also contributes to the promotion of Ukrainian (for example, by introducing quotas).


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