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<p>NR 20140805</p>

The construct of mental toughness is in a state of evolution and refinement. The current study proposed to investigate; (1) the importance of mental toughness attributes from a Classical Martial Arts context, (2) the trainability of the mental toughness attributes from a Classical Martial Arts context, (3) and the extent to which classical martial artists perceive that attributes converge under broader, overarching sub-categories. The current study used a two-phase approach to evaluate the perceptions of mental toughness in 174 non-competition based classical martial artists. Phase One used a survey (a) to assess the perceived importance and trainability of mental toughness, (b) to evaluate unique CMA (CMA) mental toughness components, and (c) to determine underlying factors via factor analysis. Phase Two used interviews to enhance study perspectives of 20 randomly selected CMA participants. Phase One survey results support (a) the inclusion of all items as important to the mental toughness construct, (b) the trainability of all but 4 items, and (c) anticipation, learning attitude, and ethics as three unique CMA mental toughness components. The factor analysis supports the use of a six-factor model, which accounts for 60% of the variance, to explain CMA toughness. Phase Two promotes the use of several key themes as important to mental toughness in the CMA¬- conviction, commitment, conditioning, readiness to perform, distraction control, and shifting focus of attention. Phase Two also provides insight into the context specific application of the six-factor model. Previous perspectives on attribute importance, trainability, and general dimensions of mental toughness are supported by the current study. Variations exist between dimensions in the current study and those found previously. However, these differences are noted to exist more in context applications than in the essential meanings. / Ph. D.

A travers le système de l’intime conviction les Constituants consacrent un système de liberté de la preuve àl’opposé du système de preuve légale en vigueur sous l’Ancien Régime. L’intime conviction repose sur lacertitude morale des jurés et fait appel à leur conscience citoyenne et religieuse. A la sanction légale lesConstituants ont substitué une sanction morale. Face à l’émergence des preuves scientifiques au XIXème siècle, lesystème de l’intime conviction, remis en cause, continue néanmoins d’incarner le système de preuve le plus à apteà découvrir la vérité et à protéger la liberté individuelle. Au cours de la période contemporaine, la perted’indépendance des jurés vis-à-vis des magistrats professionnels d’une part et l’introduction d’une motivation desarrêts de la cour d’assises d’autre part questionnent à nouveau le système de l’intime conviction. La pérennité dusystème de l’intime conviction suppose un renforcement du poids décisionnel des jurés dans le jugement de lacour d’assises et une revalorisation de leur rôle au cours du procès pénal. L’exigence de motivation de laculpabilité des arrêts de la cour d’assises instaurée par la loi du 10 août 2011 sur la participation des citoyens aufonctionnement de la justice et le jugement des mineurs se révèle minimale. Au regard des exigences du droit auprocès équitable, il convient d’une part de renforcer la motivation de la culpabilité et d’étendre d’autre part lamotivation des arrêts de la cour d’assises à la peine prononcée. L’intégration des exigences du droit au procèséquitable en matière de motivation dans notre procédure pénale, constitue une chance pour le système de l’intimeconviction, ainsi appelé à se renouveler. / Through the system of the firm conviction, the constituents consecrate a system of freedom of the proof opposite to the system of legal proof applicable under the former regime. The firm conviction is based on the moral certitude of the jurors and involves their civic and religious consciousness. The constituents have substituted the legal sanction by a moral sanction. With the emergence of scientific proofs during the XIXth century, the system of firm conviction, although challenged, however continues to embody the proof system that is the most suitable to discover the truth and protect individual freedom. Over the contemporary period, the loss of independence of jurors towards professional judges on one end and the introduction of the requirement of reasoning for the judgement of assize courts on the other end again question the system of the firm conviction. The sustainability of the system of the firm conviction implies a strenthening to the decisional power of the jurors in the judgement of the assize court and a revalorisation of the role of the jurors during criminal trials. The requirement of the reasoning leading to guilt in the judgement of the assize court established by the law of the 10th August 2011 on the partcipation of the citizens to the functioning of Justice and judgement of minors proves to be insufficient. Regarding the legal requirements for a fair trial, it is necessary to reinforce on one end the reasoning leading to guilt and to extend on the other end the requirement of reasoning to the sentence pronounced by the assize court. The integration of the legal requirements for a fair trial regarding the reasoning in our criminal proceedings represents a chance for the system of the firm conviction which is thus called to renew itself.

Many legal systems throughout the world have established out-of-court remedies to rectify miscarriages of justice and wrongful convictions. In Canada, this extraordinary remedy is served by a government minister, who is entrusted with the assessment of claims of innocence post-conviction. While researchers have already addressed various concerns over the current conviction review process (Braiden & Brockman, 1999; Walker & Campbell, 2009; Roach, 2012a), Roach (2012b) emphasized that little is known about the applicant’s lived experience. This thesis intends to explore the underlying rationale of the current regime under section 696.1 of the Criminal Code and shed light on how the Canadian government, through the Minister of Justice addresses claims and attempts to remedy wrongful conviction. A case study of Mr. Hailemikael Fekade Kassa’s criminal case file, an applicant who consented to this study of his second-degree murder conviction in 2009, will be used to explore the challenges faced by a Canadian claimant of innocence in preparation of his post-conviction review application. This research has revealed that: (1) the Canadian conviction review process implicitly removes the responsibility for error from the conventional justice system; and (2) despite significant evidence capable of raising doubt, the applicant under study encountered great difficulty in meeting the stringent eligibility criteria. A review of the literature provides the necessary contextual information to this critical examination through a comparative study of the post-conviction review schemes operating in North Carolina, the United Kingdom, Norway and Canada. Further, this project uses Foucault’s (1991) theory of governmentality as its analytical framework to investigate the governmental technologies and rationalities securing the current objectives of the Canadian review process and to explore the effects of policy at the micro-level. Following a presentation of the major findings and brief discussions of the evidence discovered in Mr. Kassa’s file, a final analysis situates the research findings within governmentality theory and highlights their broader implications.

Dans l’exercice de son office, le juge est en permanence aux prises avec la loi et sa conscience. Cette réalité n’est pas propre à notre temps. Elle est une donnée constante de l’histoire judiciaire. Et selon les époques, la conscience du juge n’a pas toujours occupé la même place. Cette oscillation de la place de la conscience dans l’acte de juger témoigne à la fois d’un souci de justice et d’un souci éthique. Malgré les tentatives des doctrines positivistes et légicentristes d’atténuer, voire d’évacuer la question de la conscience du juge de la sphère judiciaire, elle demeure entière, et bien plus encore aujourd’hui avec la complexité de plus en plus grande de certaines affaires judiciaires. Le droit et la conscience sont un couple viscéralement lié mais malheureusement un couple en « difficulté », où le droit ne triomphe pas toujours et où la conscience n’a pas toujours bonne presse au regard de la dimension subjective qui la caractérise et à laquelle elle est très souvent réduite. Si cette question a fait l’objet jusqu’ici d’une abondante littérature tant en droit français qu’en droit canonique, il nous semble qu’elle a été essentiellement abordée soit sous l’angle du droit séculier soit sous l’angle exclusivement du droit canonique. A notre connaissance aucune étude comparative n’a été faite sur ce sujet. D’où l’intérêt de notre étude. Nous proposons donc dans cette investigation une étude comparée de la conscience du juge en droit pénal français et en droit canonique à travers respectivement les concepts d’intime conviction et de certitude morale. En droit pénal français, les juges et les jurés conformément à l’art. 353 CPP, doivent juger en se référant à leur intime conviction tandis que dans la législation canonique le juge ne peut, quel que soit le litige, prononcer sa sentence qu’après avoir acquis conformément au c. 1608, CIC/83 la certitude morale sur la vérité des faits. L’« intime conviction » en droit français et la certitude morale en droit canonique sont deux formes de la manifestation de la conscience du juge. Nous nous interrogeons donc de savoir si la certitude morale est en droit canonique ce que l’intime conviction en droit pénal français. À travers cette étude comparée nous voulons soustraire le jugement selon la conscience des caricatures dont il fait l’objet et mettre en évidence la complexité de l’office du juge. Au cœur du débat sur la conscience du juge c’est l’office tout entier du juge qui est en jeu. Juger est un art qui mobilise toute la personne du juge et met en évidence son autorité à travers une perspicacité et une prudence ritualisées. La conscience du juge – dont la manifestation se décline sous les vocables d’intime conviction et de certitude morale respectivement dans les systèmes juridiques français et canonique et dont le risque d’arbitraire est si communément appréhendé par l’opinion – est un gage de justice et de vérité pour autant qu’elle soit soumise à l’épreuve du rituel judiciaire. Si notre société contemporaine se rebiffe à l’idée de conscience – renvoyée d’emblée à la sphère exclusivement morale et subjective – notre investigation a pour finalité de démontrer que la conscience du juge telle que comprise dans les législations canonique et française revêt un sens technique précis qui ne saurait être enfermé dans une quelconque normativité. / In the exercise of his office, the judge is constantly struggling with the law and his conscience. This reality is not peculiar to our time. It is a constant in judicial history. According to the times in history, the judge's conscience has not always occupied the same place. This oscillation of the place of consciousness in the act of judging shows both a concern for justice and an ethical concern. Despite the attempts of positivist and law-centrist doctrines to mitigate or even dispel the question of the judge's consciousness of the judicial sphere; it remains intact, even more so today with the increasing complexity of certain cases. The ‘righteous’ and the ‘conscientious’ are a viscerally linked couple but unfortunately it is a couple in "difficulty", where the law does not always triumph and where the conscience does not always have good press with regard to the subjective dimension which characterizes it and to which it is very often reduced. If this question has so far been the subject of an abundant literature in both French and Canon law, I believe that it has been essentially approached either from the angle of secular law or exclusively Canon law. To our knowledge, no comparative study has been made on this subject. Hence the interest of our study. We therefore propose in this investigation a comparative study of the judge's conscience in both French criminal law and Canon law through respectively the concepts of ‘intimate conviction’ and ‘moral certainty’. In French criminal law, judges and jurors, in accordance with art. 353 CPP must judge by referring to their intimate conviction whereas in the Canon law the judge cannot; whatever the litigation pronounce in his sentence that after having acquired according to c. 1608, CIC/83 "moral certainty" about the truth of the facts. "Intimate conviction" in French law and "moral certainty" in Canon law are two forms of manifestation of the judge's conscience. We therefore wonder whether "moral certainty" is in canon law what the "conviction" is in French criminal law. Through this comparative study we wish to subtract the judgment according to the consciousness of the caricatures of which it is the object, and to highlight the complexity of the office of the judge. At the heart of the debate about the conscience of the judge is the entire office of the judge that is at stake. Judging is an art that mobilizes the whole person of the judge and highlights his authority through a ritualized perspicacity and prudence. The conscience of the judge - whose manifestation is expressed under the terms of intimate conviction and moral certainty respectively in the French and canonical legal systems and whose risk of arbitrariness is so commonly apprehended by the public - is a pledge of justice and truth as much as it is subject to the test of judicial ritual. If our contemporary society rebels to the idea of consciousness – seen as an outset to the exclusively moral and subjective sphere -, our investigation aims to demonstrate that the conscience of the judge as understood in the canonical and French legislation has a precise technical meaning, which cannot be locked in any normativity.

Prenant jadis la forme d’un « signe de divinité » sous le règne des ordalies, l’indice désignerait dorénavant tout « événement, objets ou traces » amené à forger la conviction du juge. Les traits de l’indice se reconnaissent ainsi à la capacité qu’il possède de rendre possible le fait recherché. En ce sens, l’indice ne peut – aujourd’hui comme hier – indiquer directement la culpabilité, bien qu’il demeure – depuis toujours – en capacité de faire présumer l’imputabilité du fait prohibé à l’encontre des personnes suspectées. Les effets attachés à l’indice sont convoités de tout temps, sans pourtant que quiconque ne parvienne à les expliquer. L’indice rend possible, dispose d’un pouvoir spécifique et s’intègre parfaitement au sein du raisonnement dialectique intrinsèque à la matière juridique. Les juristes usent des présomptions fondées sur l’indice aux fins de compenser les lacunes inhérentes à la preuve en matière pénale. Indéniablement, l’indice occupe une place centrale dans le processus probatoire. Néanmoins, un constat de carence s’impose : les raisons pour lesquelles l’indice produit cet effet à la fois si caractéristique et par là même si commun, ne sont jamais explicitées. Sans doute trop prosaïque, l’indice s’est éclipsé à l’arrière-plan d’une preuve pénale devenue prépondérante par la gravité des conséquences juridiques qu’elle justifie. Un regard cette fois plus aiguisé aurait néanmoins pressenti l’enjeu universel d’une telle notion : depuis toujours, l’indice constitue le socle de la preuve. Fondements d’une réalité morcelée que la justice souhaite reconstituer, les indices jalonnent le cheminement procédural jusqu’à l’obtention d’une preuve. Les différentes phases de la procédure pénale s’organisent au rythme des indices interprétés, autant qu’ils forgent une conviction sur le déroulement des faits prohibés. L’intime conviction ancre de fait l’interprétation de l’indice au cœur de la preuve pénale et, avec elle, la perfectibilité d’une construction humaine au centre de la procédure pénale. / Once taking the form of a "sign of divinity" in the trial by ordeal, the clue would henceforth designate any "event, object or trace" that might forge the judge's conviction. The characteristics of the clue can thus be recognized by its ability to make the desired result possible. In this sense, the clue cannot – today as in the past – directly indicate guilt, although it has always been able to allow for the presumption that the prohibited fact is imputable to suspects. The effects of the clue have always been sought after, without anyone ever being able to explain them. The clue makes possible, has specific power and fits perfectly into the dialectical reasoning inherent in the legal field.Lawyers use clue-based presumptions to compensate for the deficiencies inherent in criminal evidence. Undeniably, the clue occupies a central place in the probationary process. Nevertheless, a finding of deficiency is inevitable: the reasons why the clue produces this effect, which is so characteristic and therefore so common, are never explained. Undoubtedly too prosaic, the clue has vanished into the background of criminal evidence that has become preponderant because of the seriousness of the legal consequences it justifies. A sharper look this time would nevertheless have foreshadowed the universal importance of such a notion: since time immemorial, the clue has been the foundation of proof. As the foundations of a fragmented reality that the justice system wishes to reconstruct, the clues mark out the procedural path until evidence is obtained. The various phases of criminal proceedings are organised according to the rhythm of the interpreted clues, as much as they forge a conviction about the conduct of the prohibited acts. The intimate conviction in fact anchors the interpretation of the clue at the heart of the criminal evidence and, with it, the perfectibility of a human construction at the centre of criminal procedure.

Weber’s discussion of ethics in his famous lecture (and then essay) Politics as a Vocation (1919) clearly indicates that two possible ethical stances, the ethic of conviction and the ethic of responsibility, are rooted in ‘distinct and irreconcilably opposed principles’. Throughout Politics as a Vocation, it is the ethic of responsibility that appears to be endorsed by Weber as suited for political life. Yet, Weber concludes his essay by claiming that a combined ethic is ideal for a political vocation. This makes Weber’s position regarding the ideal ethical stance for a man who has a ‘true political calling’ appear contradictory: the ethics are opposites but somehow to be combined. Commentators have mostly concluded that, for Weber, the ethic of responsibility is the ideal ethic for politics. That appears further in accord with the fact that a key concern of the speech in its historical context was to warn political students of the dangers associated with an ethic of conviction. Weber, as a realist, was especially critical of a stance that disregarded the corrupted nature of the world, which the ethic of responsibility alone seems to accept. Politicians with single-minded convictions were responsible for Germany’s political stalemate, supporting the fact that the ethic of conviction should not be deemed acceptable in politics. And yet there is much this position neglects by opting for only one of the two ethics, by concluding that only the ethic of responsibility is appropriate for political vocation. My thesis offers something different; something I admit is ambitious. What I propose is the synthesis of the opposition, of finding a way to combine the two irreconcilably opposed ethics.

In recent years wrongful convictions have received a considerable amount of research attention. This flourishing interest has resulted in a growing body of literature that aims to investigate this criminal justice phenomenon. Specifically, the current academic literature suggests that exonerees have reported feeling stigmatized; however, public perception research suggests that the public is actually supportive of exonerees. As very little research has been conducted on public perceptions of wrongful conviction—and on the views of community members, in particular—this thesis sought to further explore this topic using open-ended, structured interviews. In addition, the literature has been criticized for its lack of theory integration. Therefore, the results of this study have been interpreted in the context of Giddens‘ Structuration Theory. Indeed, public perception and support are important as they may influence policy changes and encourage the government to be more forthcoming when it comes to preventing wrongful convictions and helping exonerees post-conviction. Overall, results indicated that community members defined wrongful conviction as cases of factual innocence. They also had limited knowledge of wrongful conviction, leading some participants to believe that wrongful convictions were infrequent. Community members were also able to identify several factors that lead to wrongful convictions (e.g., mistaken eyewitnesses), felt that the criminal justice system did a fair job in light of wrongful convictions, and generally held positive views toward exonerees (e.g., believing that they should receive supportive services, such as financial compensation, job training, and apologies). Furthermore, results highlight that while community members acknowledge that exonerees likely experience stigmatization, the majority of participants did not personally express stigmatizing views. / UOIT

<p>The principle of respect for other persons is commonly invoked in contemporary liberalism as justification for the claim that a conscientious citizen in a liberal democracy is morally obligated to refrain from supporting a coercive law for which he lacks suitable public justification. This view has been challenged by Christopher Eberle in <italics>Religious Conviction in Liberal Politics</italics>, who argues that although a citizen has an obligation to pursue a convincing secular rationale for a coercive law, he does not have an obligation to withhold support for a law for which he lacks such a rationale.</p> <p>In this dissertation I attempt to develop a basic analytical framework which can be used to formulate a suitable conception of respect for persons in the public square. Only with such an underlying conception of respect in hand is it possible to adjudicate the competing claims concerning what the principle of respect for persons should be deemed to require of citizens in advocating and supporting coercive laws.</p> <p>The framework I propose views respect for persons as a complex and variegated concept. It separately considers four different forms or notions of respect, and takes the attitude of respect as foundational and prior to the other forms of respect. I conclude that any conception of respect will entail commitment to a broader ethical theory or set of ethical principles. Accordingly, in the final chapter, I suggest that Robert Audi's "value-based Kantian intuitionism," with its emphasis on respect and the dignity of persons as a grounding property, may constitute an auspicious ethical theory to which appeal may plausibly be made in completing a conception of respect.</p> / Dissertation