Law Reform Processes and Criminalising Coercive Control

Australia is witnessing a political, social and cultural renaissance of public debate regarding violence against women, particularly in relation to domestic and family violence (DFV), sexual assault and sexual harassment. Women's voices calling for law reform are central to that renaissance, as they have been to feminist law reform dating back to nineteenth-century campaigns for property and suffrage rights. Although feminist research has explored women’s voices, speaking out and storytelling to highlight the exclusions and limitations of the legal and criminal justice systems in responding to women’s experience, less attention has been paid to how women's voices are elicited, received and listened to, and the forms of response they have received. We argue that three recent public inquiries in Australia reveal an urgent need for a victim-survivor-centred theory of listening to women’s voices in law reform seeking to address violence against women. We offer a nascent theory of a victim-survivor-centred approach grounded in openness, receptivity, attentiveness and responsiveness, and argue that in each of our case studies, law reform actors failed to adequately listen to women by silencing and refusing to listen to them; by hearing them but failing to be open, receptive and attentive; and by selectively hearing and resisting transformation. We argue that these inquiries signal an acute need for attention to the dynamics of listening in law reform processes, and conclude that a victim-survivor-centred theory of listening is a critical foundation for meaningful change to address violence against women.

An analytical framework for water services law – Comparative approaches in Scotland and South Africa

This article critically examines the proposed reforms to Irish mental health law the Mental Health Act 2001 (2001 Act). The article will provide background to the 2001 Act and the lengthy law reform process, which has resulted in the publication of the Heads of Bill that propose significant amendments. The article assesses the suggested reforms, considering Ireland's 2018 ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which provides important context to the law reform process. The 2001 Act is the primary piece of legislation regulating mental health services and safeguarding the rights of persons subject to the legislation in Ireland. While passed in 2001, the legislation did not come into effect until 2006. The 2001 Act was seen as bringing Irish mental health law into compliance with international human rights law, in particular the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). However, Ireland's ratification of the CRPD has necessitated closer scrutiny of the legislation. This review has culminated in the publication of a Heads of Bill in July 2021 and pre-legislative scrutiny by the responsible parliamentary committee in 2022. The long title of the Heads of Bill explicitly states its goal of safeguarding individual autonomy and underscores its commitment to upholding and advancing the rights of people subject to the legislation. The analysis of the Heads of Bill addresses several key areas. These areas include a background to the long process of review, new guiding principles, the category of persons under the mental health legislation, mental health tribunals, consent to treatment, advance healthcare directives, provisions relating to children and young people, and independent advocacy. Based on this analysis of the Heads of Bill, recommendations are suggested which would strengthen respect for the human rights of persons subject to the legislation.

There are several aspects of law reform. At the most obvious level, the law may need reforming because it produces results which are contrary to common sense or unfair. This may arise from defects in the substantive law, or defects in procedural law, or both. Substantive law is concerned with rights and wrongs and with the remedies for their violation. Procedural law is concerned with the process by which remedies are made available. Sometimes there is no very clear distinguishing line between substantive and procedural law: thus the definition of a criminal offence, including the maximum punishment prescribed, is substantive law, but whether it is triable summarily or on indictment is procedural. Further, if we consider legal aid, the part of the law that governs eligibility is substantive, yet since the whole purpose is ancillary to bringing or defending cases we think of it as being procedural. However, we must continue to make a distinction because when a part of the law is working badly, different authorities may be responsible depending on whether substantive law or procedure is identified as the source of the trouble. If, for example, some regulations concerning motor vehicles do not seem to be enforced, inquiry may show that the regulations need amending, which is a matter for the Minister of Transport.

This article discusses the legal regulation of social standards and safeguards as the basis of social welfarein Ukraine. The author investigates the nature of a living wage as a basic unit for the establishment of social guarantees and standards. Also the process of law reform in Ukraine, which regulates the state social standardsand guarantees, are studies. The author provides conclusions and suggestions concerning the legal regulationof social standards and safeguards in Ukraine.

This article examines the political rationales at work behind the particularly repressive 2006 Costa Rican immigration law and subsequent immigration reform process and resulting 2010 law through an analysis of two rival framings of immigration in Costa Rica. First, I examine how the rushed nature of the 2006 law constructed a crisis in which migrants, particularly Nicaraguans, represented urgent threats to national security. Next, I examine the 2010 law that emerged from the reform process and the alternative framings of immigration as an issue of human rights and integration that migration advocates contributed to the new law. I argue that the juxtaposition of integration and security frameworks in the new law reinforces the law's most repressive measures, contributing to an overall project of securitization and marginalization of immigrants.

Though shaped by the distinct historical and political regimes and institutions in each country, women’s movements in South Asian countries have much in common. The struggle for justice in the context of violence against women is one of them. Women’s movements in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have a rich history and tradition of resisting patriarchy and violence by state and non-state actors and pursuing justice and accountability through political struggles and democratic processes. In this article, I examine two decades of South Asian feminist engagements with law in the realm of violence against women. I explore the potential for cross border legal activism, strategy sharing, solidarity, and cooperation. For my analysis, I largely draw upon feminist responses to honor crimes, acid violence, domestic violence and sexual violence. The paper is divided into five parts. In Part I, I introduce the topic and define the parameters of the article. In Part II, I discuss South Asian feminist engagements with law-making and law reform processes. Part III consists of an analysis of judgments that advance gender justice, resulting from feminist advocacy and lawyering. Part IV foregrounds the common journeys, shared experiences and challenges, and common feminist strategies in the annals of law and justice. I conclude this paper, in Part V, with the emerging South Asian feminist jurisprudence on violence against women, and its immense potential in advancing justice in each of the countries in the region.

This article discusses South Korea’s recent property law reform (affecting “Chonse”) and its unintended impact on the housing market. Chonse is a unique and prevailing residential lease found only in South Korea. Under a Chonse contract, a lessee makes a one-time deposit with the lessor, the amount of which equates to a substantial portion of the property value; in exchange, the lessee is permitted to lease the property free of rent and reclaim the deposit on the expiration of the lease. This unique leasehold system has existed for several economic reasons. Recent developments render the future prospect of Chonse uncertain; housing costs have been rapidly increasing in South Korea, particularly in the City of Seoul, generating financial pressure on lessees. In response to this price hike, the South Korean government has undertaken controversial law reform that imposes a cap on annual rent increase, including Chonse deposit amount, and also mandates one-time renewal of residential lease for additional two years, in efforts to assist lessees and stabilize the housing market. This law reform, however, has caused unintended disruption in the housing market and a shortage of residential properties available for Chonse. The author has previously introduced Chonse in a co-authored article and examined its historical origin, legal elements, and future prospects. This article, building on the author’s previous work, analyzes the socioeconomic impact of Korea’s recent Chonse reform. The article adopts the “General Theory of Law and Development” and explains why the law reform has resulted in unintended outcomes. The article cautions against the (well-intended) attempt to restrict property rights resulting in disruptions in the housing market and increasing costs for Chonse lessees.

Article by Neil Faris (Solicitor and a former Commissioner at the Northern Ireland Law Commission) reflecting on the nature of law reform as carried out by law commissions. This is in the context of the author’s experience in the Northern Ireland Law Commission. The paper assesses the importance of independence in any law reform body and the particular impact which law commissioners may bring to the law reform process. The paper looks at the history of law reform in Northern Ireland leading to the establishment of the Commission with a brief overview of the work of the Commission. The conclusion is that there is a role for effective law reform driven by commissioner led independent law commissions. The author makes a strong case for the need for independent law commissions to promote high quality law reform. His article gives an idea about how law reform works in practice with law commissions providing one route for reforming the law.

The author uses the premises and inquiries advanced by the literature on social inclusion to consider its potential for the re-visioning of criminal law and policy. She notes that criminal law and social inclusion are fundamentally at odds, but argues that governments and policy makers committed to inclusion in social and economic policy cannot fulfil that mandate without turning their attention to criminal law. She identifies the process of criminal law reform, the definition of crime, the enforcement of the law, and the outcomes of criminal law as areas for which social inclusion offers insights and directions.

This chapter maps out our volume on the commercial contract law in scholarship and law reform. It starts by outlining the general distinction between commercial and non-commercial contract law and by introducing and critically reflecting on recent law reform in this area of law. It then moves on to introducing and contextualising the contributions which the chapters on Parts II and III of this volume make to scholarly debate of selected distinctive aspects of commercial contracts and of the interface of commercial contracts and contract law with public international law. The chapter concludes with an outlook and brief summary of the general findings of the research presented in this volume.

Nick Brotchie, Librarian of the Scottish Law Commission, provides a history of law reform initiatives in Scotland, traces the evolution of the Scottish Law Commission and explains the process of law reform in Scotland.

A History of the Corporations and Markets Advisory Committee and its Predecessors

The vast majority of people in U.S. women’s prisons are survivors of interpersonal violence, a pattern that organizers and advocates have referred to as the abuse-to-prison pipeline. This article critically examines criminal prosecution from the perspectives of survivors of interpersonal violence who faced long prison sentences in California. In-depth interviews and group discussions were generated through a participatory process at a gathering to launch the University of California Sentencing Project, a partnership with the community-based organization California Coalition for Women Prisoners. The twenty-two formerly incarcerated participants had collectively spent more than 300 years imprisoned. Drawing on their lived experiences spanning several decades and multiple jurisdictions, this article offers an unyielding account of tactics of isolation, intimidation, narrative manipulation, and confinement as definitional to prosecutorial practice and culture. This criminalized survivor-centered analysis of prosecution shows how one of the most robustly funded public interventions for interpersonal violence is not merely failing to protect victims but is protracting patterns of abuse and coercive control. Implications are discussed in terms of social care work and collective defense rooted in abolition feminism.

This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between women's empowerment and fertility in rural Tanzania. Data were collected from randomly selected 120 women in 4 randomly selected villages from 2 wards in Igunga District using a structured and non-structured questionnaire. Descriptive and regression analyses using Statistical Package for Social Sciences were used to determine the factors for fertility. Women's empowerment was measured by five proxies: economic decision-making, mobility, coercive control, family planning and contraceptive use, as well as family size decision-making. Fertility status was measured by age-specific fertility rates and total fertility rates. The main argument adopted by this study was that higher fertility rates might be lowered through interventions that enhance women empowerment. The results clearly indicate that women in the study area are less empowered based on the adopted indicators and that such lower levels of empowerment together with demographic and cultural factors including men's dominance are responsible for higher fertility in the study area. This study recommends that interventions addressing cultural factors and enhancement of women empowerment may lower higher fertility rates from the study area. Moreover, although this study dealt with women as the unit of data collection and analysis, it is important that such interventions should involve both men and women. This, as seen from male dominance, is important because any change that is expected will come from decisions made by men to change the current situation