‘Combatting’ irregular migration is one of the key challenges to migration management at EU level. The present book addresses one of the most pressing structural problems regarding the EU’s return ...policy: the low return rate of irregularly staying migrants. In this regard the EU Return Directive obliges Member States to issue a return decision, yet only 40% of such decisions are enforced annually. Moreover, despite the political and legal efforts, the EU is not making any significant progress in enforcing the rules it has laid down in the Return Directive. The legislation of EU Member States may, however, serve as a source for possible solutions to ‘combat’ the problem of irregularly staying migrants. It is for this reason that the book compares the system of regularisations in Austria, Germany and Spain. Regularisations constitute an effective alternative to returns because they terminate the irregular residence of migrants, not through deportation, but rather by granting a right of residence. Regularisation is therefore understood as each legal decision that awards legal residency to irregularly staying migrants. As is shown by the examination and comparison of regularisations in Austria, Germany and Spain, differentiated systems of regularisation exist at national level. However, EU regularisations supplementing the present return policy would be more effective at ‘combatting’ irregular migration at EU level.
"The invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the Coalition Government's failure to win parliamentary approval for armed intervention in Syria in 2013, mark a period of increased scrutiny of the process by ...which the UK engages in armed conflict. For much of the media and civil society there now exists a constitutional convention which mandates that the Government consults Parliament before commencing hostilities. This is celebrated as representing a redistribution of power from the executive towards a more legitimate, democratic institution. This book offers a critical inquiry into Parliament's role in the war prerogative since the beginning of the twentieth century, evaluating whether the UK's decisions to engage in conflict meet the recognised standards of good governance: accountability, transparency and participation. The analysis reveals a number of persistent problems in the decision-making process, including Parliament's lack of access to relevant information, government 'legalisation' of parliamentary debates which frustrates broader discussions of political legitimacy, and the skewing of debates via the partial public disclosure of information based upon secret intelligence. The book offers solutions to these problems to reinvigorate parliamentary discourse and to address government withholding of classified information. It is essential reading for anyone interested in war powers, the relationship between international law and domestic politics, and the role of the Westminster Parliament in questions of national security."
The slow pace of administrative action is arguably a defining characteristic of modern bureaucracy. The reasons proffered for delay are numerous, often centering on procedural hurdles or bureaucrats’ ...ineptitude. I offer a different perspective on delay in one important bureaucratic venue: the federal rulemaking process. I argue that agencies can speed up (fast-track) or slow down (slow-roll) the rulemaking process in order to undermine political oversight by Congress, the president, and the courts. That is, when the political climate is favorable, agencies rush to lock in a rule, but when it is less favorable, they wait on the chance that it will improve. I find empirical support for this proposition using an event history analysis of more than 11,000 agency rules from 150 bureaus. The results support the interpretation that agencies strategically delay, and that delay is not simply evidence of increased bureaucratic effort.
Governments around the world are deploying automation tools in making decisions that affect rights and entitlements. The interests affected are very broad, ranging from time spent in detention to the ...receipt of social security benefits. This article focusses on the impact on rule of law values of automation using: (1) pre-programmed rules (for example, expert systems); and (2) predictive inferencing whereby rules are derived from historic data (such by applying supervised machine learning). The article examines the use of these systems across a range of nations. It explores the tension between the rule of law and rapid technological change and concludes with observations on how the automation of government decision-making can both enhance and detract from rule of law values.
The role of law in adaptive governance Cosens, Barbara A.; Craig, Robin K.; Hirsch, Shana Lee ...
Ecology and society,
03/2017, Volume:
22, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The term “governance” encompasses both governmental and nongovernmental participation in collective choice and action. Law dictates the structure, boundaries, rules, and processes within which ...governmental action takes place, and in doing so becomes one of the focal points for analysis of barriers to adaptation as the effects of climate change are felt. Adaptive governance must therefore contemplate a level of flexibility and evolution in governmental action beyond that currently found in the heavily administrative governments of many democracies. Nevertheless, over time, law itself has proven highly adaptive in western systems of government, evolving to address and even facilitate the emergence of new social norms (such as the rights of women and minorities) or to provide remedies for emerging problems (such as pollution). Thus, there is no question that law can adapt, evolve, and be reformed to make room for adaptive governance. In doing this, not only may barriers be removed, but law may be adjusted to facilitate adaptive governance and to aid in institutionalizing new and emerging approaches to governance. The key is to do so in a way that also enhances legitimacy, accountability, and justice, or else such reforms will never be adopted by democratic societies, or if adopted, will destabilize those societies. By identifying those aspects of the frameworks for adaptive governance reviewed in the introduction to this special feature relevant to the legal system, we present guidelines for evaluating the role of law in environmental governance to identify the ways in which law can be used, adapted, and reformed to facilitate adaptive governance and to do so in a way that enhances the legitimacy of governmental action.
This is the first comprehensive analysis of the legal effects of EU agreements explored in both comparative perspective and in terms of the ramifications for the legal orders of the member states. ...The book provides a thorough analysis of the case-law in this increasingly important area of EU law, valuable to academics and practitioners alike.
Abstract
Research on the long-term relationship between offending and mortality is limited, especially among minorities who have higher risk of premature mortality and criminal offending, ...particularly arrest. Using Cox proportional hazard models, we estimate the relationship between young adult offending and later mortality (to age 58) among a community cohort of Black Americans (n = 1,182). After controlling for a wide range of covariates, results indicate that violent offenders are at heightened risk of mortality from young adulthood through midlife compared with both non-violent only offenders and non-offenders. Further analysis shows that this result is driven by the frequent, largely non-violent, arrests incurred among violent offenders. Criminal justice reform and collaboration with public health practitioners might be fruitful avenues to reduce mortality disparities.
L'équité et la justice sont des concepts de longue date dans les discussions sur l'éthique et la moralité. Et l'équité, ou le principe d'équité procédurale, en tant que fondement de la pratique des ...ombudsmans au Canada, crée une responsabilité pour les ombudsmans de promouvoir et de tenir les institutions et les individus responsables des processus et des décisions éthiques. Bien que l'engagement efficace en cas de conflit constitue également une partie importante de notre travail, la pratique des ombudsmans canadiens est fermement fondée sur le principe d'équité. L'équité a été décrite comme un concept flexible et spécifique au contexte, son contenu devant être déterminé par les circonstances individuelles du cas. Cette approche flexible permet aux ombudsmans de contribuer à humaniser la bureaucratie pour ceux qui doivent y naviguer, en encourageant les règles, les processus et les décisions qui soutiennent la diversité et la multiplicité des contextes, des expériences et des perspectives. Cela donne aux ombudsmans une façon de définir l'équité qui ne signifie pas traiter tout le monde de la même façon, ce qui est une interprétation de l'beaucoup moins que équité beaucoup plus grand que qui crée et perpétue l'iniquité et l'injustice. Ceci est soutenu par la jurisprudence canadienne de la Cour suprême du Canada qui intègre l'égalité et l'inclusion dans le concept d'équité. La Charte des droits et libertés, les valeurs canadiennes et la diversité de la population canadienne influencent la norme d'équité d'une manière qui aide les ombudsmans à promouvoir l'équité d'une manière inextricable. Mots-clés ombudsmans, équité procédurale, droit administratif, diversité, équité Fairness and justice are longstanding constructs in the discussions around ethics and morality. And fairness, or the principle of procedural fairness, as the bedrock of Ombuds practice in Canada, creates a responsibility for Ombuds to advance and hold institutions and individuals accountable to ethical processes and decisions. While effective conflict engagement forms a significant part of our work as well, Canadian Ombuds practice is firmly founded on and delivered through a fairness lens. Fairness has been described as a flexible and context-specific construct, its content to be determined by the individual circumstances of the case. In this flexible approach lies the opportunity for Ombuds to help humanize bureaucracy for those who must navigate it, by encouraging rules, processes and decisions that support the diversity and multiplicity of contexts, experiences and perspectives. It gives Ombuds a way to define fairness that does not mean treating everyone the same, which is an interpretation of "fairness" that actually creates and perpetuates inequity and unfairness. This is supported by Canadian jurisprudence from the Supreme Court of Canada that embeds equality and inclusivity into the concept of fairness. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canadian values and the diversity of the Canadian populace inform the standard of fairness in a way that support Ombuds to advance fairness in a way that is inextricable from equity. Keywords ombuds, procedural fairness, administrative law, diversity, equity
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