This thesis has four main objectives; a) to provide an understanding of Legal Aid Appeals Tribunals, from a description of individual cases and the activities that occur therein, focusing in the main on those at which an appellant and/or their representative is present; b) to explore the use of documentation in the tribunal practices of tribunal panel members, legal aid clerks, appellants and their representatives; c) to explore the possibilities that post-analytic ethnomethodology as the adopted research methodology allows, and to clarify what this radical research 'programme' entails; and d) taking legal positivism as an epistopic to explore its possible ethnomethodological respecification in light of the descriptions of practice in legal aid tribunals. Although this thesis explores the possibility of post-analytic descriptions it is not a theoretical investigation into post-analytic ethnomethodology, but an empirical investigation of phenomena of legal aid tribunals which allows an exploration of the practical application of post-analytic ethnomethodology. Nevertheless, some clarification is attempted of just what a post-analytic ethnomethodology may entail. Used in conjunction with the description of the use of texts in legal tribunals, the investigation of epistopics, though not a common research practice does here help develop our understanding of the situated nature of legal practical, legal decision making, and legal objectivity. In a wider sense this approach highlights an argument made throughout this research, that texts are both significant and researchable as they are utilised in everyday practices, and do not have to be research solely with reference to an isolated reader and an isolated content.

The main focus of this thesis is the three copyright collecting societies operating in the music field - PRS, which looks after the public performance and broadcasting rights in music, MCPS which is responsible for the mechanical (recording) right in music and PPL which looks after the public performance and broadcasting rights in sound recordings. Between them, these three societies had gross revenue (before costs) of over £83 million in 1983, of which PRS was responsible for 72%, MCPS for 17% and PPL for 11%. The thesis attempts to investigate their operations and performance. In many ways they are similar but there are also important differences especially between PRS and PPL on the one hand and MCPS on the other. They all depend for their operations on the concept of collective licensing – that copyright owners can more effectively exploit their copyrights by banding together in societies such as PRS, MCPS and PPL. In many cases, collective licensing represents the only possibility for the copyright owner to receive income from his copyright. All three societies also use blanket licences in their operations to various extents this means that licensees can use the entire repertoire of the society on payment of royalties and provided they supply the society with returns of their music use (on which the society bases distributions to members). Since PRS and PPL are effective monopolies, representing virtually all copyright owners in their respective fields, such licensing can be effective. MCPS is an effective monopoly only in the broadcasting field and it is only in this field that it employs blanket licensing. The other fundamental differences between MCPS and the other two societies are its agency relationship with its members and its charging of a commission to cover costs. All of this is looked at in detail.

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This thesis is a history of the reform of English bankruptcy law 1831-1914 and a statistical analysis of the insolvency the reforms sought to limit. The first two chapters describe the historiography of government growth in nineteenth-century Britain and outline the history of English bankruptcy legislation until 1831. Using statistics from bankruptcy reports published by the Board of Trade after 1883 and returns issued by other government entities prior to that date, chapters three and four define the extent and the characteristics of insolvency. These chapters analyze the aggregate level of bankruptcy in particular occupations and geographic areas; they also examine the effect of trade cycles on bankruptcy levels, both in terms of numbers of bankruptcies and losses occasioned. The remaining chapters trace the history of bankruptcy legislation and examine why Parliament embraced the concept of government supervision of bankrupt estates in 1831, then dismantled the system in the 1860s, only to reimpose it once again a short time later. The roles of three groups in this story -- the business community, the legal profession, and the government -- are examined in detail using the records of the local chambers of commerce, law societies, and other organizations. The thesis concludes that, while the aggregate level of losses declined after the Bankruptcy Act of 1883, the loss rates for some occupations did not reflect this decline. Also, trade cycles did not uniformly affect the rate of bankruptcy for all occupations and geographic areas. Random factors rather than trade cycles had the greatest effect on annual bankruptcy rates. The thesis also argues that the extension of government brought about by bankruptcy reforms was largely a pragmatic attempt to manage bankrupt estates efficiently and had little philosophical basis. Further, the close resemblances between bankruptcy reforms and other Victorian extensions of government add to the evidence that, while there may not be a strict pattern to government growth, such growth may be considered as a distinct and identifiable process.

Two appendixes have also been produced. The first lists all of the workhouses the location and date of foundation of which have been identified, and the second, all of the houses positively associated with Matthew Marryott either in the role of advisor or contractor.

This thesis shows the evolution of educated belief in witchcraft in England from 1650, at the end of the last decade of largescale prosecution, to 1735/6, when the Jacobean witchcraft legislation was repealed. It looks at this belief as a body of ideas more or less susceptible to serious use, rather than as the property of a social group, something measurable in statistical terms. There are three overlapping areas: 1. The early chapters show how witchcraft theory had an ideological import in the years 1650-1670. For Sir Robert Filmer, witchcraft prosecution was tainted by its association with puritan politics and theology. Hobbes viewed the metaphysical underpinnings of the theory with disdain, but felt it necessary to preserve witchcraft as crime within his system. For Meric Casaubon, witchcraft theory was an ideal embodiment of the restoration of traditional belief, and a boundary condition of a religiously defined community. The third chapter shows how witchcraft belief could colour mutual perceptions of Anglo- Scottish relations. 2. Having been a useful symbol of a broadly-based, religious, but non-factional society for the Harleyite Daniel Defoe in the crisis of 1710-11, witchcraft was coopted into the party struggle during the notorious Wenham case. Subsequently, witchcraft theory was a dangerous subject for a regime which, as Walpole's did, sought to disentangle the religious and secular threads which the witchcraft issue bound together. 3. Witchcraft, factionalized, became for Defoe a satirical symbol of party rule. Elsewhere it emerged, verbally and visually, whenever ferment about Church-State relations bubbled once more to the surface. These issues are examined in chapters on the last great witchcraft debate, images of witchcraft, and on repeal of English, Scottish, and Irish witchcraft legislation. The central conclusions are chronological and causal. Witchcraft theory continued to count well into the eighteenth century; and its demise had very specific political and ideological occasions.

This thesis is concerned with social inquiry and/or pre-sentence reports in criminal cases. These reports are compiled by probation officers, at the request of the court, to assist the court in reaching an appropriate sentencing decision in some criminal cases. This study takes place against and draws upon a wealth of material that has contributed to what is now a considerable body of knowledge but which has also left gaps in our understanding of the ways in which probation reports are constituted and constructed and the implications of this to the wider administration of justice. Empirical accounts of probation reports have largely consisted of documentary analyses or quantitative data. The inherent partiality of these approaches has meant that reports have been artifically decontextualised from their operational moorings. Probation practice has been theoretically located along a care-control continuum that has reflected the historical evolution of sentencing strategies and state intervention into welfare practice. The aim of this thesis is to present a contextualised account of probation reports. In order to unravel and reveal the processes, philosophies and strategies related to report writing and to address the impact of these in the judicial arena, the study was conducted from a grounded observational perspective that acknowledges the complexities of report compilation at the interactive, organisational and systems levels. In adopting this approach it is clear that the care-control model that has been applied to other areas of probation practice is not necessarily conducive to the practice of report compilation because whilst it applies to the role of the probation officer in relation to supervising offenders, it is not readily transferable to the relationship that exists between report writers and sentencers. This relationship is extremely important to both the impact and the content of reports, to the extent that the offender becomes incidental. as opposed to central, to the final document if not to the process. I suggest therefore that, whilst different areas of probation practice are not mutually exclusive, probation reports might be understood in terms of a role-function model. The role of the report writer and the function of the report emanate from an historical context that continues to have an impact on contemporary probation practice but which has rarely been the object of study at an operational level. This thesis attempts to redress the theoretical and empirical balance by adopting a qualitative approach that incorporates an historical perspective into the analysis.

This study considers the competence of lawyers. in carrying out the work of interviewing their clients and the value of training and experience in acquiring client interviewing skills. Literature on legal skills is first surveyed to assist in understanding the concept and help decide on methodology. Literature on client, interviewing' and the educational value of experiencee reviewed to provide background to subsequent studies. The first study provides an overall framework for solicitors' work and monitors, through observation and questionnaire, the work of a number of solicitors over a four day period. Client interviewing is found to take up a larger proportion of solicitors' professional work than other categories noted, and observation proves to be a more sound basis for studying detail than a questionnaire approach. The second study assesses the competence of 27 new trainee solicitors at interviewing clients through a detailed monitoring of their performance over thirteen tasks using eighteen different techniques and providing thirteen heads of information. Their performance exhibited many of the deficiencies recognised in the literature. The trainees were then randomly allocated to three treatment groups. One group received full training, one received training without audio-visual feedback of first interviews and the third (control) received no training at all. They all then undertook a second interview which was similarly assessed. Training was found significantly to enhance performance over the spectrum of measurement, an audio-visual feedback) especially enhanced behavioral aspects of performance. In the final study, solicitors and trainees ranging widely in experience were videotaped interviewing their clients and similarly assessed. Experience was not found to have- the expected effect of enhancing performance significantly except in some minor respects, but it did increase the feeling of confidence in interviewing ability. In conclusion, suggestions are made for stronger linking of training with experience in the production of new lawyers.

This thesis is concerned with the centrality of the confession as an item of prosecution evidence. It is also concerned with both the structures and strategies that have evolved in the criminal justice system to legitimate the confession and preserve its vitality as evidence probative of guilt. The socio-legal research evaluates the status of records of police interviews within the context of police custodial interrogations of persons suspected of involvement in crime. To this end the thesis examines the extent to which evidence is "constructed"' within a legal framework rather than elicited; how far the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) has affected police-suspect relations in interrogations; the circumstances in which suspects "elect" to cooperate with the police or decline to answer specific questions; and the extent to which records of interrogations can be said to be complete, accurate and reliable. The research comprises a number of different methodologies. The first stage involves a historical and case-based analysis of both the development of the use of confession evidence in criminal cases and of the forms of regulation that have been applied over police access to suspects. The investigation centres upon a structural analysis of the relationship between suspects, the police and the courts and examines the value systems which have conditioned the forms of regulation that have evolved. The next stage of the study involves a comparative analysis of the content and form of police interrogations and of the reporting or recording systems relating thereto in a sample of cases drawn from the period prior to the introduction of the PACE Act and from a sample generated following the implementation of the Act. This aspect of the research builds upon conceptual categories developed by psychologists, sociologists and criminologists. This systematic and comparative examination of the interrogation process of the pre- PACE era and the current PACE era is intended as a contribution to the debate surrounding police interview practices and will help resolve contradictory accounts relating to the police role in the criminal justice process. It is, in addition, also intended as a contribution to questions relating not only to the regulation of police powers over suspects but also to those. concerned with the form, nature and structure of the police suspect dynamic and, finally, to those associated with miscarriages of justice.

No description available.