Should the use of an alternative trial process preclude referral back to the criminal justice system? Consideration of one aspect of the Law Commission's proposal for trial process reform in cases of sexual offending

<p>In its recent Issues Paper, Alternative Pre-Trial and Trial Processes: Possible Reforms, the New Zealand Law Commission proposed to make available some form of restorative justice process as a complete alternative to the criminal justice system in certain sexual offence cases. It also proposed that where an offender participates in an alternative process in good faith and fulfils all undertakings, the case cannot be referred back to the criminal justice system. This paper considers situations where alternative trial processes should be referred back to the criminal justice system and what should happen to material disclosed during the alternative process if referral occurs. If restorative processes are to be used as a complete alternative to the criminal justice system, there must a “public safety override” which prioritises public safety over victim autonomy. This override will be applied by restorative justice providers, who will have the ability to refer cases back to the criminal justice system. If referral does occur, the content of the restorative proceedings should be privileged, and that privilege should belong to the offender. The fact of the offender’s agreement to participate should also be privileged.</p>

Should the use of an alternative trial process preclude referral back to the criminal justice system? Consideration of one aspect of the Law Commission's proposal for trial process reform in cases of sexual offending

<p>In its recent Issues Paper, Alternative Pre-Trial and Trial Processes: Possible Reforms, the New Zealand Law Commission proposed to make available some form of restorative justice process as a complete alternative to the criminal justice system in certain sexual offence cases. It also proposed that where an offender participates in an alternative process in good faith and fulfils all undertakings, the case cannot be referred back to the criminal justice system. This paper considers situations where alternative trial processes should be referred back to the criminal justice system and what should happen to material disclosed during the alternative process if referral occurs. If restorative processes are to be used as a complete alternative to the criminal justice system, there must a “public safety override” which prioritises public safety over victim autonomy. This override will be applied by restorative justice providers, who will have the ability to refer cases back to the criminal justice system. If referral does occur, the content of the restorative proceedings should be privileged, and that privilege should belong to the offender. The fact of the offender’s agreement to participate should also be privileged.</p>

Dylan Thomas’s “In the White Giant’s Thigh”:A Wild Love of Art Song

In the poem “In the White Giant’s Thigh,” Dylan Thomas projects the contemporary poets’ wild passion for Eliotian amoral art song and their suffering and the contradistinction of his own occasional love of Yeatsian Grecian altruistic art song and his delight. The poem is at bottom optimistic as it offers the metaphysical and the metempirical wild lovers an alternative process of art song and also carries salvation to transcend their sorrowful failure. It is Thomas’s faith in the Yeatsian process of transfiguration and transformation, the possibility of deliverance from the bondage of experience and ignorance that assures him of success and appeal in his art songs, that Auden repudiates in his metaphysical process of transgression and transmigration and his immortal vision of aesthetic amoral art song. The poem implies that Auden, as a result of his continual ignorance of the human reality of life and death, his stoic love of metaphysical art and reality, loses his grandeur and literary reputation and stoops to the level of a common man susceptible to hatred and indignation, violence and vengeance like the victims of his art songs, the political, the war and the Movement poets who remain equally ignorant of the metaphysical process and the reality of breath and death.

The Mediation Alternative: Process Dangers for Women

This article argues that mandatory mediation provides neither a more just nor a more humane alternative to the adversarial system of adjudication of custody and, therefore, does not fulfill its promises. It looks at California’s mandatory mediation law, which requires that all custody and visitation disputes be mediated prior to being considered by the county Superior Court. While mediation is a place where emotions can be expressed, expressions of anger are often overtly discouraged, thereby silencing a woman who may have, for the first time in her life, found a voice for her anger. For a victim of physical abuse, the direct confrontation with her husband, with the safety of her children and herself at stake, would surely be psychologically traumatizing and might also put her in physical danger. The article then explains judicial violence and considers alternatives to mandatory mediation.

Grillo’s Rigorous Path to Intentional, Mindful Mediation

Trina Grillo’s critique of the “promises of mediation” in her article, The Mediation Alternative: Process Dangers for Women, was influential during the formative years of mediation practice in this country—when state and federal courts across the country were exploring and expanding mediation’s use. Mediation was heralded as an informal, contextual, noncoercive forum where parties could have their voices heard and keep decisions in their own hands, and as a viable alternative to the adversarial, patriarchal, objectivist trial system....

Wine Spirit Ageing with Chestnut Staves under Different Micro-Oxygenation Strategies: Effects on the Volatile Compounds and Sensory Profile

The purpose of this work is to evaluate the wine spirit aged by an alternative process (staves combined with different micro-oxygenation levels) and its comparison with the traditional process (wooden barrels). This evaluation was made by analyzing the volatile compounds and sensory profile of the spirits during 365 days of ageing. The findings confirmed the role played by oxygen in the volatile profile of aged wine spirits. Samples of alternative ageing modalities were well distinguished from those of wooden barrels based on the volatile profile, namely on the concentrations of several volatile phenols. From a sensory point of view, the results are promising with high overall consistency scores obtained from samples of alternative ageing process modalities.