Reformen om att inrätta mark- och miljödomstolar började gälla den 2 maj 2011. Den innebar bland annat en sammanslagning av fastighetsdomstolar, miljödomstolar och ärenden enligt plan- och bygglagen som tidigare prövades i förvaltningsrätten. Regeringens syfte med reformen om att inrätta mark- och miljödomstolar var att förenkla, samordna och effektivisera handläggning och domstolsprövning. Genom att fastighetsdomstolarna ersattes av mark- och miljödomstolarna ansvarar de numera för överklagade beslut i lantmäteriförrättning enligt bland annat fastighetsbildningslagen, anläggningslagen och ledningsrättslagen. Beslut i lantmäteriförrättningar fattas av en lantmäterimyndighet. Uppsatsens syfte är att genom hypoteser utvärdera hur framgångsrik reformen om att inrätta mark- och miljödomstolar har varit genom att jämföra fastighetsmål som prövats i sak i andra instans före och efter reformen. För jämförelsen används uppgifter om antalet prövningstillstånd, antalet överklaganden som avslagits, antalet återförvisade fastighetsmål och handläggningstiden för fastighetsmålen. Jämförelsen sker av beslut/utslag/domar mellan perioden 2009-01-01 till 2010-12-31 och perioden 2012-01-01 till 2014-12-31 i hovrätterna/Mark- och miljööverdomstolen. En av slutsatsen är att handläggningstiden i domstolen har minskat genom inrättande av mark- och miljödomstolen. Uppsatsen har kunnat konstatera att överklagandeförbud med ventil har inneburit minskat antal prövningstillstånd i Högsta domstol samt att trenden verkar vara att det är oförändrat antal beviljade prövningstillstånd till Högsta domstolen. / The reform to establish land and environment courts went into effect on the 2 May, 2011. Amongst other things, it meant a consolidation of the property-, environmental courts and cases according to the planning and building law that was previously litigated under the administrative law. The Government’s aim with the reform to establish the land and environment courts was to simplify, coordinate and to make the handling and judicial proceedings more effective. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate how successful the reform on the establishment of land and environment courts has been, through hypotheses comparing property cases that have been litigated in other instances, before and after the reform. For comparison, information on the number of review permits, the number of appeals rejected, the number of deferred property cases and the processing time for property cases will be used. Verdicts made during period 2009-01-01 to 2010-12-31 and the period 2012-01-01 to 2014-12-31 in the court of appeals/Land and Environmental Court of Appeal will be compared. One conclusions made is that the processing time in court was reduced through the establishment of the land and environment appeals court. The thesis argues that the prohibition of appeal has meant a reduction in the number of review permits at the Supreme Court. Furthermore, the trend seems to be that there is an unchanged number of approved review permits to the Supreme Court.

In South Africa there is no legislation defining the role of court interpreters. This has resulted in legal officials (magistrates and judges) forming their own opinions as to what the role of court interpreters is. As such court interpreters find themselves performing tasks that are outside their scope of duties, for example acting as magistrates, in turn compromising their own tasks in the process. The aim of this study therefore is to determine the degree to which the lack of a definition of the role of court interpreters affects the quality of court interpreting. In the study, the researcher was guided by the Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS) approach. The research procedures that were followed in the study combined the top-down and bottom-up approaches. In the top-down approach, two legislations, namely, “The Magistrates’ Court Act 44 of 1944 (as amended)” and “The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Act 93 of 1996 (as amended)”, were examined in order to determine whether the role of court interpreters is defined and, if so, to what extent. In the bottom-up approach, examples of court proceedings were studied in order to determine specific roles that are played by court interpreters during trials. Extracts from transcripts of mechanically-recorded court proceedings were also analysed to establish whether magistrates made any references to the role of court interpreters in these trials. It is hoped that this study will shed more light on the role of court interpreters which could lead to better quality interpreting. / Linguistics / M.A. (Linguistics (Translation studies))

In light of the increasing number of mentally ill inmates in the criminal justice system, felony mental health courts aim to de-criminalize these individuals and link them to appropriate types of treatment within the community. Few studies have investigated the successful linkage of community-based treatment among felony mental health court participants. More specifically, there is an absence of research on the efficacy of pharmacotherapy on recidivism status among felony mental health court defendants. This retrospective study used archival data to determine if receiving pharmacotherapy will increase duration of time between arrests and keep felony mental health court participants out of the criminal justice system longer. The study also aimed to investigate if psychotropic medication use helped to reduce the risk of violent arrests among those participating in the felony mental health program. Lastly, it evaluated whether drugs from specific classes had more of an effect on recidivism status than others. Cox regression analyses, with propensity score adjustments, were used to determine if psychotropic medication keeps felony mental health court participants out of the criminal justice system longer. Cox regression analysis was also used to determine if specific drugs from different classes had more of an effect on time to re-arrest than others. Lastly, a binary logistic regression, with propensity score adjustments, was used to determine if psychotropic medication helped to reduce the risk of future violent offenses after entry into the FMHC program. All analyses included covariates to control for any potentially confounding factors to the outcome. The study yielded non-significant results when testing whether or not the use of psychotropic medication had an impact on the time to re-arrest, and on risks of future violent offenses.

No description available.

The importance ascribed by a nation to the subject of occupational safety and health is reflective in the growth, sustainability and the national development of an economy. Besides the economic benefits stood to be derived from an occupational safety and health structure that is constantly nurtured, there is also the human rights issue. Less industrialised nations still grapple with fundamental challenges brought about by occupational health and safety, challenges which more advanced nations seem to effortlessly address. Nigeria falls into the former category, hence, the interest of this thesis. The knowledge of this menace has been in the consciousness of stakeholders in Nigeria particularly in the recent past years. However, no significant action has been taken to alleviate the situation. There are instruments that deal with the subject of occupational health and safety but they all seem to have their attendant issues which make them either inoperable or of insignificant benefit to the situation of workers in Nigeria. The tardy attitude of the Nigerian Law makers also does not help the situation. This thesis is therefore of the view that until the period the Nigerian Government is able to get its bearing right in designing a suitable piece of legislation that shall address the challenges caused by occupational health and safety, it is possible to seek an alternative approach that shall serve as a safety net towards the protection of workers particularly those that are most vulnerable. This alternative approach that the thesis proposes is the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN), a Court that recently acquired the status of a superior court of record and conferred with extensive Constitutional powers over occupational safety and health matters amongst others. It is the anticipation of this thesis that the Court shall make a positive impact where legislation had failed to succeed in its bidding.

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No description available.

No description available.

The ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791 brought freedom of the press into the sphere of constitutional legitimacy such that it could not be nullified by the whims of elected officials. Traditionally the guarantee of a free press has been treated as an adjunct of the Speech Clause with little, if any, independent status. Recently, however, that traditional conception has come under increasing attack. Many attorneys, judges and academicians have argued for a separation of the Press and Speech Clauses. For example, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart has stated his belief that the Press Clause is a structural guarantee which provides greater First Amendment protection to the press than that generally accorded the public. Therefore, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Zurcher v. Stanford Daily (1978) that ratified searches of non-suspect, third-party newsmen exemplified for these supporters the nadir of press freedom in recent years. In this study the importance of the Zurcher decision to public policy, public law and legal studies is examined in detail. The study utilizes the systems model popularized by David Easton to observe the events leading up to the decision and both the judicial and legislative responses to that decision. In addition, a new theory of press freedom is presented which analogizes the Press Clause to the Free Exercise of Religion Clause. This theory suggests that the Press Clause should be separated from the Speech Clause in the same way as the Free Exercise Clause has been separated. This would establish the Press Clause as an independent clause granting a special status to the press: a status which the author believes to be warranted by the language of the First Amendment and the absolute necessity for a press free of governmental intrusion and regulation.

This dissertation seeks to describe and explain the connection between The Supreme Court and politics outside of the judicial system. It is a case study of the reaction to the Brown v. Board of Education integration decision in the American South. I apply a theoretical model of “judicialization,” arguing that when courts affect politics outside of the judicial system, they reshape politics to resemble the adversarial legal system, sparking polarized conflict and causing non-judicial political actors to make arguments in the form of constitutional doctrine. Analyzing editorials and letters to the editor from Southern newspapers, I show that debate after Brown was characterized by appeals to constitutional principles, and that Brown increased the salience of segregation in schools as a subject of political debate. I also supplement my Southern newspaper data with data from African-American newspapers and analyze Southern elections in the periods immediately before and after the education integration decision to assess the impact of the Court’s education decision on both voters and candidates. / text