This thesis seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the Scots law of fraud. Adopting a method that is both historical and doctrinal, it provides a critical analysis of the current understanding of fraud and argues for an approach that is more consistent with Scotland’s legal history which, in turn, was profoundly influenced by a much older tradition of European legal thought. It begins by exploring the historical scope of fraud in both a criminal and civil context with specific focus on questions of definition and the extent to which “fraud” was used in the broader sense of activities not involving deceit. A detailed analysis is given of the widespread concept of presumptive fraud by means of which Scots law was able to provide a remedy for unfair or unwarrantable behaviour without any requirement for a deceitful intention and for misstatements made unintentionally. The argument is made that presumptive fraud was a mechanism for delivering substantive justice and that its conceptual roots lie in an Aristotelian understanding of justice as equality. A comparison is made between the scholastic doctrine of restitution, which was developed by Thomas Aquinas as the outworking of the Aristotelian virtue of justice, and the scheme of Scots law created in the Institutions of the Law of Scotland by Viscount Stair (1619-1695), who is said to be the founding father of Scots law. It is suggested that the religious and philosophical conditions which existed in seventeenth century Scotland were particularly fertile soil for scholastic legal ideas which conceptualised law within a moral and religious framework. The second half of the thesis undertakes a doctrinal analysis of fraud in three parts. First, the complex relationship between fraud, error and misrepresentation is examined and the case is made that misrepresentation, whether intentional or unintentional, sits more comfortably in the law of fraud than in the law of error. Secondly, modern legal literature is critically assessed and the dominant modern narrative – that error induced by misrepresentation is a native concept in Scots law – is questioned. Thirdly, a new taxonomy of fraud is proposed which distinguishes between primary and secondary fraud. The operation of secondary fraud (which amounts to “participation” in the primary fraud of another and therefore involves three-party situations) is explored through the application of two familiar legal maxims: the “fraud” principle (that no one should be enriched through the fraud of another) and the good faith purchaser for value. In the context of secondary fraud, it is argued that the criteria for its operation - mala fides and a gratuitous transaction - are both core components of the older concept of presumptive fraud. The thesis comes full circle as it is suggested that while the broader equitable definition of fraud, rooted in equality, may have disappeared in the context of primary fraud, secondary fraud retains it.

Une condamnation pénale définitive ne peut en principe plus être remise en cause. La chose jugée doit en effet être tenue pour vraie. L’adage non bis in idem et les principes de l’autorité et de la force de la chose jugée semblent dès lors interdire de rouvrir le procès pénal. Toutefois, le législateur français prévoit deux procédures distinctes permettant de remettre encause la condamnation prononcée : la révision et le réexamen. Les conditions de mise en oeuvre de ces procédures et leurs spécificités en font des procédures très exceptionnelles. Par la présentation d’éléments nouveaux de fait pour la révision, et de droit pour le réexamen, le requérant peut dans certains cas prétendre à nouvelle étude de son affaire. Cependant cette réouverture ne pourra être décidée que par une juridiction ad hoc et sera de type différent selon le nouveau procès envisagé. De plus, l’issue de ce nouveau procès pourra permettre de maintenir la condamnation en dépit des nouveaux faits présentés ou reconnaître l’innocence du condamné. / Final sentencing in a criminal trial cannot in principle be questioned any more. Indeed the adjudged case has to be considered as definitely settled. The non bis in idem Latin saw and the res judicata tenet thus seem to preclude the re-opening of a criminal trial. And yet, lawgivers put in place two distinct legal processes that enable French citizens to challenge their sentencing: reviewing and re-hearing. The conditions for carrying out these processes and their own specifities make these proceedings quite exceptional. Through the presentation of new evidence for reviewing, and because re-hearing can be considered as of right, convicted people may in some cases get a new trial. Nevertheless only an ad hoc jurisdiction can decide upon a new hearing and the latter will be of a different kind depending on the new trial at hand. Moreover, the upshot of this new trial will make it possible either to maintain the sentencing notwithstanding new evidence being presented to a new court or to declare the defendant not guilty.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:29:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Silvia Roberta Chiarelli.pdf: 1008898 bytes, checksum: 9b31c82b3ec32fa43edbc9e042a2c0be (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-05-18 / The aim of the present academic work is to present the procedures of the tax assessment changeability, foreseen in the interpolated propositions of article 145 of the Internal revenue code, also, it covers the ability on performing such activity and the substantial causes for the changeability, as foreseen in the interpolated propositions of article 149 of the same statute, covering the pictures of the vices of the legal fact tributary occurred by the insertion of deficient individual and concrete rules of law, contaminated of errors in fact and right. Leading in consideration that the tax assessment - conceived as the administrative activity of which the Treasury department constitutes the tributary liability and consequentely, the tributary credit, and notifies the passive citizen to pay it it can eventually contain irregularities (vices) and that the Public Administration can and must review its own acts when contaminated of nullities. Our Internal Tax Code, in observance to the Federal Constitution that imposes limits or restrictions to legal disciplines of revision of the tax assessment, preventing itself the confront of the basic rights of the contributor, establishes two limits criteria for its revision, which are the temporal limits and the objective limits. The temporal limits rely on to the legal stated period of which the revision could be initiated; therefore, it is associated to the decay of the right to review the tax assessment. And the objective limits are related to the justifying fundamentals of the revision, which are the error in fact, the error of law and the change of legal criteria / O presente trabalho versa sobre o procedimento da alterabilidade do lançamento tributário previsto nos incisos do artigo 145 do Código Tributário Nacional, bem como nas formas de competência para o exercício dessa alteração e mais, nas causas substanciais da sua revisibilidade previstas nos incisos do artigo 149 do mesmo diploma legal, percorrendo-se os quadros dos vícios do fato jurídico tributário ocorridos pela inserção de normas jurídicas individuais e concretas deficientes, eivadas de erros de fato e de direito. Levando em consideração que o lançamento concebido como a atividade administrativa pela qual o Fisco constitui a obrigação tributária e conseqüentemente, o crédito tributário e notifica o sujeito passivo para pagá-lo pode eventualmente conter irregularidades (vícios) e que a Administração Pública pode e deve rever seus atos quando eivados de nulidades. Nosso Código Tributário Nacional, em observância à Constituição Federal impõe limites ou restrições à disciplina legal de revisão do lançamento tributário evitando-se dessa forma afronta aos direitos fundamentais do contribuinte, estabelece dois critérios limitadores à revisão do lançamento: os temporais e os objetivos. Os limites temporais dizem respeito ao prazo legal dentro do qual poderá a revisão ser iniciada, portanto, diz respeito à decadência do direito de rever o lançamento tributário, e os objetivos estão relacionados aos fundamentos justificadores da revisão, quais sejam, o erro de fato, erro de direito e mudança de critérios jurídicos