This paper proposes a judicial advocacy strategy aimed to challenge the constitutionality of the law that imposes an absolute prohibition of abortion in Chile. Examines the origin of the criminalization provisions in light to the constitutional mandate to protect the life of the unborn, presents an overview of the arguments used in the legislative to request the partial decriminalization of abortion, the tendency of the executive in the past years in this matter, and the criminal strategy that has been used in cases where women have been prosecuted by abortion, based on what has been intended so far the paper conclude a solicitude to declare unconstitutional the criminal abortion provisions because they do not protect the life of the unborn.

I examine the impact of the trend of private class actions targeting alleged violations of generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). I document the specific allegations in GAAP lawsuits and find that allegations involving revenue recognition and asset impairment recognition are two of the most common areas of GAAP cited. I test whether lawsuits lead to a reduction in the allegedly improper behavior, whether sued firms and their peers make other financial reporting changes, and whether these changes change firms’ stock price characteristics. I find that following relevant lawsuits, sued firms, firms in the same industry, and firms with a shared auditor generally exhibit less aggressive revenue recognition, but firms may increase aggressive revenue recognition in certain cases. Next, I examine the impact of asset impairment recognition allegations on the reporting of negative special items. I find few changes directly associated with these allegations but show that other litigation is associated with both increases and decreases in the propensity and size of negative special item reporting. I note that GAAP violations most often arise in an attempt to meet or beat analysts’ estimates, and I show following litigation firms are often more likely to beat analysts’ expectations by a larger margin. I also find significant increases in real earnings management of sued firms and their peers following many lawsuits, indicating a shift away from accruals-based management towards real activities management. Finally, I find mixed evidence of changes in stock return attributes. In some cases I observe significant changes consistent with reduced litigation risk and in others I observe the opposite. The results have implications for accounting standard setting and show that the legal system plays a critical role in shaping the financial reporting environment.

The concept of standing in public interest litigation has not received much attention and analysis post South Africa’s Constitutional era. This dissertation begins with a discussion of the jurisprudence of the South African courts in relation to locus standi since the early 1900s up until the year 1993. The purpose of the discussion is to illustrate the profound transformation the concept of standing in public interest litigation has undergone after the promulgation of the Constitution. A comparison is then made with the legal position on this question with the United States of America, a country that has been dubbed as the most democratic and liberal in the world which has a Bill of Rights dating back some 200 years. The case law of the US Supreme Court is dealt with, followed by the most important trends of academic criticism of this case law. This forms the basis of an informed comparison in relation to the question of locus standi between the two jurisdictions. It is argued towards the end that the locus standi dispensation in public interest litigation that has emerged in South Africa is the better of the two. Copyright / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Public Law / unrestricted

In South Africa, there is currently no legislation regulating medical negligence litigation and damages. The common law, through its “once and for all” rule, remains the applicable law in litigation of this field of law. In terms of the common law, proven claims must be paid as a lump sum to the successful party as claimed “once and for all.” The National Department of Health faces a challenge of medical claims increasing every year, both in the number of claims and quantum claimed. The state pays millions of Rands for its liability every year as compensation towards injured parties who have successfully proven their claims in court. The payments for compensation are made as a lump sum from the same budget made for the operation of hospitals. The State ends up running out of funds to keep the healthcare facilities operational, in a good state and offering quality service to the rest of the public. Legislative intervention is recommended to reform this current crisis in the medical negligence field of law. This dissertation aims to determine whether it is feasible to enact legislation as an intervention to reform the current state of law. In doing so, recent case law will be analysed and provisions of the constitution considered, as it is crucial for any applicable law, including the current applicable common law to promote the spirit, purport and object of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, which it does not as argued in this dissertation. / Mini Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Public Law / LLM / Unrestricted

Climate change poses major threats to human life in the form of food and water shortages, health issues, loss of property and more. Climate change amplifies existing environmental, social, economic and political challenges and has increased the risk of displacements, accelerates social injustices, inequalities, and threatens human rights, including the right to life itself. Consequently, States can no longer overlook their obligations to effectively address climate change to safeguard human rights. States have agreed to mobilize stronger and more ambitious climate actions. However, their pledges on carbon emission caps, adaptation practices and climate change funds under the Paris Agreement, are not as ambitious as they ought to be. The aim of this research to assess the value and effectiveness of climate litigation as a substantial form of climate action to safeguard human rights. This research reveals that there has been a significant increase in climate litigation procedures and outcomes which reflect multiple ways in which climate litigation has influenced States to enhance and adopt laws to increase climate action on mitigation and adaptation practices. This research also reveals that climate litigation is amplified through public and civil society mobilisation as well as collaboration efforts between lawyers, scientists and activists across the world, and it is recognised as a valuable tool for those who seek accountability and justice for climate-induced harms. / Mini Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Centre for Human Rights / LLM / Unrestricted

This dissertation investigates the manner in which facts are proven with specific emphasis on the role which the concept of ‘probabilities’ plays in achieving the ‘burden of proof. It is illustrated that the concept of ‘probabilities’ plays a central role throughout the process of determining the accountability of a litigant, including fact-finding during the evaluation of the adduced evidence and the application of the burden of proof. This study distinguishes between the findings of individual facts, as opposed to the finding of whether the case of a party, as reflected by the cumulative effect of the individually proven facts, has been proven. It is submitted that, despite traditionally perceived views, the concept of ‘probabilities’ is applied in exactly the same manner to both these aspects of a legal dispute, the only variable being the degree of probabilities as determined by a specific stage and nature of the litigation. The research focuses on both criminal and civil cases. The dissertation is based on current South African practices as reflected in judgments in different law reports and, to some extent, on English and American legal practices. Copyright / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Procedural Law / unrestricted

1 Abstract The thesis is focused primarily on medical litigations in which either patient or (usually) his family apply for a remedy due to a medical malpractice (deviation from medical proffesional duty of care (lex artis) resulting in injury or death of the pacient. Author concentrate on this problematics from the perspective of defendant. At first, he think about setting targets of the hospital (defendant) in the dispute, then he consider ways to achieve these goals (which instruments can be used) . The thesis also consists of analyses of 20 medical litigations. Before the main part author introduces general theoretical questions and refer to the literature on which he based his thesis, as he decided to not deal with general issues. In this context he mentions areas to which, according to him, the doctrine does not yet provide answers. The author's research follows these questions and in following text he concentrates on them and tries to find the answers to controversial questions. These includes, for example, whether in practice the concept of "další nemajetkové újmy" is fulfilled the intention of the lawgiver, wheter the regulation of liberation of liability is applicable in medical litigations and what is its relationship with the "lex artis corrections". After this, the author specifies the methods...

This thesis comprises three chapters with the patent litigation as a central theme. The first chapter develops a methodology to compare the quality of patent litigation systems in six major economies: United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Korea, China. Quality is defined as whether it provides a fair and just legal environment for nullifying weak patents and adjudicating infringement actions. Ultimately, this study presents heterogeneity in the quality of the sample systems. Litigation systems with rigorous and predictable adjudication have a low risk of opportunistic and anti-competitive filings.In the second paper (Chapter 2), I explore the relationship between technology ownership frag- mentation and the opposition filing in European Patent Office (EPO). I develop a two-stages game, in which opposition can be used for an ex ante negotiation (e.g. licensing). The framework presents that high litigation risk happens under two kinds of conditions: when the ownership to external technologies is highly concentrated, profit dissipation is over the licensing revenue for the potential licensee; when the ownership to external technologies is widely fragmented, transaction cost is high for the entrance. That is, the opposition, replacing the licensing, will be frequently used. To empirically test this hypothesis, we use a data set that covers patent opposition cases during the period 1985-2005, and construct application-based “fragmentation index”. Finally, regression results confirm that opposition likelihood displays an U-shape re- lationship with the number of potential technology suppliers. Besides, the effect of ownership patterns is stronger in discrete product industries. This analysis controls for differences in filing, granted rate and other technological observed characteristics. Results are robust to alternative estimation strategies that account for over-dispersion in the patent counts data and industry heterogeneity.The third paper proposes that system designs influence the incidence of patent litigation risk. I construct three one-to-one matching data sets by total 2748 European patents, which includes 916 patents without any challenge, 916 patents having been challenged in the opposition at the European Patent Office (EPO), and 916 having been challenged in Germany Federal Patent Court (BPatG). the EPO and the BPatG follow different procedures to reexamine, amend or revoke a granted decision. To explore different filing patterns in two litigation systems, I provide a much more rigorous definition to describe patent quality: Novelty, Unique, Impact, which has been operationalized and utilized in the technological radicalness literature. By comparing litigated cases to control groups, I find a high degree of significance between opposition risk and ex ante-identifiable factors - Novelty, while a high degree of significance between invalidation trials and ex post indicator of technological radicalness - Impact. Moreover, I also confirm that the filing in the opposition is less constrained with firm’s patent portfolios and technological conditions. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This study was designed to assess the difference in litigation between two courts: one mandating For Kids' Sake, a psycho-educational seminar for divorcing parents, and the other not so mandating. The level of difficulty of children's adjustment to divorce has been positively correlated with parental hostility. More hostile parents would have more contested cases, interim motions, and relitigations. This research compared final dispositions, interim motions, and relitigation between parents in two courts in Collin County, Texas. The treatment group was from the 219th District Court which mandated all divorcing parents with minor children to attend the For Kids' Sake Seminar and the control group was from the 199th District Court which did not so mandate. Archival data was collected from a computer generated list for the Total group data to assess final dispositions and directly from District Clerk files for the In-Depth group data to assess interim motions and relitigation. The Total group was comprised of 679 research subjects with 330 cases in the treatment group and 349 cases in the control group. The In-Depth group consisted of 182 cases from both courts with 84 cases in the treatment group and 98 cases in the control group. Chi square analysis of the total group revealed significantly more parents in the treatment group who non suited the divorce suit and remained married (p. < .05), a significantly lower number of cases in the treatment group with interim motions (p. < .10), and a significantly lower amount of relitigation in the treatment group (p. < .05). The results showed that the court that mandated For Kids' Sake evidenced a reduction in subsequent litigation which not only benefits the legal system but also hopefully reflects lower parental hostility and higher parental cooperation, thereby benefiting the children of divorce.

No description available.