A Gentle Breeze on the Wheels of Fair Justice for Women in Bangladesh: An Empirical Evaluation of Family Courts’ Mediation Underpinning Rawls’ Theory of Justice

not available Dhaka University Law Journal, Vol. 31, 2020 P.63-84

On the measurement of need-based justice

Need-based justice is an important ingredient for a pluralistic theory of justice. But how can need-based justice be measured? I will argue that need-based justice cannot be measured by measuring need-satisfaction. This is because need-based justice does not only depend on need-satisfaction, but also on opportunities to avoid or at least mitigate undersupply. Depending on these opportunities, one and the same degree of undersupply can be unjust to different degrees. In this article, I establish a number of desiderata that a measure of need-based justice has to comply with. Resulting measures treat avoidable undersupply as the main source of injustice.

Environmental Justice and its geographical aspects in Hungary

In recent decades, environmental justice has become a defining concept in socio-spatial inequality research, political debates, and activism. Environmental justice research, which is essentially based on theories of social and spatial justice and providesa normative framework for thinking, focuses on the unequal distribution of environmental harms and risks and their social consequences. Environmental justice research aims to explore the economic, social, health, and legal differences that individuals and groups face in their environment as a result of environmental processes, decision making, power relations, and law enforcement practices. This is largely related to the subjective perception of individuals and the perception of injustices by different actors. In the vast majority of environmental justice studies, spatiality provides a framework for interpreting and understanding environmentally unjust situations and processes. Environmental justice is therefore not only a natural, but also a socially dependent phenomenon, in which the key element is nevertheless the non-human factor (e.g. environmental events such as floods), which affects individuals and groups indifferent ways. As a result, an environmentally unjust state and situation may occur. The evolved injustices also interact with inherited spatial inequalities, existing socioeconomic systems, and the institutional structures that originally shape them. This paper summarizes the theoretical framework of environmental justice in geography and spatial sciences. The study adapts the theory of justice to post-socialist and Hungarian specificities and forms of environmental injustice, and examines decision-making processes and the perception of risks. In Hungary social problems and differences have been increasing in recent decades, and marginalisation and polarisation processes have added new spatial patterns to existing inequalities, directly and indirectly affecting environmental processes as well. Attempts at eliminating environmental injustices have resulted in new injustices, or deepened existing ones, due to the lack of a complex socio-environmental spatial approach of interventions. The solution to these injustices presupposes the effective and meaningful involvement of the affected people in policy-making and implementation processes, regardless of gender, age, origin, identity, or income. Otherwise, the unjust situation will persist and crisis areas affected by environmental injustices may develop.

Global Climate Change—Who Ought to Pay the Bill?

Global climate change is a significant challenge for current and, particularly, future generations. In the public debate about the fair allocation of associated costs commonly the moral claim that the developed countries should burden the costs is expressed. To support this claim, often four moral arguments, based on the theory of justice, are raised: (i) the polluter pays, (ii) the historical responsibility, (iii) the beneficiary pays, and (iv) the ability to pay. The aim of the paper is to assess whether these principles impose a duty on the developed countries and whether a fair allocation of costs would be achieved.

The Legality of Providing Legal Aid to Perpetrators of the Crime of Murder in the Perspective of the Theory of Dignified Justice

The Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia is a state of law. In accordance with Article 1 paragraph (3) of the 1945 Constitution (UUD 1945). As a state of law, Indonesia must guarantee the rights of its citizens to equality and guarantees of justice, including human rights. As stated by Salim, quoting Fredrich Julius Stahl, that the main element of a state based on law is the protection, as well as the recognition of Human Rights (HAM), and upholding dignified justice. Also in Article 28D paragraph (1) of the 1945 Constitution (UUD 1945) reads: "Everyone has the right to recognition, guarantees, protection, and fair legal certainty and equal treatment before the law". This means that the constitution itself has accommodated, the state guarantees the fulfillment of individual rights of citizens and is treated equally before the law. In a state of law, the law is used as the main shield in the movement of government, state, and society. As an effort to realize justice and the spiritual values ​​of humanity (fair and dignified), there is assistance in the form of legal services for every citizen. The existence of a dignified justice theory is a justice provided by a legal system that has spiritual and material dimensions. This theory is a theory of justice that is based on noble values ​​that are rooted in the second principle of Pancasila, "Just and Civilized Humanity" and is inspired by the first principle, "Belief in the One Supreme God".

Digitalisierung als Capability und Fairness. Ausblicke auf eine Postcorona-Lehre.

In der studentischen Beurteilung der coronabedingten Digitalisierung der Hochschullehre scheint es zwei Lager zu geben, zum einen Studierende, die der „digitalen Lehre“ nichts abgewinnen können und hoffen, dass bald alles wieder „normal“ ist, zum anderen diejenigen, die sich zwar grundsätzlich Vorcoronanormalität zurückwünschen, aber in bestimmter Hinsicht die Vorteile der „digitalen Lehre“ sehen und diese auch weiterhin gerne in Anspruch nehmen würden. Dazu gehört vor allem die zeitliche Flexibilität, die für Studierende wichtig ist, die über ihr Studium hinaus Verpflichtungen haben (z. B. Kinderbetreuung, Pflege von Angehörigen und eigenständiges Verdienen des Unterhalts). Geradeasynchrone digitale Lernangebote sind für diese Bedarfe besonders geeignet. Solche Präferenzäußerungen der Studierenden hinsichtlich asynchroner digitaler Lehre lassen sich auch unter Gerechtigkeitsgesichtspunktenbegründen. Unter Rückgriff auf John Rawls’ Theory of Justice und Martha Nussbaums Capabilities Approach will der Beitrag zeigen, dass eine vorcoronäre „herkömmliche“ Lehre (ausschließlich offline, analog und synchron) als sozialethisch defizitär angesehen werden muss. Es soll geklärt werden, inwiefern „digitale Lehre“ auch nach der COVID-19-Pandemie unter dem Gesichtspunkt der Fairness berücksichtigt und umgesetzt werden sollte.