The Attorney General, Politics, and the Public Interest. Contributions to an Evolving Constitutional Convention

The prosecutorial independence of the Attorney General (AG) is a firmly established constitutional convention in Canada, but it is also an evolving convention, subject to ongoing contestation and debate. This article is a contribution to that debate. It defends a normative constitutional framework wherein the AG’s authority to make final decisions in matters of criminal prosecution is balanced against a corresponding duty to consult with cabinet and the prime minister on the public interest implications of prosecutorial decisions when the circumstances warrant. Within this normative framework, respectful contestation and debate amongst ministers, the prime minister, and the AG in determining the public interest merits of prosecution is welcomed, even encouraged, and if conducted with the requisite integrity, objectivity, and transparency, it is regarded not as a threat but as a valuable check and balance on AG independence and an indispensable form of quality control on the exercise of prosecutorial discretion.

Neuroethics in the Era of Teleneurology

The accelerating integration of telehealth technologies in neurology practice has transformed traditional interactions between neurologists and patients, allied clinicians and society. Despite the immense promise of these technologies to improve systems of neurological care, the infusion of telehealth technologies into neurology practice introduces a host of unique ethical challenges. Proactive consideration of the ethical dimensions of teleneurology and of the impact of these innovations on the field of neurology more generally can help to ensure responsible development and deployment across stages of implementation. Toward these ends, this article explores key ethical dimensions of teleneurology practice and policy, presents a normative framework for their consideration, and calls attention to underexplored questions ripe for further study at this evolving nexus of teleneurology and neuroethics. To promote successful and ethically resilient development of teleneurology across diverse contexts, clinicians, organizational leaders, and information technology specialists should work closely with neuroethicists with the common goal of identifying and rigorously assessing the trajectories and potential limits of teleneurology systems.

Resisting the Tide: The Roles of Ideology in Sustaining Alternative Organizing at a Self-managed Cooperative

This paper examines how organizational ideology can be collectively mobilized to sustain an alternative organizational form—a self-managed cooperative—in resistance to institutional prescriptions perceived as hostile. Based on an ethnographic study of the Venezuelan cooperative Cecosesola, we identify three roles through which ideology enables the reproduction of the alternative form over time: ideology as a mobilizing normative framework to justify resistance; as a cultural-cognitive framework to engage members and integrate them into the resistance project; and as a regulatory framework ensuring member compliance. However, we find that in parallel with sustaining self-management as an alternative form, mobilizing ideology may also paradoxically entail costs in terms of individual sacrifices, exclusion of members and reduction of group heterogeneity, leading to the creation of an authoritarian system. These findings shed light on the ideological drivers of institutional resistance and bring new insights to understand the challenge of sustaining self-management and other alternative organizational forms within a hostile institutional context.

The incorporation of ethical and bioethical rules in Law

The ethics of the health professions and bioethics constitute a source for the legal norm, especially for those of health law. The provision of health services, eventually, due to its experimental and interventionist nature, can put at risk the legal assets of the person such as dignity, life and integrity, so that the obligations derived from ethics and bioethics, As a normative framework, they must be observed by health personnel.

Sovereign Wealth Funds and International Regulation

This chapter discusses the rise of Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) as an example of the wider phenomenon of overseas state investment. It sets out the striking expansion in the number and financial size of SWFs, most of which are located in the Middle East and Asia, and then summarizes the lively debates about whether SWF investments are a threat to the West and how they should be regulated at the international level. It then considers the international legal and normative framework that has been created to regulate SWFs, as well as the key relevant elements of the EU’s policies and legal regulation. It concludes that there is little evidence that a binding international regulatory framework that strongly constrains the choices of recipient countries through law or norms has been established. Thus, much scope for national choices about policies towards SWF equity investments remains.

A Normative Framework for Sharing Information Online

People have always shared information through chains and networks of testimony. It is arguably part of what makes us human and enables us to live in cooperative communities with populations greater than 150 or so. The invention of the internet and the rise of social media have turbocharged our ability to share information. This chapter develops a normative epistemic framework for sharing information online. This framework takes into account both ethical and epistemic considerations that are intertwined in typical cases of online testimony. The authors argue that, while the current state of affairs is not entirely novel, recent technological developments call for a rethinking of the norms of testimony, as well as the articulation of a set of virtuous dispositions that people would do well to cultivate in their capacity as conduits (not just sources or receivers) of information.

Towards a Capability-Oriented Eco-Social Policy: Elements of a Normative Framework

In this article we explore the potential of the capability approach as a normative basis for eco-social policies. While the capability approach is often interpreted as a productivist or maximalist perspective, assuming the desirability of economic growth, we suggest another understanding, which explicitly problematises the suitability of economic growth and productive employment as means for enhancing capabilities. We argue that the capability approach allows rejecting the identification of social progress with economic growth and that it calls for democratically debating the meaning of wellbeing and quality of life. We analyse the implications of this conceptualisation for the design of welfare states.

Elements of comparative criminal law regarding the crime of creating a criminal organization with a terrorist character

Lately, the international community is facing serious threats to security and world order, which is expressed through new forms of crime, especially in its organized and terrorist aspect. According to the criminal legislation of the Republic of Moldova, the purpose of committing one or more terrorist offenses determines the aggravation of criminal liability for the creation or management of a criminal organization, which contrasts against the background of the legislative provisions of other states. In the study, the comparative method of examining the criminal laws of other states was used as a priority. At the same time, in addition to the method of logical analysis and case study, the prospective method of studying law with reference to current trends in the evolution of legal and criminal norms has been widely applied. The study is oriented towards the comparative analysis of the norm stipulated in article 284, para. (2) Penal Code, in the light of the criminal laws of the neighboring states (Russian Federation, Ukraine, Romania), which allows highlighting the existing gaps, general tendencies of incrimination and the possibilities of perfecting the national normative framework. In addition, the improvement of the national normative framework, harmonized with that of the neighboring states, offers wide possibilities in the field of international legal cooperation in criminal matters, which determines repercussions on all areas of social life in the state.

O FINANSIJSKOJ AUTONOMIJI NIŽIH TERITORIJALNO-ADMINISTRATIVNIH JEDINICA OD 1919. DO 1929. GODINE – PRILOG POIMANjU POSTOJANjA LOKALNE SAMOUPRAVE U PERIODU PRIMENE VIDOVDANSKOG USTAVA

There are divergent authorial views with regard to the assessment of the self- government of municipalities, counties and areas proclaimed by the Vidovdan Constitution and accompanying legal acts. Public and financial doctrine is in agreement in the belief that without the financial autonomy of lower territorial- administrative units, there is no actualization of the principles of local self- government. Since the topic of the development of local public finances in our country still seems insufficiently researched, the author tries to re-test the hypothesis of the existence of local self-government in the period of application of this constitutional act, by presenting the normative framework and significant doctrinal reviews on this issue. The aim is to provide a possibility for a broader and more effective view of the development of this political and legal institute.