Is the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in an Existential Crisis?

Employing a sociological perspective on the law, this study explores instances of resistance against the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the African Union’s continental human rights judicial body. This approach allows us to examine different forms of resistance that might not necessarily be of a legal character, but which may still have profound implications for the Court’s authority, legitimacy, and operation. Accordingly, the article identifies two forms of resistance against the African Court: ‘pushback’ and ‘backlash’. The former refers to an ordinary form of critique directed against the overall development of an international court, while the latter is understood as an extraordinary form of critique that puts the fundamental authority of a court at stake. While pushback was mainly seen in the early stages of the Court’s establishment, backlash started to emerge following its ground-breaking judgments that caused heated debates on controversial topics. This article concludes that based on the identified and analysed forms of resistance, it is doubtful that the African Court can maintain and fulfil the purpose for which it was established: the protection and promotion of human rights in Africa.

Rivalität, Affekt, Interesse. Ansatzpunkte einer materialistischen Kriegstheorie

In debate with Bernhard H. F. Taureck, Burkhard Liebsch and other authors, we try to develop a materialistic theory of war. Central to this are the rivalries between sovereign states, which have extended and become more complex in the course of globalization. Both political-economic and symbolic-emotional interests are bundled in them. The competition between states, only partially curbed by supranational authorities, also reflects in so-called international law. In contrast to the domestic legal system, this has indeed only limited legal character, as Thucydides’ famous Melian dialogue shows.

The Legal Conflictology and Its Development

The article considers legal conflictology as a relatively new scientific direction. The formation and development of legal conflictology in the Russian Federation and the Kyrgyz Republic are studied in the article. It was revealed that despite the extensive development of legal conflictology in the Russian Federation, in the Kyrgyz Republic so far this direction remains unexplored and is just beginning to take shape. The article substantiates the relevance of this direction with objective reasons and establishes the need to apply an interdisciplinary approach in the study of legal conflictology, where the theoretical and legal approach will be combined with sociological, philosophical and even psychological approaches. It is determined that research in the field of legal conflictology will allow to present an applied and theoretical interpretation of a wide range of issues on legal theory, therefore, such research on this topic should belong to one of its main directions. The term or legal category “legal conflict” is a reflection of a wide range of features of the essential process of interaction between the subjects of legal relations in crisis situations for them. The legal category of legal conflicts covers not only the legal conflicts themselves, but also mixed conflicts that begin at the beginning independently and outside of legal norms or relations, but subsequently acquire a legal character.

The notwithstanding clause: Legislatures, courts, and the electorate

This article interprets the notwithstanding clause in section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. When a legislature activates the notwithstanding clause, subsection 33(2) temporarily ensures a protected law’s ‘operation’ by preventing it from being ‘inconsistent’ with the Constitution of Canada in the sense of the supremacy clause, thereby precluding judicial remedies such as striking down. Construed in the light of its components (some never considered by the Supreme Court of Canada) and other constitutional features, the notwithstanding clause does not make rights irrelevant or strip them of their legal character. Nor does it confide the assessment of trade-offs about rights to the legislature alone. Instead, subsection 33(3) indicates a framework for such assessments in which the voting public plays a crucial evaluative role. The courts, as interpreters and guardians of the Constitution, can, and in some circumstances should, support the public’s constitutional role by declaring the extent to which a protected law unjustifiably limits Charter rights. The public’s ability to take such declarations into account in evaluating rights trade-offs would advance the democratic purpose of subsection 33(3), a purpose that underpins our constitutional framework more broadly.

PAŃSTWOWY FUNDUSZ ZIEMI JAKO PRAWNY INSTRUMENT POLITYKI AGRARNEJ STALINOWSKIEGO PAŃSTWA W POLSCE W LATACH 1944–1956

The article attempts to discuss the legal and institutional issues related to the use of the State Land Fund (SLF) as a fundamental instrument of the postwar agrarian and land policy in Poland. First of all, an attempt was made to indicate the normative basis for its implementation and to reconstruct the legal character of the institution in question. Reconstruction of the legal essence of the State Land Fund shows the divergences formulated in this regard by the proponents of the doctrine of agricultural and financial law. The evolution of functions performed by the fund in the framework of the agrarian policy of the socialist state, and changes made in the model of administration of this institution, have contributed to the emergence of different evaluations. It seems that the institutional specificity of the SLF was determined primarily by the doctrinal or systemic basis of the Stalinist agricultural policy.

Issues of Material Support of Convicts in Penitentiary Institutions of the Republic of Uzbekistan

The material and social and medical-sanitary provision of convicts has a social-legal character according to its content. It is carried out in the direction of creating normal living conditions for convicts, meeting (or providing) the necessary needs for food, clothing, medical care and ensuring the normal functioning of the penitentiary institution. This article examines the material and social security of prisoners in penitentiary institutions of the Republic of Uzbekistan, in particular, the accommodation of prisoners, their food and shelter.

CRIMINAL LIABILITY RELATED TO THE SYSTEM OF ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE AND CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH SENTENCED PERSON AVOIDS PERFORMING DUTIES ORDERED BY THE COURT

The crucial aim of this article is to indicate grounds of legal liability connected with situations in which person sentenced to penalty, punitive measure or safeguard measure, within the system of electronic surveillance, violates certain duties. Considerations concerning the aforementioned issues are preceded by the analysis on the essence of the electronic surveillance, reasons for its implementation into the applicable legal system and means of its usage related to legal instruments of penal reaction to perpetrator’s behavior. Moreover, author of the article analyses legal character of the prison sentence performed with the usage of electronic surveillance. This constitutes starting point for answering practically important question: whether leaving the place of performing prison sentence within the system of electronic surveillance can be qualified as the offence of self-release, determined in art. 242 § 1 of the Criminal Code. At the end of the article, author presents de lege ferenda postulates concerning normative solution related to the legal ground of qualifying behaviors consisting in avoiding electronic surveillance.

Social-Contractarian Money

State capacity, stable currencies, and well functioning financial systems seem to be ‘package deals’ – one cannot have one without having all. I show that the intimate functional links among states, monies, and financial systems, ubiquitous across history and geography as they are, are not accidental. I do so by analytically ‘deriving’ first law and the polity, then money and finance, from a temporally extended implicit covenant that is both grounded in and facilitative of ongoing joint agency among persons. This lends to state and money alike their shared normative and, once formally systematized, legal character. I indicate throughout how this shared genesis, function, and normative character keep state, money, and ultimately finance practically ‘joined at the hip’, and manifest how polity and economy, indeed our very political and productive selves, are thus joined as well. To recognize and to ‘own’ this, I conclude, is not only to see that ‘the public’ must take a far more explicit role in finance, but also in a sense finally to own our own selves.

LEGAL AND INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR INTERNATIONAL AND CROSS-BORDER CO-OPERATION OF GARDA SÍOCHÁNA NA HÉIREANN — CASE STUDY

The main part of the article is the study on the legal character of the South Irish Police cross-border cooperation. The analysis includes the verifi cation of the normative basics that facilitate security assurance in the cross-border region. The aim of this article is also to present the evolution of the practical aspect of police cooperation between Garda Síochána na hÉireann and the Northern Ireland Police Service. First, it shows the legal bases for such cooperation and then the existing experience of the police and criminal justice system. The author also points out procedural consequences of working together to prevent and combat crime.

Johann Fichte: moral-legal order

Discussed are views of the known German philosopher J. Fichte about foundations of organization of society. J. Fichte has offered a variant of formation of the bases for the sustainable functioning of society. This variant is connected with criticism which was carried out by the philosopher concerning of his epoch. Research has shown that features of an epoch of the Fichte's epoch are peculiar to an epoch of a postmodern. J. Fichte’s philosophical views on the organization of society are reconstructed in the form of a model of the moral-legal order. Prominent feature of model is structure and orderliness of intrinsic elements of the order. The model characterizes communications of interaction, functioning and management. The typological characteristic of the links allows us to define specific characteristics of the order. First, this is presence of the certain type of attitudes which have moral-legal character. Secondly, this is presence of the factor which forms hierarchical structure of the organization of the order. Thirdly — presence of a coordination between members of a society; in-fourth, it is the factor of detection of the order. According to the author, the model of the moral and legal order is an option for the sustainable functioning of society.