Criminalization of drunk driving: problems of legislative practice

The article highlights the Ukrainian experience of criminalization of drunk driving as a result of amendments to criminal and administrative legislation in 2018–2021. The importance of systematization and validity in making changes to administrative and criminal law is noted. Attention is drawn to the need for careful observance of the rules of legal technique in legislative activity, given that the use of administrative and criminal law is associated with the most significant restrictions on human rights and freedoms. It is noted that there are violations of the rules of legal technique, allowed in the relevant laws in terms of the provisions on criminalization and decriminalization of drunk driving: violations of the homogeneity of legal regulation (Law № 720-IX regulated an issue that was not the subject of its regulation); internal consistency (Law № 720-IX on amendments “in connection with the adoption of Law № 2617-VIII” amended the Law itself № 2617-VIII); external consistency (provisions of Law № 720-IX contradict the provisions of Article 2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses and Article 3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine); linguistic (in paragraph 117 of the Law № 720-IX there is a morphological error); procedural (violated the requirements of Articles 90, 92 of the Regulations). Attention is drawn to the content of the conclusions and the legal significance of the explanations of the Parliamentary Committee on Law Enforcement, adopted on the criminalization of drunk driving. It is noted that the relevant committee violated the regulatory procedures and provisions of the legislation on parliamentary committees. The consequences of the relevant technical and legal violations (legislative uncertainty) are highlighted and ways to eliminate these problems are suggested.

Geographic inequalities in non-acute healthcare supply: evidence from Ireland

Background: Recent reforms in Ireland, as outlined in Sláintecare, the report of the cross-party parliamentary committee on health, are focused on shifting from a hospital-centric system to one where non-acute care plays a more central role. However, these reforms were embarked on in the absence of timely and accurate information about the capacity of non-acute care to take on a more central role in the system. To help address this gap, this paper outlines the most comprehensive analysis to date of geographic inequalities in non-acute care supply in Ireland. Methods: Data on the supply of 10 non-acute services including primary care, allied health, and care for older people, were collated. Per capita supply for each service is described for 28 counties in Ireland (Tipperary and Dublin divided into North and South), using 2014 supply and population data. To examine inequity in the geographic distribution of services, raw population in each county was adjusted for a range of needs indicators. Results: The findings show considerable geographic inequalities across counties in the supply of non-acute care. Some counties had low levels of supply of several types of non-acute care. The findings remain largely unchanged after adjusting for need, suggesting that the unequal patterns of supply are also inequitable. Conclusions: In the context of population changes and the influence of non-need factors, the persistence of historical budgeting in Ireland has led to considerable geographic inequities in non-acute supply, with important lessons for Ireland and for other countries. Such inequities come into sharp relief in the context of COVID-19, where non-acute supply plays a crucial role in ensuring that acute services are preserved for treating acutely ill patients.

Social Representations of Children and Parents in Parliamentary-Committee Debates about the Inclusion of Child Psychological Maltreatment in the Quebec Youth Protection Act

Child psychological maltreatment (CPM) was incorporated into the Quebec Youth Protection Act (YPA) in 2006. At that time, various civil-society actors were invited to present to Parliament their views on these legislative changes. The objective of this article is to document the social representations mobilized by the stakeholders in the parliamentary committee in relation to the inclusion of CPM in the Quebec YPA. After explaining our research objectives, questions, and methodology, we will discuss our results, in particular about the distinctive nature of children as a representational object. This specificity will be analyzed in order to better understand the type of communication it generates and the corresponding hegemonic representation of parents. Specifically, implications related to the representational dynamics identified are discussed in relation to our collective capacity (or incapacity) to debate sensitive issues such as child abuse.

बौद्धिक संपदा अधिकार औषधी आणि कृषी

Founded on January 1, 1995, India has signed and ratified the Agreement. The agreement recognizes a free economy and includes intellectual property rights as part of it. After independence, India enacted the Indian Patent Act in 1970 through the Tekchand Committee in 1948, the Iyengar Committee in 1957, and the Joint Parliamentary Committee in 1965 and 1967. New patent law was enacted in 2005 to amend the 1970 law, which has been in force since May 5, 2006.

Measuring Epistemic Deliberation on Polarized Issues: The Case of Abortion Provision in Ireland

This paper compares the debate quality in the plenary sessions of an Irish Citizens’ Assembly and an Irish parliamentary committee to assess the epistemic effects of public deliberation on a contentious subject: abortion. The unusual occurrence of a similar process of detailed discussion on the same topic in different institutions at around the same time (in 2016–2017) allows us to compare the deliberative capacities of these institutions and thus contribute to discussions on the appropriateness of an increasingly debated democratic reform: assigning political offices by lot. We suggest that the epistemic effect of deliberation on abortion should facilitate nuanced multi-layered discussion that is both ‘deeper’ in being based on multi-faceted arguments and ‘wider’ in terms of a more accommodative view. We anticipate that these effects should be more pronounced in the more deliberative, less polarized, environment of a citizens’ assembly rather than in a parliamentary committee. The analysis deploys the psychological concept of ‘cognitive complexity’. We find that members of the Citizens’ Assembly demonstrate a deeper cognitively complex grasp of the subject matter. In contrast, experts and parliamentarians tend to adjust their mode of delivery at a parliamentary committee reflecting the conflictual and strategic aspects of political debates in such a forum.

Documents on the history of the Indian National Congress from the archive of viceroy of India Minto

The subject of this research is the documents from the archive of the viceroy of India Minto, which contain the records about the Indian National Congress. The author examines the history of studying the archive of Minto in foreign scientific literature. Special attention is given to correspondence of Minto with the Secretary of State for India Lord John Morley and their deputies that covers the period from the first Partition of Bengal (1905), split in the Indian National Congress (1907), and draft of the Morley-Minto reform, which involved the members of the Indian National Congress. The article also discusses the activity of the Indian Parliamentary Committee in the British House of Commons, and the response of the colonial authorities to hire pro-Indian parliamentarians in London. The conclusion is made that the documents on the history of the Indian National Congress from Minto’s archive reveal the peculiarities of interaction between the British colonial administration and the national elites, which was aimed at preserving the loyalty of the most moderate representatives of the Indian National Congress, as well as at weakening the national liberation movement that manifested in countering by the colonial administration the significant extension of rights of the Indian nationals and implementation of “separate electorates: within the framework of the Morley-Minto reform.  The documents from Minto’s archive reflect the perspective of the colonial administration on the path of further development of India within the empire by preserving British power.

PICTURING PARLIAMENT: THE GREAT SEAL OF THE COMMONWEALTH AND THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

Presenting research conducted by the ‘St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster’ project at the University of York, this article focuses on the Great Seal devised in 1649 and re-issued in 1651 to enable the Commonwealth to function following the execution of Charles i. As a familiar and ancient image of monarchy, the Great Seal posed an obvious challenge to the authority of the Rump Parliament. A radical new design, authorised by parliamentary committee and executed by engraver Thomas Simon, replaced royal iconography with images of popular sovereignty and nationhood: a map of England and Ireland on the obverse of the Seal, and the interior of the House of Commons chamber (formerly St Stephen’s Chapel) on the reverse. The result was a striking evocation of political authority located in the House of Commons and deriving from the English people. Engravings of the Commons chamber, in circulation since the 1620s, are identified as a probable source for Simon’s work. The Great Seal also re-asserted England’s dominion over Ireland and the waters surrounding the British Isles. Overall, this article argues for continuity as well as alteration in the iconography of the Great Seal of England, at a time of revolutionary political change.