The aim of this article is to examine how the structure of legislation can nurture accessibility and effectiveness of legislation. |
Article |
Structure of Legislation: A Paradigm for Accessibility and Effectiveness |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 3 2015 |
Keywords | effectiveness of legislation, structure of legislation, accessibility of legislation, quality drafting, clarity |
Authors | Elohor Onoge |
AbstractAuthor's information |
Book Review |
Book Review |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 3 2015 |
Article |
Financial Crime Prevention and ControlThe Reforms of a ‘Unique’ Jurisdiction under EU Law and International Standards |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 4 2015 |
Keywords | Vatican financial system, money laundering, terrorist financing, 3rd AMLD, FATF Recommendations |
Authors | Francesco De Pascalis |
AbstractAuthor's information |
Between 2011 and 2014, the Vatican City State (VCS) experienced a reform process which dramatically changed its financial system. The process is still ongoing, and its goal is to establish an anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) system. Importantly, this system will be based on the AML/CTF EU legislation and international standards. These facts are noteworthy. First, the reforms cast light on the main Vatican financial institutions against the background of the secrecy that has always characterized their functioning and business operations. Accordingly, there is now more transparency and information about the Vatican financial system. Second, the relevant EU law and international standards are tools through which the VCS can, for the first time, join an international network of countries, sharing and applying the same rules against money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing (TF). This is of extraordinary importance for a jurisdiction like the VCS, which has never referred to European or international principles in its rule-making. In particular, the openness to EU law and international standards stimulates investigating the reasons behind these changes and the impact that these sources of law are having on a jurisdiction regarded as ‘unique’ in the world. |
Article |
Corruption and Controls |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 4 2015 |
Keywords | corruption, controls, inspections, administration, regulation |
Authors | Maria De Benedetto |
AbstractAuthor's information |
Anti-corruption is a relatively recent policy which calls for controls. They represent the most effective means in rebalancing institutions which are not fully informed: ‘secrecy’, in fact, characterizes infringements and corrupt behaviour. |
Article |
Commonalities in the English Tort and French Criminal Wrong of Defamation |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 4 2015 |
Keywords | defamation, tort, crime, comparative, path dependence |
Authors | Mathilde Groppo |
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This article considers the extent to which the nature of the regulation – tortious or criminal – influences the substantive content of the rules in England and France. It argues that the English and French regulatory features are the result of path dependence. Consequently, while they have led to substantive differences, they do not prevent the emergence of a shared approach to the wrong. |
Article |
Can Imprisonment Be Cheaper? The Case for Private Prisons |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 4 2015 |
Keywords | costs, criminal law, law and economics, private prisons, privatization |
Authors | Elena Kantorowicz-Reznichenko |
AbstractAuthor's information |
Custody is the most expensive method of punishment in the Western world, as compared to other alternatives. Although expensive, prison is an indispensible instrument to deal with judgement proof or dangerous offenders. Hence, by using the law and economics approach, this article explores prison privatization as an instrument for less expensive incarceration. This method has the potential to reduce the prison costs without hampering its quality. However, a restructuring of the current contracts is needed to achieve this purpose. The attention given to the topic of private prisons by the law and economics scholars, especially in the European context, is limited, and this article attempts to fill this gap. The present article applies arguments from the bureaucracy and political science literature to explain the inefficiencies of public prisons. Subsequently, the potential problems of private prisons are presented through the principle-agent model and solutions are offered. |
Article |
The Incorporation of Intentional Parentage by Female Same-Sex Couples into National Parentage LawsA Comparison between Danish and Dutch Law |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 2 2015 |
Keywords | same-sex parentage, family law, comparative law |
Authors | professor Christina G. Jeppesen de Boer and professor Annette Kronborg |
AbstractAuthor's information |
The incorporation of intentional parentage by female same-sex couples in Danish and Dutch law in 2013 has taken place on the premises of the existing parentage law. In Dutch law, the second mother may automatically become the legal parent (formal relationship – anonymous donor) or she may become the legal parent in all other situations by recognition with consent of the mother. In Danish law, the second mother’s parentage may be established in a simple registration procedure, if she has consented to the act of assisted reproduction prior to treatment. When use has been made of a known donor there is no direct presumption favouring the known donor or the second mother in either country. Danish law provides a contractual understanding to be made prior to treatment while Dutch law depends upon the initiative of the parties and to whom the mother gives consent to recognition – with subsequent discretionary power of the court to modify the result. The main difference we associate with a systemized specific legislative approach (Denmark) and discretionary powers of the court to correct the outcome (the Netherlands). |
Article |
Pursuing the Best Interest of Children in Non-Traditional FamiliesA Comparative Overview |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 2 2015 |
Keywords | best interest of the child, equality, non-traditional families, new bills, comparative analysis |
Authors | Denise Amram |
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The need to build a legal paradigm corresponding to the current evolution of society is one of the most important challenges that family lawyers are facing in the last years. In this regard, this paper illustrates the new Italian, French, and Irish reforms aimed at pursuing the best interest of the child within non-traditional families. |
Article |
Identifying the Impetus behind the Europeanization of the Private International Law Rules on Family Matters and Succession |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 2 2015 |
Keywords | area of freedom security and justice, EU citizenship, free movement of persons, international family matters, international succession |
Authors | Jacqueline Gray PhD |
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The EU is currently in the midst of unifying the private international law rules on family matters and succession. This article seeks to explain this expansion into essentially non-economic territory. In order to do so, it presents the ideological, problem-based, and legal considerations that appear to lie at the heart of legislative action in these fields. However, as will become apparent, it is the role of the Member States that is crucial in guiding this process. |
Article |
Legal Motherhood and Parental ResponsibilityA Comparative Study on the Tensions between Scientific Knowledge, Social Reality and Personal Identity |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 2 2015 |
Keywords | motherhood, child’s right to identity, baby-box, secret birth, confidential birth |
Authors | Prof. dr. Christine Budzikiewicz and Dr. Machteld Vonk |
AbstractAuthor's information |
For the past 15 to 20 years there has been intense discussion in many European countries how mothers in a crisis situation can be prevented from abandoning or even killing their new born babies. Baby-boxes have been installed in a number of countries and/or possibilities for anonymous birth have been discussed or introduced. The Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed concern over these developments and stated that both developments infringe on the child’s right to know its origins. Both Germany and the Netherlands have taken steps to protect new mothers and their babies in crisis situations by introducing a form of secrecy surrounding the mother’s identity. In Germany this has taken the form of a recently introduced law that keeps the birth and the identity of the mother confidential, in the Netherlands this has taken the form of a protocol drawn up by professionals which aims to keep the birth and the mother’s identity secret. This article will compare and critically discuss these developments in Germany and the Netherlands. |
Article |
Introduction |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 2 2015 |
Authors | Professor Dr. Katharina Boele-Woelki |
Article |
Care in Family RelationsThe Case of Surrogacy Leave |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 2 2015 |
Keywords | EU law, case law, surrogacy, leaves, reconciliation of work |
Authors | Dr. Susanne Burri |
AbstractAuthor's information |
The advance of reproductive technologies, like surrogacy arrangements, confronts courts with new demands and dilemmas. This contribution analyses the potential of EU law towards a better and more balanced reconciliation of work, private and family life when no national law applies. In two recent cases of the Court of Justice of the EU on leave for surrogacy mothers, the Advocates General Kokott and Wahl published diverging opinions on similar prejudicial questions of national courts. These opinions illustrate some difficulties in applying the EU concept of equality and interpreting the scope of relevant EU law on leaves. The Court followed a cautious approach, which is not surprising given the lack of consensus on surrogacy arrangements in the member states and their legal implications. Developments in society and technologies in relation to motherhood, fatherhood and parenthood give rise to new legal questions. However, the existing EU legal instruments in this field were not designed to address questions such as for example surrogacy leave for commissioning mothers and fathers. A modernisation of the EU instruments in the light of societal, technological and legal developments in the member states would provide an opportunity to remedy some gaps in the existing EU legal framework on reconciliation issues. In a society where participation in the labour market of both women and men is increasing and getting more balanced, the need to address care of children, older people and disabled people becomes more urgent. |
Article |
Spanish Matrimonial Property Regimes and CEFL Principles Regarding Property Relations between SpousesCommon Core and Better Law |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 2 2015 |
Keywords | matrimonial property regimes, Commission on European family law, Spanish civil law, common core, better law |
Authors | Dr. Pablo Quinzá Redondo |
AbstractAuthor's information |
This article compares the CEFL principles to Spanish civil law regarding the general rights and duties of spouses, matrimonial property agreements and matrimonial property rights, i.e., property relations between spouses, by detecting where the latter follows the common core or better law approach solution selected by the former. |
Article |
Out of the Box? Domestic and Private International Law Aspects of Gender RegistrationA Comparative Analysis of Germany and the Netherlands |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 2 2015 |
Keywords | gender identity, sex registration, intersex, transgender, private international law |
Authors | Dr. Marjolein van den Brink, Dr. iur. Philipp Reuß and Dr. Jet Tigchelaar |
AbstractAuthor's information |
The legal regulation of gender identity seems to be in a state of flux. This paper compares the German and Dutch legal systems with regard to the registration of a person’s sex, focusing on the possibility in both countries not to register a baby’s sex until it can be clearly determined. In both systems, it has thus become possible that a person has no specified gender for a considerable period of time. These persons may encounter various kinds of legal problems, since the two jurisdictions have not been adapted to accommodate them. In addition, two potential problems regarding private international law issues are discussed. |
Article |
The Penal Law of the Foe RevisitedPolitically Overcoming Liberalism or Trivially Regressing to State’s Glorification? |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 1 2015 |
Keywords | penal law of the foe, normativity, person, imputation, liberalism |
Authors | Charis Papacharalambous |
AbstractAuthor's information |
The ‘Penal Law of the Foe’ has already a long history behind it. The present article examines its basic genealogical sources and deals with the quintessence of the critique exerted against it; it is submitted that the wholesale rejection of the concept betrays that a liberal premise as to political constitution of the commons as well as of the nature of criminal system is falsely taken for granted. Crucial instead seem to be the ambiguity of the spiritual heritage of Enlightenment concerning what personhood can imply for the law discourse as well as the normativity inherent in criminal objective imputation within our post-modern condition. It is argued that the very benefit of the concept lies in its implicit political character. This could possibly make it appropriate for a criminal law policy inspired from a democratic republican spirit and aiming at the protection of the most vulnerable, thus tending to strive against the neo-liberal and anti-social erosion of modern societies. This presupposes however that the authoritarian and politically static elements of the concept be clearly displayed as theoretical shortcomings. |
Article |
Goodwill/Intangibles Accounting Rules, Earnings Management, and Competition |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 1 2015 |
Keywords | fraud, mergers and acquisitions, Games economic psychology, regulation, goodwill and intangibles |
Authors | Michael I.C. Nwogugu |
AbstractAuthor's information |
Intangible assets account for 60%-75% of the market capitalization value in most developed stock markets around the world. The US GAAP and IFRS Goodwill and Intangibles accounting regulations (ASC 805, Business Combinations; ASC 350, Goodwill and Intangible Assets; IFRS-3R, Business Combinations; and IAS 38, Accounting for Intangible Assets) are inefficient and create potentially harmful psychological biases. These regulations facilitate earnings management and money laundering, reduce competition within industries, and are likely to increase the incidence of fraud and misconduct. This article introduces a new goodwill/intangibles disclosure/accounting model that can reduce the incidence of fraud, information asymmetry, moral hazard, adverse selection, and inaccuracy. The article also introduces new economic psychological theories that can explain fraud, misconduct, and non-compliance arising from the implementation of the goodwill/intangibles accounting rules. |
Article |
Which Direction Is the Regulatory Quality Pendulum Taking? |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 1 2015 |
Keywords | regulatory quality, meta-policy, competitiveness, impact assessment, cognitive sciences |
Authors | Luca Di Donato |
AbstractAuthor's information |
This article seeks a systematic definition of regulatory quality. Most of the literature has recognised that the concept of regulatory quality is particularly difficult to define. Member states, international organisations, and others have produced studies on regulatory quality, and they have reached different findings. Even if regulatory quality is based on conventional good governance principles, the enforcement and measurement of the quality of regulations and of its tools within any single country can differ widely and be very complicated. |
Article |
Regulating Genetic Discrimination in the European UnionPushing the EU into Unchartered Territory or Ushering in a New Genomic Era? |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 1 2015 |
Keywords | genetics, regulation, discrimination, data protection, European Union |
Authors | Aisling de Paor and Delia Ferri |
AbstractAuthor's information |
Against the backdrop of rapid developments in genetic science and technology, one of the main concerns arising in this area is the potential use of genetic testing to discriminate, especially in the employment and insurance contexts. Employers and insurance companies may use the results of genetic tests to discriminate (primarily for economic advantage), based on perceptions of future health risks or future disabilities. This article explores the scope for an EU to effectively address genetic discrimination and the misuse of genetic information. It first provides a theoretical overview of the choice of regulatory frameworks. It then examines the scope and protection of current non- discrimination laws in the EU and investigates the possibility of an EU level response to address the misuse of genetic information. |