Gans, Eduard (1797–1839)

Author(s):  
Lawrence S. Stepelevich

Gans was an influential legal theorist and an admirer of Hegel’s doctrines regarding the nature and purposes of political institutions. He attempted to extend the role of those doctrines to the practical reform of German legal theory. Gans criticized this theory as being neither universal nor in accord with natural human rights. One of the most evident expressions of this partiality of the law was to be found in the legal disregard of the natural civil rights of Jewish citizens. Gans looked to the past, to Roman law, with its universal applications and its firm structures based upon natural rights, as a model upon which a future German legal system could be constructed.

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 88-93
Author(s):  
K.N. Golikov ◽  

The subject of this article is the problems of the nature, essence and purpose of prosecutorial activity. The purpose of the article is to study and justify the role of the human rights function in prosecutorial activities in the concept of a modern legal state. At the heart of prosecutorial activity is the implementation of the main function of the Prosecutor’s office – its rights and freedoms, their protection. This means that any type (branch) of Prosecutor's supervision is permeated with human rights content in relation to a citizen, society, or the state. This is confirmed by the fact that the Federal law “On the Prosecutor's office of the Russian Federation” establishes an independent type of Prosecutor's supervision-supervision over the observance of human and civil rights and freedoms. It is argued that the legislation enshrines the human rights activities of the Prosecutor's office as its most important function. It is proposed to add this to the Law “On the Prosecutor's office of the Russian Federation”.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 613
Author(s):  
Christopher Tollefsen

Critics of the “New” Natural Law (NNL) theory have raised questions about the role of the divine in that theory. This paper considers that role in regard to its account of human rights: can the NNL account of human rights be sustained without a more or less explicit advertence to “the question of God’s existence or nature or will”? It might seem that Finnis’s “elaborate sketch” includes a full theory of human rights even prior to the introduction of his reflections on the divine in the concluding chapter of Natural Law and Natural Rights. But in this essay, I argue that an adequate account of human rights cannot, in fact, be sustained without some role for God’s creative activity in two dimensions, the ontological and the motivational. These dimensions must be distinguished from the epistemological dimension of human rights, that is, the question of whether epistemological access to truths about human rights is possible without reference to God’s existence, nature, or will. The NNL view is that such access is possible. However, I will argue, the epistemological cannot be entirely cabined off from the relevant ontological and motivational issues and the NNL framework can accommodate this fact without difficulty.


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Edwin Baker

The essay concerns the manner private power threatens the proper democratic role of the press or mass media. But first, Part I examines two preliminary conceptual matters involved in locating this discussion in the context of a conference on private power as a threat to human rights: 1) the relation of human rights to private power in general. This relation is complicated due to fact that human rights can themselves be seen as the assertion of private power against government or against collective power while, depending on how conceptualized, human rights can be improperly threatened by private power even while private power operates in a generally lawful manner; 2) involves the relation of press freedom and human rights. Here I argue that human rights are ill-conceived if offered as embodying any particular right in respect to the press—more specifically, I argue that a free press is not a human right—but argue instead that an ideal media order that is embodied in a broad conception of free press provides the soil in which human rights can flourish and the armor that offers them protection. Both government power and private power are necessary for and constitute threats to these supportive roles of a free press.Political-legal theory—or in constitutional democracies, possibly constitutional theory—should offer some guide to how the tightrope between government as threat and government as source of protection against private threats ought to be walked. That is, the goal is to find both proper limits on government power and proper empowerment of government to respond to private threats. Part II examines the variety of private threats to the proper role of the press. It focuses on two forms of threats: first, market failures that can be expected in relatively normal functioning of the market; second, problems related to the purposeful use of concentrated economic power. Responsive policies are multiple—no magic bullet but varying different governmental (as well as private) responses are appropriate. However, Part III illustrates this point by considering only two types of governmental policies, both of which I have recently been involved in advocating: first, government promotion of dispersal of concentrated power by means of ownership rules and policies; second, tax subsidies in the form of tax credits for a significant portion of journalists salaries as a means to correct for underproduction of journalism on theory that this journalism generally produces significant positive externalities.


Author(s):  
Anna Gabriel Copeland

This article examines participatory rights as human rights and considers their importance to the lives of children and young people. It argues that a broad definition of participation needs to be used which takes us from 'round tables' to understanding that young people participate in many different ways. It points out that failure to recognise and respect the many varied ways that children and young people choose to participate results in a breach of their human rights. It shows how our socio-legal system operates to permit and support these breaches of the rights of children and young people, resulting in their alienation from civic society.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 117
Author(s):  
Łukasz Marzec

The Views of Arthur Duck on Roman Law in EnglandSummaryThe aim of this paper is to discuss the views of sir Arthur Duck on the influence and power of Roman Law in England up to 17th century, which he analysed in his work De Usu et Authoritate Juris Civilis Romanorum in Dominiis Principum Christianorum first published in 1652. Chapter 8 of this book seems to be an important source for the contemporary research. Duck, a legal practitioner, a politician and a D. C. L. presented a unique view on the matter. A detailed study shows that the following areas and solutions of the English legal system bear signs of the Roman influence: courts (e. g. Court of Chancery, Court of Admiralty, Court of the Constable and Marshall), lectures at the Oxford University, Vacarius school of law, early English legal writings, legal theory and science. Duck was probably the first to notice and mark the striking similarity between Roman procedure of the ius honorarium and the English equity. He disagrees with the general opinion that the Roman Law exercised no authority in England. 


Author(s):  
Mariana Khmyz ◽  

The article reveals the role of the judiciary in the context of ensuring the protection of human rights and freedoms in terms of practical approach. It was found that ensuring the protection of human rights and freedoms in Ukraine is regulated by the Constitution of Ukraine, the Law of Ukraine «On the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine» and the Law of Ukraine «On Citizens' Appeals». It is established that in Ukraine judicial protection is enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine, in particular in Article 55, according to which the rights and freedoms of man and citizen in particular are protected by the court. It is proved that the functioning of the constitutional mechanism for the protection of human rights and freedoms can occur only if the state actively participates in ensuring such rights and freedoms. It is determined that an important component of subjective human rights is the right to judicial protection, which should be realized not only in the direct dimension, but also through the activities of state bodies or bodies or organizations authorized by the state. It is established that the concept of «protection» from the standpoint of the legal aspect is interpreted as a legal obligation of the state in the face of bodies, organizations or officials authorized by it, and as the ability of a person to exercise personal subjective right. It was clarified that the concept of «protection of human rights and freedoms» should be interpreted as a set of measures of organizational and legal nature to ensure legal protection or remove obstacles that arise in the context of the exercise of subjective rights and rights to restore such rights, if they were violated with the application of measures on this basis in the form of punishment of the offenders. It is proposed under the mechanism of protection of human and civil rights and freedoms, in particular, to define a holistic, legally enshrined and at the same time dynamic system, which includes subjects, objects, methods and means of protection of human and civil rights and freedoms. to neutralize illegal obstacles, as well as to prevent the emergence of new obstacles. It is proved that the mechanism of protection of human and civil rights and freedoms in particular should consist of institutional and functional systems. It is noted that the prospects for further research in this area are to determine the requirements for the incompatibility of the position of a judge with other activities in a comparative constitutional and legal aspect.


Reified Life ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 148-174
Author(s):  
J. Paul Narkunas

This chapter describes how English and French as the de jure languages of human rights at the International Criminal Court. As a result, populations who do not adhere to Western Enlightenment notions of rights can be declared terrorists or “enemies of humankind.” By tracing the workings of translation in the ICC through the Thomas Lubanga trial, the author discusses how translation can deny human status to those brought before the ICC. It also provides, however, the means to challenge the legitimacy of the court as merely another sign of universalizing western justice, solidified by the fact that all people brought before the ICC come from the continent of Africa. By focusing on how language produces reality, the creation of natural rights claims allow for new forms of political protection in the chasm between differing legal orders. Consequently, thinking the role of translation as metaphor and practice for world making and the production of agency is an inchoate form of political aesthetics. Translation may offer, thus, a way to reconceive the human and its attendant rights due to language’s role in world making, subject production, and power relations. This indicates a form of ahuman agency.


Author(s):  
Robert Jago

This chapter focuses on the lived experiences of gypsies (collectively referred to as gypsies rather than Roma or travellers). The author argues that the relationship between the legal system and the specific lifestyle of this group is itself causing many tensions which cannot be separated from the long-held myths about gypsies. Jago shows how the standing of gypsies in the UK legal system has, in turn, become the object of various myths. He demonstrates how judgements by the European Court of Human Rights in favour of gypsy claims created in many an image of the law being always on the side of the gypsy. A perception which Jago demonstrates is far from true. After addressing the nature and role of myths in general the author illustrates the tension between positive, romanticised myths about the freedom of gypsy lifestyle and three derogatory myths, namely gypsies as "child-snatchers", as thieves and as "land grabbers". Jago illustrates that these myths are linked to deep-rooted beliefs around property and its ownership.


1991 ◽  
Vol 85 (4) ◽  
pp. 613-645 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilary Charlesworth ◽  
Christine Chinkin ◽  
Shelley Wright

The development of feminist jurisprudence in recent years has made a rich and fruitful contribution to legal theory. Few areas of domestic law have avoided the scrutiny of feminist writers, who have exposed the gender bias of apparently neutral systems of rules. A central feature of many western theories about law is that the law is an autonomous entity, distinct from the society it regulates. A legal system is regarded as different from a political or economic system, for example, because it operates on the basis of abstract rationality, and is thus universally applicable and capable of achieving neutrality and objectivity. These attributes are held to give the law its special authority. More radical theories have challenged this abstract rationalism, arguing that legal analysis cannot be separated from the political, economic, historical and cultural context in which people live. Some theorists argue that the law functions as a system of beliefs that make social, political and economic inequalities appear natural. Feminist jurisprudence builds on certain aspects of this critical strain in legal thought. It is much more focused and concrete, however, and derives its theoretical force from immediate experience of the role of the legal system in creating and perpetuating the unequal position of women.


2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen O’Nions

Abstract This article will critically examine the treatment of migrant Roma in Western Europe, particularly Italy and France, in the light of the obligations under the EU Citizenship Directive 2004/38. The role of the political institutions will be considered, especially the European Commission, who have yet to take a decisive position on the Roma expulsions and on the wider issue of Roma discrimination in Europe. It is argued that the focus on non-discrimination cannot address the entrenched inequality which characterises the Roma’s situation in Europe. Furthermore, that the comparative disadvantage experienced by Europe’s Roma communities constitutes a major human rights crisis which has so far been sidelined by Brussels. A European strategy is urgently required, which demands leadership from the Commission and the full participation of Roma representatives.


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