Unloading the Judicial System in Kazakhstan? Alternative Ways of Resolving Individual Labour Disputes

The purpose of the study is to develop proposals for the modernization of the judicial form of protection of social and labour rights and interests of the individual. We are testing the hypothesis about the priority and universality of the judicial form of protection of rights in relation to other ways of applying for the restoration of violated labour interests; we assess access to justice as a criterion for the effectiveness of the judicial form of protection. The main method is a desk study of law enforcement practice, reports related to the functioning in Kazakhstan of a judicial form of protection of the social and labour rights of an individual, also the method of analysis of documents and statistical data of courts, a survey of examples of the best foreign practice in the work of specialized courts, and an analysis of international universal standards of access to justice in social and labour disputes.

SPECIALIZED COURTS AND THEIR PROBLEMS

В настоящем исследовании анализируется необходимость существования специализированных судов. This study analyzes the needfor the existence of specialized courts.

Varieties of Dispute Processing

This article explores various dispute resolution mechanisms, assessing how they can be utilized so that one can develop some rational criteria for allocating various types of disputes to different dispute resolution processes. With the development of administrative law, the delegation of certain problems to specialized bodies for initial resolution has become a commonplace. Within the judicial sphere, too, specialized courts have been developed to handle family problems and tax problems, among others. While the mediation-arbitration model is useful, another device that bears further utilization is the screening-adjudication model. Ultimately, the article advocates for a flexible and diverse panoply of dispute resolution processes, with particular types of cases being assigned to differing processes, according to some of the criteria.

The Challenges for Court Reform after Authoritarian Rule: The Role of Specialized Courts in Indonesia

Political transitions from authoritarian rule may lead to a process of court reform. Indeed, court reform has been a central pillar of the law and development movement since the 1960s. What challenges do court reform efforts face after authoritarian rule in Indonesia and to what extent can specialized courts address these challenges? In this article, I examine court reform and the establishment of specialized courts in Indonesia post-1998. I argue that we need to pay attention to the politics of court reform after authoritarian rule. Specialized courts as a type of institutional reform need to be considered together with judicial culture in order to address fundamental challenges in the courts.

Accountability Courts and Diversion Programs

This chapter focuses on prosecutors’ roles in accountability courts and diversion programs, details their participation in creating these specialized courts and programs, explains their gate-keeping responsibilities, and discusses ethical rules raised by their participation. Specifically, the chapter describes drug courts and veterans courts, which are two of the most prominent specialized courts. Using these two specialized courts as representatives of other similarly situated courts, the chapter explains the history behind the creation of these courts, their structures, operations, and their specific goals of addressing the underlying causes of criminal defendants’ criminal behaviors. In the United States specialized court settings, the prosecutor, rather than being adversarial, tends to be collaborative with other court practitioners. In non-U.S. specialized courts, the prosecutors’ roles are not that significantly different from those of their U.S. counterparts. With ongoing efforts on reforming the U.S. criminal justice system, especially as it concerns issues addressed by specialty courts, U.S. prosecutors are likely to continue their support of these courts.

Drug Court Recidivism in the Rural Midwest: A 3-Year Post-Separation Analysis

Substance abuse continues to be a pressing social problem in the United States today. As the country battles an opioid epidemic, many jurisdictions have adopted the problem-solving court model in response. These specialized courts, known as drug courts, offer a rehabilitative approach to offender management. Drug courts balance substance abuse rehabilitation with community-based supervision and operate with the philosophy that addressing the addiction will result in a decrease in criminal offending. The current study examines the recidivism rates for 50 participants who have been separated (i.e., completed or terminated) from one rural drug court program in the Midwest for at least 3 years. Findings indicate that successful completion of drug court is associated with decreases in misdemeanor offending, and more importantly, decreases in felony offending. While preliminary, the findings of this research provide support for the drug court model in the rural Midwest. Further research in this area is highly recommended.

Administrative legal proceedings in Russia and foreign countries: a comparative legal analysis

The article provides a comparative legal analysis of the administrative proceedings in Russia and foreign countries: France, Germany, Great Britain, USA, Italy, Spain, Switzerland. The relevance of the topic of the article is due to the need to identify the existing shortcomings of administrative court proceedings in Russia and possible ways to eliminate them, as well as the ongoing reforms of administrative court proceedings in the country. The advantages and disadvantages of the administrative proceedings of these countries and Russia are indicated, changes in the system of bodies carrying out administrative proceedings are proposed. The result of the study is the formulation of conclusions on improving administrative legislation using the experience of foreign countries, as well as on the need to create specialized courts in Russia, which will contribute to a narrower qualification of judges, high-quality dispute resolution, as reduce the burden on courts of general jurisdiction

PRINCIPLE OF NATURAL COURT: CURRENT PROBLEMS OF LEGAL UNDERSTANDING AND LAW ENFORCEMENT IN UKRAINE

In 2016, a provision appeared in Article 125 of the Basic Law, which stipulated that higher specialized courts may operate in accordance with the law. Filling the content of this wording in, Article 31 of the Law "On the Judiciary and the Status of Judges" (2016) establishes that in the judicial system there are higher specialized courts as courts of first instance to consider certain categories of cases. This category of courts today includes the High Court of Intellectual Property and the High Anti-Corruption Court, activities of which are initiated by the relevant legislation. However, in political circles there was a discussion about the constitutionality of this court and, accordingly, the subject of the right to a constitutional petition questioned a number of provisions of the Law "On the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court" and appealed to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to declare this law unconstitutional. In turn, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine initiated constitutional proceedings on this issue. Familiarization with the legal position of the subject of the constitutional petition indicates that the key issue of this constitutional proceeding concerns the presence of signs of a "special court" (within the meaning of Part 6 of Article 125 of the Constitution of Ukraine) in the mechanism of legislative regulation of the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court. In order to find an objective answer to the existing conflict, it is necessary to abstractly identify the main features of a "special" court. To solve such an applied problem, the author of the article turned to the theory and applied provisions of the principle of natural judgment, which was the subject of this study. As a result of the study, the author argues that by giving the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court exclusive jurisdiction over the system of general courts, the legislator has significantly deviated from the permissible limits of constitutional legality. The author singled out and grouped the key features of a special court, which included: 1) Separation of a judicial institution with a separate system of instances for consideration of certain categories of cases selected from the general array (special jurisdiction) or in respect to a separate category of persons. 2) The court, which is entrusted with special, different from other general courts, the purpose and objectives of the activity. 3) A court formed to expedite the resolution of certain categories of cases specific to a certain period; 4) A court in which judges have a special legal status (special tasks in the administration of justice; special professional qualifications (requirements, selection criteria); a special (extraordinary) procedure for the formation of the judiciary, etc. It is seen that the principle of natural judgment – is a fundamental constitutional and legal heritage of civilized humanity, which is designed to protect people, their rights and freedoms from the arbitrariness of the state, and from the use of courts as an instrument of terror and wrongful persecution.