Instrumentalizing the Expressive: Transplanting Sentencing Circles into the Canadian Criminal Trial

This Article examines reforms to criminal sentencing procedures in Canada, focusing on Aboriginal healing circles, which were incorporated as sentencing circles into the criminal trial. Using the lens of comparative law and legal transplants, this Article recounts the period of sentencing reform in Canada in the 1990s, when scholars, practitioners, and activists inquired into Aboriginal confrontation with the criminal justice system by comparing Euro-Canadian and Aboriginal justice values and principles. As a way to bridge the gap between vastly differing worldviews and approaches to justice, judges and Aboriginal justice advocates transplanted sentencing circles into the sentencing phase of the criminal trial. This Article presents original data compiled from a review of all published decisions in Canada that mention the term sentencing circle. It reviews judicial treatment of requests for sentencing circles, and tracks sentencing decisions once a circle was held. Additionally, this Article uses sentencing circles as a point of entry into conversations about legal instrumentalism in law reform and legal transplants. It argues that the progress of these reforms points to larger questions about culture and what it currently means to use law as a tool for social change

Sentencing Circles, Clashing Worldviews, and the Case of Christopher Pauchay

The case of Christopher Pauchay demonstrates some of the differences between predominant Euro-Canadian and First Nations approaches to dispute resolution. The principles of sentencing circles sometimes overlap with the principles of restorative justice and suggest their potential incorporation into the criminal justice system. The use of alternative processes that share some common values is not enough to overcome to chasm between Euro-Western and Aboriginal justice. Where underlying worldviews diff er, those who can choose between competing values amidst limited possibilities will likely choose the values that refl ect the conventional system. A comparison of Euro-Western and Aboriginal approaches to crime and punishment clarifi es why Pauchay’s sentencing circle was unsuccessful as an alternative option. Advocates of alternative methods must consider more than the implementation of a process when adapting selective cultural methods to the overarching system. Without further evaluation, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) itself becomes a mechanism of recolonization

Managing Mass Tort Class Actions: Judicial Politics and Rulemaking in Three Acts

Judges take part in a variety of non-adjudicative tasks that shape the structure of litigation. In addition to their managerial functions, judges sit as administrative heads of court. They participate in civil justice reform projects and develop procedures for criminal and civil trials. What norms and principles ought to guide judges in this other work? In their casework we expect judges to be neutral and fair, setting aside politics and rationally following the law. Indeed, this article will demonstrate that there is good reason to insist on these qualities in both judges’ case-related and broader court-related reform activities. To test this proposition, this article examines the work of judges who sat on the Advisory Committee for Civil Rules, the committee that evaluates and makes recommendations for rule amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In particular, this Article reviews the committee’s nearly thirty-year effort to make rules for approving settlements in mass tort class actions. The review reveals politics and competition not only between judges and Congress for the authority to design rules of procedure, but also points to a lesser explored phenomenon, of competition between judges of the different levels of court

Building the Aboriginal Conference Settlement Suite: Hope and Realism in Law as a Tool for Social Change

In 2014, the provincial government unveiled a new courthouse in Thunder Bay, Ontario, featuring a conference area designed to emulate an Anishinaabe roundhouse. The “Aboriginal Conference Settlement Suite” epitomizes efforts to support Indigenous justice within the criminal justice system. However, despite similar efforts in the past, the circumstances of Indigenous peoples in Canada have not improved. This ongoing commitment to legal solutions is emblematic of mainstream views of law as a problem-solving instrument. Notwithstanding awareness of its failings, law reformers remain dedicated to using law as a tool for social change. Employing a case study method focusing on the new courthouse, I challenge a prevailing wisdom that law reform outputs are manageable and in our control. I argue that similar to a courthouse, which is a concrete, physical structure as well as a symbol of justice, so too is the legal instrument both material and metaphorical, with concrete outcomes and symbolic forms. While treating law as a literal tool may give law reformers a longed-for sense of mastery, this approach belies law’s diffuse constitutive power and the various paradoxes in reformers’ actions. Accepting law’s dual nature is essential for candid and accurate assessments about the possibilities and limits of change through law

Juries, Lay Judges, and Trials

“Juries, Lay Judges, and Trials” describes the widespread practice of including ordinary citizens as legal decision makers in the criminal trial. In some countries, lay persons serve as jurors and determine the guilt and occasionally the punishment of the accused. In others, citizens decide cases together with professional judges in mixed decision-making bodies. What is more, a number of countries have introduced or reintroduced systems employing juries or lay judges, often as part of comprehensive reform in emerging democracies. Becoming familiar with the job of the juror or lay citizen in a criminal trial is thus essential for understanding contemporary criminal justice systems in many countries. This article reviews procedures for selecting jurors and lay judges and outlines lay participation in fact finding and in sentencing phases of the criminal trial. It also assesses the promises and challenges of lay participation in law. Reviewing and evaluating the effects of the different approaches that countries have taken to incorporating lay citizens, it reflects on whether the goals of democratic deliberation are being met in both jury and lay judge systems. It concludes with suggestions for future directions for research. The final publication is available at Springerlink

Re- Imagining Agenda 2063: A Socio-Legal Foundation of the Africa We Want

Re- Imagining Agenda 2063: A Socio-Legal Foundation of the Africa We Want, June 21 - 24, 2021 Virtual Conference Repor

Tomato chlorotic mottle virus is a target of RNA silencing but the presence of specific short interfering RNAs dois not guarantee resistance in transgenic plants.

Made available in DSpace on 2018-06-07T00:55:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ID288591.pdf: 488911 bytes, checksum: c481e3ca76877ac10b56ec80938208ab (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-01-2

Cost reductions in the Danish Salmonella surveillance program

In 1993 Denmark Implemented a surveillance program for Salmonella in pigs and pork. Since then the program has been adjusted several times leading to a reduction of the assoc1ated cost. The program has been optim1zed in breeder and multiplier herds as well as for fattening pig herds and at the slaughterhouses. All in all, optimizations of the program have reduced the over-all costs from 0.65 € to 0.15 € per fattening pig produced. This has been achieved without jeopardizing the food safety which can be seen from the numbers of human Salmonella infections attributed to pork. From 1993 to 2005, the number of human cases has decreased from app. 1,100 to around 100-200 per year

Avaliação da organogênese in vitro do Clone 7 de Eucalyptus urograndis em diferentes meios de cultura.

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