Digital Commons Network^™

Racial Indirection, Yuvraj Joshi

Yuvraj Joshi

Education And The Equal Status Acts - Stokes -V- Christian Brothers High School Clonmel, Mel Cousins

Mel Cousins

This case involved a challenge under the Equal Status Act (ESA) to the admissions rules of a Clonmel secondary school which, it was argued, indirectly discriminated against children from the Traveller community. At first instance (before the Equality Tribunal) and on appeal to the Circuit Court it had been held that this rule did have a disproportionate impact on Travellers but the Court and Tribunal differed as to whether this was objectively justified or not. On further appeal to the High Court, McCarthy J. held that there was no disproportionate impact as, adopting a dictionary definition of the term ‘particular’, …

Incapacitation Through Maiming: Chemical Castration, The Eighth Amendment, And The Denial Of Human Dignity, John F. Stinneford

John F. Stinneford

This year marks the tenth anniversary of California's enactment of the nation's first chemical castration law. This law requires certain sex offenders to receive, as part of their punishment, long-term pharmacological treatment involving massive doses of a synthetic female hormone called medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA). MPA treatment is described as chemical castration because it mimics the effect of surgical castration by eliminating almost all testosterone from the offender's system. The intended effect of MPA treatment is to alter brain and body function by reducing the brain's exposure to testosterone, thus depriving offenders of most (or all) capacity to experience sexual desire …

The Future Of Polyamorous Marriage: Lessons From The Marriage Equality Struggle, Hadar Aviram, Gwendolyn Manriquez Leachman

Hadar Aviram

Amidst the recent legal victories and growing public support for same-sex marriage, numerous polyamorous individuals have expressed interest in pursuing legal recognition for marriages between more than two consenting adults. This Article explores the possibilities that exist for such a polyamorous marriage equality campaign, in light of the theoretical literature on law and social movements, as well as our own original and secondary research on polyamorous and LGBT communities. Among other issues, we examine the prospect of prioritizing the marriage struggle over other forms of nonmarital relationship recognition; pragmatic regulative challenges, like taxation, healthcare, and immigration; and how law and …

Discrimination In Customer Segmentation Marketing Practices, Jude A. Thomas

Jude A Thomas

Customer segmentation is a powerful analytical marketing practice that is employed by a wide range of businesses to segregate customers with similar characteristics into subgroups in order to inform operational business processes. Such practices allow firms to better allocate their resources in order to form more profitable customer relationships, but they also have the capacity to lead to unfair discriminatory impact upon customer groups. Current legislation is largely unprotective of customers so positioned, but recent trends in the insurance and lending industries suggest that a broader application of anti-discrimination laws could foretell a future of greater restrictions on the implementation …

The Constitutional Infirmity Of Warrantless Nsa Surveillance: The Abuse Of Presidential Power And The Injury To The Fourth Amendment, Robert M. Bloom, William J. Dunn

Robert Bloom

In recent months, there have been many revelations about the tactics used by the Bush Administration to prosecute their war on terrorism. These stories involve the exploitation of technologies that allow the government, with the cooperation of phone companies and financial institutions, to access phone and financial records. This paper focuses on the revelation and widespread criticism of the Bush Administration’s operation of a warrantless electronic surveillance program to monitor international phone calls and emails that originate or terminate with a United States party. The powerful and secret National Security Agency heads the program and leverages its significant intelligence collection …

How Much Religious Freedom Can An Arab Muslim Expect In Europe?, Marcel Stuessi

Marcel Stüssi

How much religious freedom can an Arab Muslim expect in Europe?

Arab Muslims who come to the West for work and security are often strong believers. Reli-gious law requires them to follow specific religious practices that may appear unusual to the average European observer. This situation has caused strained relations between the local (mainstream) population and Muslim migrants.

To make the position of Arab Muslims living in Europe more tangible, imagine the following situation. Assume that Mahmoud, a devout young Muslim, left Damascus to live in Zurich, Switzerland. As a young professional he was fed up with both Syria’s political …

Fifteen Years And Death: Double Jeopardy, Multiple Punishments, And Extended Stays On Death Row, Michael J. Johnson

Michael P. Johnson

Fifteen Years and Death is a Note that considers a completely novel application of the Double Jeopardy Clause to excessive time on death row. Traditionally, death penalty opponents have attacked the now fifteen-year average wait time on death row as a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments, but this argument has fallen flat time and time again as courts have been reluctant to find merely living in prison to be “cruel” or “unusual.” Most courts do admit, however, that such time on death row does constitute some sort of punishment. As originally imagined, the Double …

Constitutional Standing In Singapore: A Comment On Tan Eng Fong V Attorney General, Shubhankar Dam

Shubhankar Dam

No abstract provided.

Criminal Wrongs And Constitutional Rights: A View From India, Shubhankar Dam

Shubhankar Dam

This essay offers an overview of how ideas of constitutionalism, rule of law and fundamental rights contributed to the development of criminal law in India. Various courts, and the Supreme Court in particular, have summoned these broad constitutional concepts to understand, interpret and develop criminal law doctrines. But they are also drawing on these concepts to increasingly address “structural” issues of the criminal justice system - the very apparatus responsible for implementing the doctrines.

Freedom Of Speech And The ‘Occupy’ Protests: ‘Narrowly Tailored To Further Significant Government Interests’, Mel Cousins

Mel Cousins

This note examines the spate of recent court decisions concerning efforts by Occupy protestors in various cities of the USA to prevent the removal (or restriction) of their protests. In general, though by no means in all cases, the courts, applying existing freedom of speech principles, have upheld the protestors’ right to protest to some extent but have placed narrow limits around the manner in which this right may be exercised. Following a short introduction (Part 1), Part 2 discuses the approach which has been taken by the courts in recent cases. The approach adopted contrasts sharply with the Supreme …

Lessons From Hurricane Katrina: Prison Emergency Preparedness As A Constitutional Imperative, Ira P. Robbins

Ira P. Robbins

Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst natural disasters ever to strike the United States, in terms of casualties, suffering, and financial cost. Often overlooked among Katrina's victims are the 8,000 inmates who were incarcerated at Orleans Parish Prison (OPP) when Katrina struck. Despite a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, these men and women, some of whom had been held on charges as insignificant as public intoxication, remained in the jail as the hurricane hit, and endured days of rising, toxic waters, a lack of food and drinking water, and a complete breakdown of order within OPP. When the inmates …

The U.N. Security Council Ad Hoc Rwanda Tribunal: International Justice, Or Judicially-Constructed “Victor’S Impunity”?, C. Peter Erlinder

C. Peter Erlinder

ABSTRACT The U.N. Security Council Ad Hoc Rwanda Tribunal: International Justice, or Juridically-Constructed “Victor’s Impunity”? Prof. Peter Erlinder [1] ________________________ “…if the Japanese had won the war, those of us who planned the fire-bombing of Tokyo would have been the war criminals….” [2] Robert S. McNamara, U.S. Secretary of State “…and so it goes…” [3] Billy Pilgrim (alter ego of an American prisoner of war, held in the cellar of a Dresden abattoir, who survived firebombing by his own troops, author Kurt Vonnegut Jr.) Introduction Unlike the postWW- II Tribunals, the U.N. Security Council tribunals for the former Yugoslavia [10] …

Unburdening The Constitution: What Has The Indian Constitution Got To Do With Private Universities, Modernity And Nation States?, Shubhankar Dam

Shubhankar Dam

This article critically analyses the decision of the Indian Supreme Court in Yashpal and another v. State of Chhattisgarh and others holding the establishment of private universities as unconstitutional. Swayed by the overwhelmingly irresponsible character of the respondent universities, the Supreme Court innovated constitutional arguments to uphold the claims of the petitioners. While intuitively correct in the context of the immediate facts, the judgment, when analysed in the abstract, reveals the self-inflicted harm it has the potential to cause. The judgment is technologically regressive: it fails to account for the emerging trends in education, especially those related to the use …

Boyakasha, Fist To Fist: Respect And The Philosophical Link With Reciprocity In International Law And Human Rights, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Strikes Through The Prism Of Duties: Is There A Fundamental Duty To Strike Under The Indian Constitution?, Shubhankar Dam

Shubhankar Dam

Much of the debates on the legality of strikes under the Indian Constitution has been on the issue of a right to strike. This paper argues that the constitutionality of strikes may be analysed through the prism of duties, i.e. fundamental duties under Part IVA of the Constitution. Strikes were an integral part of the ideals that inspired India's national struggle against imperialism. And, in this sense, when article 51A exhorts Indians to cherish and follow the noble ideals that inspired our freedom struggle, it includes a fundamental duty to strike. Invoking the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi, the paper argues …