Substantive gender equality has yet to be achieved in South Africa. As such, when a decision is made for one of the spouses to a civil marriage to stay at home and care for the children born of the marriage, or make career sacrifices to care for children, that spouse is usually the wife. As a result, while the husband continues to amass wealth and grow his earning potential, the wife is unable to do so. In circumstances where such spouses are married out of community of property or subject to the accrual system with onerous exclusion clauses in the antenuptial contract, the wife may be left with little more than a claim for rehabilitative maintenance in the event of a divorce. The courts only have the discretion to make an equitable distribution of marital property in civil marriages with complete separation of property concluded prior to 1 November 1984 (or 2 December 1988) and customary marriages. It is arguable that this limitation of the judicial discretion violates the equality clause contained in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. A broad judicial discretion to equitably redistribute the spouses’ assets upon divorce is therefore proposed in this dissertation. / Private Law / LL. M.

This study focuses on the discretionary inter vivos trust. It specifically investigates what the discretion of a trustee comprises and in which circumstances (if any) the court may amend the trustee‟s discretion as stipulated in the deed of trust. In order to make any meaningful conclusions, the different types of trusts, and more specific the way in which trusts are classified, needs to be researched. An inter vivos trust is classified as a contract for the sake of a third. Consequently contract law rules are applied in the interpretation and amendment of an inter vivos trust. The source, goal and tenor of a trustee‟s discretion, as well as the circumstances wherein this discretion may be amended, are investigated. The general rule is that courts have no discretion to amend a trust, but there is an exception to the rule. In accordance with article 13 of the Trust Property Control Act 57 of 1988 courts do have the power to amend or cancel the deed of trust in certain circumstances. In Potgieter and Another v Potgieter NO and Others 2012 (1) SA 637 (HHA) the court ruled that the power granted by article 13 does not enable judges to create law by amendment of the deed of trust according to their subjective interpretation of what is fair and just. The facts of the Potgieter case serve as problem statement for this study by focusing on the problems and unjust consequences of the strict application of contract law rules on a trust when the court does not take the changing circumstances of the trust founder into account. / LLM (Estate Law), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

This study focuses on the discretionary inter vivos trust. It specifically investigates what the discretion of a trustee comprises and in which circumstances (if any) the court may amend the trustee‟s discretion as stipulated in the deed of trust. In order to make any meaningful conclusions, the different types of trusts, and more specific the way in which trusts are classified, needs to be researched. An inter vivos trust is classified as a contract for the sake of a third. Consequently contract law rules are applied in the interpretation and amendment of an inter vivos trust. The source, goal and tenor of a trustee‟s discretion, as well as the circumstances wherein this discretion may be amended, are investigated. The general rule is that courts have no discretion to amend a trust, but there is an exception to the rule. In accordance with article 13 of the Trust Property Control Act 57 of 1988 courts do have the power to amend or cancel the deed of trust in certain circumstances. In Potgieter and Another v Potgieter NO and Others 2012 (1) SA 637 (HHA) the court ruled that the power granted by article 13 does not enable judges to create law by amendment of the deed of trust according to their subjective interpretation of what is fair and just. The facts of the Potgieter case serve as problem statement for this study by focusing on the problems and unjust consequences of the strict application of contract law rules on a trust when the court does not take the changing circumstances of the trust founder into account. / LLM (Estate Law), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Because women are predominantly responsible for childcare, men are the primary income earners. Having acquired the marital assets, on divorce the husband would retain them in a marriage out of community of property. The wife would be left deskilled, financially dependent, with little likelihood of receiving spousal maintenance and with no marital assets. In 1984 the Matrimonial Property Act and in 1988 the Matrimonial Property Law Amendment Act introduced a judicial discretion to equitably redistribute marital assets in certain marriages out of community. This dissertation argues that the bases for the limitation of the judicial discretion to women married before a certain date are unsound and that the limitation arguably violates the equality clause of the Constitution. / Law / LL.M.

Increasing use is being made of various types of scientific evidence in court. The general requirement for the admissibility of such evidence is relevance. Although expert evidence is considered to be opinion evidence, it is admissible if it can assist the court to decide a fact in issue; provided that it is also reliable. In South Africa, the initial wide judicial discretion to either admit or exclude unconstitutionally obtained evidence, has developed into a more narrowly defined discretion under the final Constitution. Examples of scientific evidence, namely, DNA evidence, fingerprints, psychiatric evidence, bite-mark evidence and polygraph evidence are considered and problems inherent in the presentation of such evidence in courts in various jurisdictions are highlighted. An investigation of the presentation and evaluation of evidence in both the accusatorial and inquisitorial systems seems to indicate that the adversarial procedure has a marked influence on the evaluation of evidence / Criminal & Procedural Law / LL.M. (Law)

政府採購向來金額龐大，以民國 103 年為例，該年度機關辦理逾 10 萬元之採購決標總金額為 1 兆 1367 億餘元，同年度中央政府總預算歲出合計為 1 兆 9162 億餘元，政府採購金額約為總預算歲出的 60%，故就政府採購所制定之法規範具有實務上之重要性。復因政府之採購金額龐大，政府之採購偏好足以影響經濟運作與競爭秩序，因此各國政府經常藉以達成特定政策目標。 　　我國政府採購法第 96 條訂有採購環境保護產品之特別規定，環境保護在國家政策中、甚至國際社會中向來為重要議題，民國 90 年起，行政院核定實施之「機關綠色採購推動方案」、國家永續發展委員會提出之「台灣二十一世紀議程國家永續發展願景與策略綱領」和「永續發展政策綱領」等政策方案，都希望藉由政府採購達成環境保護的目標，我國簽屬之「政府採購協定」（Agreement on Government Procurement）亦於 2012 年修訂環境保護相關條款，然而我國政府採購「環保」之成效卻十分有限，同樣以民國 103 年為例，該年政府採購納入環境考量之比例，約僅為政府採購總金額的 0.5%、總預算歲出的 0.3%。因此，本論文嘗試探討我國政府採購納入環境考量之現行法規，是否符合憲法誡命、或是否存有更佳的立法方式，以回應國內政策的需求、並善盡國際義務。 　　本論文以憲法就環境保護和經濟秩序之規定探討為始，界定立法者具體化相關法令規定之立法形成界限，復以此為前理解，檢視現行規範是否妥適，初步認為政府採購法第 96 條之相關子法，有不當限縮環境保護範圍之嫌，因而手段不足以落實國家對環境的保護義務，可能係實務上納入環境考量比例不足的原因之一；因此以綠色政府採購（Green Public Procurement）成效顯著、且為「政府採購協定」修訂環境保護相關條款之原始提案國──即歐洲聯盟為研究對象，探討其政府採購法制設計，作為我國法制修正之參考。 　　本論文參酌歐洲聯盟採購法制，認為我國應放寬政府採購納入環境考量的範圍、增加可資運用之手段、於採購時計算產品生命週期費用並妥適運用環境標誌與宣告，進而提出初步修法解決之框架建議，以期環境保護能夠確切、妥適地於政府採購中落實。 / Government procurement has been constantly adopted as a policy tool in many countries for its profound effect on a nation’s economic performance and market competition. Legislation concerning government procurement becomes therefore important. According to Article 96 of Taiwan’s Government Procurement Act and other related regulations, procuring entities subjected to those provisions may provide preference to environmentally friendly products. Furthermore, as the Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) was revised and come into force in 2014, it suggested that environment protection can be promoted via government procurement. As a consequence, the Executive Yuan formulated several policies to enhance environmentally friendly procurement. Nevertheless, such policies were not as effective as expected. Official statistics show that as government procurement value accounted for 60% of annual expenditures in 2014, the adoption and promotion of environment protection in that value merely accounted for 0.5%. Recognizing the problem, the thesis raises two questions: Is current legislation concerning environment protection in government procurement in accordance with the Constitution? Is there any better way to legislate? To begin with, the thesis first discusses the Constitution’s stipulation of environment protection and economic system to figure out the limit of legislative discretion. Secondly, by reviewing current legislation based on such limit, the thesis finds that neither the definition of “environment protection” nor the methods of priority procurement are appropriate. The thesis hence concludes that such inappropriateness of current legislation may be one of the reasons why those policies did not work out. Last but not least, the thesis has done a comparative study on government procurement legislation of the European Union (EU) to see how legislation in Taiwan may improve. While it is the first party to propose to amend the GPA by adding environment protection into the provisions, EU has also achieved remarkably in “Green Public Procurement” (GPP). In conclusion, the thesis has the following legislative suggestions: First, redefine “environment protection” in the Government Procurement Act and other related regulations. Second, add additional ways in current legislation for procuring entities to better adopt and promote of environment protection in government procurement, including using life-cycle costing and eco-labels.

Prior to the introduction of section 37C into the Pension Funds Act. 24 of 1956, the benefit payable as a result of the death of a member would devolve in accordance with his last will and testament or the provisions of intestate succession. The advent of section 37C brought a statutory regime which expressly excludes freedom of testation and rather looks to the board of a fund to distribute the death benefit. The board may only pay the dependants of a deceased (either factual or legal) or the persons he has recorded on his nomination form. The section relies on the board to exercise its discretion in a manner which results in an equitable distribution of the death benefit notwithstanding that it does not provide any guidelines as to how this is to be achieved. Accordingly, numerous decisions are challenged by the identified beneficiaries because they are unhappy with the manner in which the board exercised its discretion. This results in complaints being lodged with the Pension Funds Adjudicator. Many such complaints should never have arisen or could have been easily solved by a proper exercise of discretion on the part of the board. The problem is that these complaints are adding to an already burdened office. Adequate training and understanding of the obligations of section 37C would probably result in fewer complaints to the Adjudicator. This dissertation examines whether the determinations which have been issued by the Adjudicator in respect of section 37C indicate a need for such training and understanding and, if they do, what possible remedies there might be to cure such a problem. Recommendations arising from this are that trustees must receive training focused on section 37C and proposed practical protocols to assist a board when exercising its duty to make an equitable distribution. / Jurisprudence / LL.M.

La protection de l’environnement est un enjeu capital de la société contemporaine. Suite à la révolution industrielle, la contamination de l’environnement a pris divers chemins pour se retrouver dans notre eau, notre atmosphère et, de manière parfois moins évidente, dans nos sols. Considérant le nombre de sites contaminés répertoriés par le ministère du Développement durable, de l’Environnement et des Parcs, on peut s’interroger sur l’efficacité des dispositions prévues à la section IV.2.1 de la Loi sur la qualité de l’environnement qui prévoit des pouvoirs d’ordonnance de caractérisation et de réhabilitation pouvant viser de manière rétroactive non seulement le pollueur et celui ayant permis la contamination, mais également, dans certains cas, le gardien, à quelque titre que ce soit, du terrain. En 2003, le cadre réglementaire en matière d’ordonnances de décontamination a fait l’objet d’une réforme majeure, dont les grandes lignes sont rapportées dans la première partie de cette étude. Toutefois, l’application de ces mesures relève d’un pouvoir de nature discrétionnaire pour le ministre, cette discrétion faisant l’objet de développements dans la deuxième partie de notre mémoire. Le nombre d’ordonnances rendues par le ministre en matière de décontamination des sites est si peu élevé qu’on ne peut éviter de traiter, dans la dernière partie de notre étude, de l’éventuelle responsabilité de l’État en lien avec la contamination des sols, considérant les principes de développement durable et surtout, d’équité intergénérationnelle qui, selon nous, devraient se refléter dans l’application des pouvoirs d’ordonnance du ministre de l’Environnement. / The protection of the environment is a vital issue for modern society. Following the Industrial Revolution, the contamination of the environment found many avenues, and now can be found in the water, the atmosphere and, sometimes less obviously, in the soil. Considering the number of contaminated lands indexed by the ministère du Dévoloppement durable, l’Environnement et des Parcs, one might well wonder about the effectiveness of the measures in section IV.2.1 of the Environment Quality Act which include powers of ordering land characterization and rehabilitation retroactively over not only the polluter and whoever allows the contaminants to be emitted, but also in certain cases the one who has or has had the custody of the land, in any capacity. In 2003, the regulatory structure for remediation orders underwent a major reform, whose main features are described in the first part of this essay. However, the application of these measures derives from the minister’s discretionary power. Developments that affect this discretion are described in the second part of our study. The number of orders delivered by the minister is so low that we have to consider, in the third part of our essay, the eventual liability of the State in relation with contaminated grounds, considering the principles of sustainable development and above all of intergenerational equity which, in our view, should be reflected in the application of minister of the environment’s power to order.

À une époque où l'immigration internationale est de plus en plus difficile et sélective, le statut de réfugié constitue un bien public précieux qui permet à certains non-citoyens l'accès et l'appartenance au pays hôte. Reposant sur le jugement discrétionnaire du décideur, le statut de réfugié n’est accordé qu’aux demandeurs qui établissent une crainte bien fondée de persécution en cas de retour dans leur pays d'origine. Au Canada, le plus important tribunal administratif indépendant, la Commission de l'immigration et du statut de réfugié du Canada (CISR), est chargé d’entendre les demandeurs d'asile et de rendre des décisions de statut de réfugié. Cette thèse cherche à comprendre les disparités dans le taux d’octroi du statut de réfugié entre les décideurs de la CISR qui sont politiquement nommés. Au regard du manque de recherches empiriques sur la manière avec laquelle le Canada alloue les possibilités d’entrée et le statut juridique pour les non-citoyens, il était nécessaire de lever le voile sur le fonctionnement de l’administration sur cette question. En explorant la prise de décision relative aux réfugiés à partir d'une perspective de Street Level Bureaucracy Theory (SLBT) et une méthodologie ethnographique qui combine l'observation directe, les entretiens semi-structurés et l'analyse de documents, l'étude a d'abord cherché à comprendre si la variation dans le taux d’octroi du statut était le résultat de différences dans les pratiques et le raisonnement discrétionnaires du décideur et ensuite à retracer les facteurs organisationnels qui alimentent les différences. Dans la lignée des travaux de SLBT qui documentent la façon dont la situation de travail structure la discrétion et l’importance des perceptions individuelles dans la prise de décision, cette étude met en exergue les différences de fond parmi les décideurs concernant les routines de travail, la conception des demandeurs d’asile, et la meilleure façon de mener leur travail. L’analyse montre comment les décideurs appliquent différentes approches lors des audiences, allant de l’interrogatoire rigide à l’entrevue plus flexible. En dépit des contraintes organisationnelles qui pèsent sur les décideurs pour accroître la cohérence et l’efficacité, l’importance de l’évaluation de la crédibilité ainsi que l’invisibilité de l’espace de décision laissent suffisamment de marge pour l’exercice d’un pouvoir discrétionnaire. Même dans les environnements comme les tribunaux administratifs où la surabondance des règles limite fortement la discrétion, la prise de décision est loin d’être synonyme d’adhésion aux principes de neutralité et hiérarchie. La discrétion est plutôt imbriquée dans le contexte de routines d'interaction, de la situation de travail, de l’adhésion aux règles et du droit. Même dans les organisations qui institutionnalisent et uniformisent la formation et communiquent de façon claire leurs demandes aux décideurs, le caractère discrétionnaire de la décision est par la nature difficile, voire impossible, à contrôler et discipliner. Lorsqu'ils sont confrontés à l'ambiguïté des objectifs et aux exigences qui s’opposent à leur pouvoir discrétionnaire, les décideurs réinterprètent la définition de leur travail et banalisent leurs pratiques. Ils formulent une routine de rencontre qui est acceptable sur le plan organisationnel pour évaluer les demandeurs face à eux. Cette thèse montre comment les demandeurs, leurs témoignages et leurs preuves sont traités d’une manière inégale et comment ces traitements se répercutent sur la décision des réfugiés. / In an era where international immigration is increasingly difficult and selective, refugee status constitutes a valuable public good that enables some non-citizens access and membership to the host country. Based on the discretionary judgment of the decision-maker, refugee status is only granted to claimants who establish well-founded fear of persecution if returned to their home country. Canada’s largest independent administrative tribunal, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB), is charged to hear refugee claimants and make refugee status determinations. This dissertation investigates why significant disparities exist among IRB’s politically appointed decision-makers’ refugee status grant rates. As little was known about the concrete ways Canada allocates opportunities for entry and legal status for non-citizens, lifting the blanket of administration was necessary. By exploring refugee decision-making from a Street Level Bureaucracy Theory (SLBT) perspective, and an ethnographic methodology that combined direct observation, semi-structured interviews and document analysis, the study sought first to understand whether the variation in grant rates were a result of differences in decision-makers’ discretionary practices and reasoning and second to trace the organizational factors that foster variation. In line with previous scholarship on SLBT that document how the work situation structure discretion and how individual views play in decision-making; this study demonstrates substantive differences among decision-makers in terms of their work routines, conceptions of refugee claimants and the best way to conduct their work. The analysis illustrates how decision-makers apply not a singular but a variety of approaches to the refugee hearing, ranging from rigid interrogation to the more resilient interview style. Despite clear organizational constraints on decision-makers that target to increase consistency and efficiency of refugee determinations, the significance of credibility-assessment and the invisibility of the decision-making space leave ample room for discretionary behavior. Even in rule-saturated environments like administrative tribunals which extensively regulate discretion; decision-making hardly means neutral and hierarchical rule adherence. Instead discretion is nested within the context of interaction routines, work situation, rule adherence and law. It is inherently difficult if not improbable to control and discipline discretionary decision-making even in organizations that institutionalize and standardize training and communicate their demands clearly to decision-makers. When faced with goal ambiguity and with demands that they consider run against their discretionary authority, decision-makers reinterpret their job definition and routinize their practices. They formulate an encounter routine that is organizationally acceptable to assess the people in front of them. This dissertation illustrates how unevenly the claimants, their testimony and evidence are treated and how these treatments are reflected on the refugee decision.

La conciliation entre la protection de la nature et les intérêts de nature économique s'opère en recourant à la notion de développement durable. D'un point de vue juridique, les acteurs clés pour opérer une telle conciliation sont l'administration et le juge, qui appliquent et interprètent les normes applicables. Ils concilient l'intérêt général tenant à la protection de l'environnement avec les intérêts et les droits des acteurs du tourisme en utilisant leur pouvoir discrétionnaire, selon des modalités qui diffèrent en France et en Allemagne. Les parcs naturels nationaux et régionaux ont été retenus pour limiter le champ de recherche et constituent des exemples permettant d'illustrer les modalités de la conciliation entre exploitation économique et protection environnementale. Tandis que l'objectif assigné au parc national par la loi vise en premier lieu la protection de la nature, les parcs régionaux sont consacrés au développement durable, outil de conciliation entre les intérêts économiques et environnementaux. Le tourisme joue ainsi un rôle central dans l'organisation et le fonctionnement des parcs régionaux et présente la particularité d'être une activité économique qui suppose l'existence d'un environnement au moins en partie vierge et une nature préservée. / An optimal balance between economic and environmental issues is guided by the concept of sustainable development. From a legal perspective, the main parties making arbitrary decisions in this matter are the administrations and the administrative courts. They apply and interpret the respective rules by using their specific national power of discretion, arbitrary arbitrating between the public interest to protect the environment and the issues of the key players of the "green" tourism industry. The National parks and the Regional parks have been chosen to refine the study because these two constitute an example painting out the methods of arbitrary decision making between economic exploitation and the protection of the environment. With regard to the National park, the law assigns priority to the protection of the environment whereas the Regional park is dedicated to sustainable development as the method to accomplish the arbitration between economic and environmental issues. The tourism industry is playing a central role in the functional organisation of the Regional parks and is characterized by being an economic activity dependent on an environment at least in part untouched and still pristine.