The Genesis of the Internal Convictions of a Law Enforcement Officer in the Process of Interpreting the Norms of Law

The article describes the forms of objectification of language in law. Language is considered by the author not just as a way of communicating legal information, but as a mediator of the meaning of law. The role of legal definitions in legal operations is characterized. The language correlates with the spheres of the spirit of law and the legal process. Language is an important nation-forming factor. It is not limited to providing communication between subjects using verbal and non-verbal means. In the legal sphere, the word carries the spirit of law, for it is the embodiment of this spirit. Receiving a linguistic expression, the spirit of law is objectified. At the same time, the legal literature presents a limited view on the functions of language in law. As a rule, they include display function(expression of the will of the legislator outside) and communicative one (bringing this will to the attention of participants in public relations). At the same time, the most important functions of language in law are ignored: system-preserving, meaning-forming and spiritual. At the same time, the author warns against the absolutization of linguistic means in law.

Anthropologists as Experts: Cultural Expertise, Colonialism, and Positionality

This article addresses the positionality of anthropologists and the impact of anthropological theories in cultural expertise with the help of three case studies that highlight the engagement of anthropologists with law and governance during colonialism and in the wake of it: a well-known case of witchcraft in Kenya, Volkekunde theories in Africa, and the Rwandan genocide. The article starts with a short genesis of the concept of cultural expertise and its cognate concepts of culturally motivated crimes and cultural defense, to introduce the main question of this article: What can we learn from the use of cultural expertise in the colonial past? Today, as much as in the colonial past, anthropologists have been torn between action and abstention. The article’s three case studies show that neither action nor abstention is free from ethical responsibility. This article argues that the concept of procedural neutrality and its reformulation in the form of critical affirmation help anthropologists to carve out an independent role for themselves in the legal process. Procedural neutrality and its reformulation as critical affirmation make it possible to comply with the ethics and deontologies of the disciplines across which anthropologists operate when providing cultural expertise.

Learning to Litigate: the Relationship Between Past Litigation Experience and Litigation Outcomes in the Chinese Intellectual Property System

Intellectual property (IP) and the protection of IP is of increasing importance to firms’ competitiveness, and firms must be able to defend their IP when it is infringed upon. In most markets, IP and the defense of IP is a stringent legal process, but in developing markets and markets undergoing changes, this is not necessarily so. The Chinese IP system and protection is comparatively new, and the system is still under development. In this study, we analyze the relationship between firms’ previous litigation experience and litigation outcomes using a sample of 10,211 court cases tried in China between 2001 and 2009. We find that despite litigation being a rare event for most firms, plaintiffs’ prior litigation experience and especially prior successful litigation experience or experience with specific case types is related to their likelihood of a positive outcome. However, plaintiffs’ successful application of prior litigation experience is contingent on the type of litigation case.

Te Reo Maori as a Language of New Zealand Law: The Attainment of Civic Status

<p>In July 2011 the Waitangi Tribunal released Wai 262, its report on the indigenous flora and fauna claim. In the report, the Tribunal signalled "a deep-seated fear for the survival of te reo" and found that the language was in a state of "renewed decline". To date, revitalisation initiatives have focussed largely on stemming language decline in the community. Comparatively little attention has been given to the need to develop te reo Māori in the civic life of the state; in particular, as a language of law and legal process. This dissertation argues that if te reo Māori is to survive in the 21st century, it must develop as a fully functional language of New Zealand law. This dissertation critiques the domestic and international instruments that protect the right to use te reo Māori in civic contexts, and identifies three developments that are necessary for te reo Māori to achieve full functionality as a legal language. The first is the provision of an unqualified right to use Māori in the law-making process. The second is the use of Māori in the substantive enactment of law. The third is a principled and consistent approach to drafting and interpreting Māori words and provisions in statutes.</p>

Te Reo Maori as a Language of New Zealand Law: The Attainment of Civic Status

<p>In July 2011 the Waitangi Tribunal released Wai 262, its report on the indigenous flora and fauna claim. In the report, the Tribunal signalled "a deep-seated fear for the survival of te reo" and found that the language was in a state of "renewed decline". To date, revitalisation initiatives have focussed largely on stemming language decline in the community. Comparatively little attention has been given to the need to develop te reo Māori in the civic life of the state; in particular, as a language of law and legal process. This dissertation argues that if te reo Māori is to survive in the 21st century, it must develop as a fully functional language of New Zealand law. This dissertation critiques the domestic and international instruments that protect the right to use te reo Māori in civic contexts, and identifies three developments that are necessary for te reo Māori to achieve full functionality as a legal language. The first is the provision of an unqualified right to use Māori in the law-making process. The second is the use of Māori in the substantive enactment of law. The third is a principled and consistent approach to drafting and interpreting Māori words and provisions in statutes.</p>

Is Restorative Justice an Effective Approach in Responding to Children and Young People Who Sexually Harm?

In the UK, Australia, and further afield, restorative programmes have been developed as a response to the failure of the criminal justice system to give victims of sexual violence a voice in the legal process. The restorative justice literature has tended to focus on sexual offences perpetrated by adults and the importance of being victim centred. When it is a child or young person (CYP) who sexually harms, it poses a unique set of challenges for law and society and the restorative practitioner. This article explores the reasons why a different approach may be warranted given the perceived failure of conventional criminal justice in addressing the growing problem of child and adolescent harmful sexual behaviour (HSB) in Scotland. It discusses the difficulties with balancing the rights of the victim with the CYP who perpetrates the HSB and considers the challenges encountered by practitioners in the implementation and application of restorative programmes in HSB cases involving CYP. Although the evidence supports a growing need for a different approach, and restorative justice may offer just that, problems with net widening, the referral process, and resistance from other professionals and victim advocacy groups present real barriers. Consequently, restorative practitioners are likely to find practising in this area more challenging due to a lack of support and cooperation.

Reading Rape in Livy's History of Rome, Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece and J.M. Coetzee's In the Heart of the Country

<p>Mieke Bal argues that rape "takes place inside. In this sense, rape is by definition imagined; it can exist only as experience and as memory, as image translated into signs, never adequately 'objectifiable'" (100). In this thesis, by critically examining some ways in which rape has been made to seem objectifiable in literature, I argue that rape cannot simply be 'seen' from a "point-of-viewless" (Rooney 89) perspective. My argument supports Catharine A. MacKinnon's call for a rethinking of rape-related "legal process as one involving a choice between incommensurate meanings rather than one of uncovering a (temporarily hidden) fact, the Truth" (Rooney 90). I argue that, in Livy's History of Rome and Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece, rape is portrayed as an objectifiably visible spectacle; the rape victim's description of rape functions in a capacity analogous to testimony, supporting "rape law's assumption that a single, objective state of affairs existed" (MacKinnon 654); and the rape victim's post-rape, self-inflicted violence functions as a form of self-punishment which references historically specific correlations between female unchastity and socio-political calamity. In contrast, I argue that, in J.M. Coetzee's novel In the Heart of the Country, the narration discourages readers from accepting the objectifiability of the rape which it relates; the narrator's "meditations" (Gallagher 82) deviate from the conventions of testimony, expressing instead the "incommensurate meanings" (Rooney 90) that rape holds for the victim herself; and the descriptions of violence, abuse, and victim response present the chance for readers to interpret the aftermath of rape in a manner other than that which "conveys the idea that the victim is responsible for her own destruction" (Bal 100).</p>

Reading Rape in Livy's History of Rome, Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece and J.M. Coetzee's In the Heart of the Country

<p>Mieke Bal argues that rape "takes place inside. In this sense, rape is by definition imagined; it can exist only as experience and as memory, as image translated into signs, never adequately 'objectifiable'" (100). In this thesis, by critically examining some ways in which rape has been made to seem objectifiable in literature, I argue that rape cannot simply be 'seen' from a "point-of-viewless" (Rooney 89) perspective. My argument supports Catharine A. MacKinnon's call for a rethinking of rape-related "legal process as one involving a choice between incommensurate meanings rather than one of uncovering a (temporarily hidden) fact, the Truth" (Rooney 90). I argue that, in Livy's History of Rome and Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece, rape is portrayed as an objectifiably visible spectacle; the rape victim's description of rape functions in a capacity analogous to testimony, supporting "rape law's assumption that a single, objective state of affairs existed" (MacKinnon 654); and the rape victim's post-rape, self-inflicted violence functions as a form of self-punishment which references historically specific correlations between female unchastity and socio-political calamity. In contrast, I argue that, in J.M. Coetzee's novel In the Heart of the Country, the narration discourages readers from accepting the objectifiability of the rape which it relates; the narrator's "meditations" (Gallagher 82) deviate from the conventions of testimony, expressing instead the "incommensurate meanings" (Rooney 90) that rape holds for the victim herself; and the descriptions of violence, abuse, and victim response present the chance for readers to interpret the aftermath of rape in a manner other than that which "conveys the idea that the victim is responsible for her own destruction" (Bal 100).</p>

Hybrid Algorithm for the detection of Pixel-based digital image forgery using Markov and SIFT descriptors

Today, image forgery is common due to the massification of low-cost/high-resolution digital cameras, along with the accessibility of computer programs for image processing. All media is affected by this issue, which makes the public doubt the news. Though image modification is a typical process in entertainment, when images are taken as evidence in a legal process, modification cannot be considered trivial. Digital forensics has the challenge of ensuring the accuracy and integrity of digital images to overcome this issue. This investigation introduces an algorithm to detect the main types of pixel-based alterations such as copy-move forgery, resampling, and splicing in digital images. For the evaluation of the algorithm, CVLAB, CASIA V1, Columbia, and Columbia Uncompressed datasets were used. Of 7100 images evaluated, 3666 were unaltered, 791 had resampling, 2213 had splicing, and 430 had copy-move forgeries. The algorithm detected all proposed forgery pixel methods with an accuracy of 91%. The main novelties of the proposal are the reduced number of features needed for identification and its robustness for the file format and image size.