Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) are databases that can be used by healthcare professionals to identify problematic drug‐seeking behavior. Law enforcement officers can also obtain PDMP ...information, raising significant privacy concerns. In this paper, I use regression analysis to explore the association between state PDMP protections and law enforcement information requests. I find that while requiring law enforcement to meet a specified standard of proof prior to accessing PDMP information is associated with fewer requests, other methods of regulating law enforcement access are not. These findings provide important and novel evidence about law enforcement behavior in response to privacy protections.
The article addresses the issue of standards of proof from a comparative perspective. The author sketches the conventional distinction between common law and civil law countries in this regard, as ...well as some approaches that query the validity of the rigid division. The main purpose of the article is to characterise the Ukrainian approach to the standards of proof against the background of comparative analysis. The author concludes that recent developments in Ukrainian law have paved the way for a distinction between criminal and civil standards of proof. However, the doctrine is not yet elaborate enough to warrant a coherent application of the two different standards. There is a view that in civil law countries, not much attention is paid to the standard of proof. We would rather not take the liberty of generalising about all civil law countries, but with regard to Ukrainian doctrine, the assertion seems rather justified. However, some recent developments in procedural legislation give reasons to believe that the approach is being gradually changed. The disregard of the issue, underpinned by the sacred belief in the attainability of absolute truth, fades in comparison to the acknowledgement that standards of proof may differ in civil (commercial) and criminal cases. It is this inflexion point in Ukrainian evidence law that may entail far-reaching repercussions. Therefore, open discussion of the issue is needed to elaborate a doctrinal approach that could serve as a basis for the development of a coherent jurisprudence.
Targeted sanctions, namely asset freezes and travel bans, are no longer the province of foreign policy alone. They are increasingly often used by governments in response to crime, such as corruption, ...human rights abuse, cybercrime, drug trafficking, and transnational organized crime writ large. Such sanctions are imposed based on permissive evidential standards, such as that of “credible evidence” or “reasonable grounds to suspect.” Their advent has added a new layer to a multi-tier system of state responses to crime. First, there is the traditional approach of criminal prosecution and conviction based on the criminal standard of proof. Second, one rung below is non-conviction based asset forfeiture, a notionally civil confiscation of supposed proceeds of crime that eschews the need for compliance with a suite of criminal trial safeguards. At the third level of this hierarchy are crime-based targeted sanctions, which vest the state with the greatest latitude in dealing with suspected criminals. Based on a wide-ranging analysis of international practice, this article contends that not only are crime-based sanctions de facto a criminal justice tool, but also that a coherent set of principles is required to determine their relationship with other responses to criminal behavior.
Los procedimientos penales muchas veces están diseñados para dilucidar la verdad detrás de una escena criminal. Sin embargo, la verdad siempre ha sido subjetiva, contextual y cultural, siempre ...dependerá del grado de convicción de los medios de prueba y los sesgos de las partes procesales que construyen esos medios y esos hechos. Entonces, si partimos de que la verdad es relativa, los procedimientos penales deben reorientar su proceso de construcción probatoria. Para ello, las técnicas de juicio oral y los estándares probatorios se han presentado como herramientas apropiadas para construir esa realidad. En particular, los estándares probatorios se materializan como umbrales que demandan un determinado nivel de convicción probatoria que relaciona el hecho delictivo con la participación del sujeto procesado. Sin embargo, estos estándares con la nueva regulación procesal de la Ley 1826 de 2017 se han visto alterados, en especial aquellos relacionados con la imposición de la medida de aseguramiento.
The evolution of the understanding of evidence-based proof and decision processes in the law, especially criminal law, and standards of proof in this area, has a long-standing and controversial ...history. Competing accounts cause the legal scholarship to engage in critical and thoughtful exchanges. Some of the divergent views reflect different methodological perspectives similarly recognized in other fields, such as applied psychology and economy, and the broader interdisciplinary research fields of judgment and decision-making, system analysis and decision science. One such methodological perspective asserts that accounts of juridical proof should provide a description and explanation of how the legal system actually works as a whole. Other—more mathematical and analytical accounts—concentrate on how, ideally, legal decision-making under uncertainty ought to be made in order be considered sensible. This paper focuses on the relative plausibility (RP) account advocated by Professors Allen and Pardo as an example of the former perspective. Its logical structure and argumentative implications are analysed using elements of decision theory, which is the prime representative of the latter, more mathematical approach to legal proof. Using formal diagrammatic schemes to depict the structural relationships between the core elements of the two accounts, it is demonstrated in what sense they can be considered logically related and congruent. The demonstration shows that the principal disagreements among the proponents of the two examined theories derive from differences in (1) the criteria used to judge the adequacy of competing accounts of legal decision-making, and (2) the level of formalization of the bases of decisions in each candidate account. This structural analysis supports the view that adherence to one or the other of the examined perspectives does not imply a contradiction, but reflects the coverage of different aspects of the same overall decision architecture. Using decision-theoretic notions, our analyses also provide a way to explain RP decisions through an explicit criterion, thus providing a reply to the recurrent critique that RP theory lacks specific means to justify its decisional framework.
The past 10 years witnessed rapid development in the jurisprudential framework of antitrust policy in India. The Competition Commission of India's sector-agnostic approach in busting anti-competitive ...conduct has allowed it to drive pro-competitive reforms in various sectors. In this context, the Competition Commission of India has taken a keen interest in addressing the issue of cartelization. This article delineates the manner in which the Competition Commission of India identifies and imposes liability on cartels, with the aim of increasing regulatory compliance and promoting robust competitive markets. This involves a review of the evolving standards of proof adopted by the Competition Commission of India, and jurisprudential concepts introduced to address the peculiarities of Indian markets. The article also seeks to provide insight into the procedural hurdles typically encountered during cartel investigations. Finally, it addresses the constant conflict the Competition Commission of India faces with other fairly established sectoral regulators.
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