Behind the desk: Examining the decision-making and legitimation practices of immigration officials in return procedures in Belgium

The article is devoted to solving the problem of compensation of the hedonic award for violation of consumer rights based on the universality of this method of protection of civil rights and interests. The scientific article, based on the analysis of literature, current legislation and case law, examines the problem of the possibility of moral damages as a way to protect the violated rights of the parties to the consumer contract, criteria for assessing the amount of hedonic damage compensation. It is concluded that, based on the provisions of Articles 16 and 23 of the Civil Code of Ukraine and the content of the right to compensation for hedonic damage in general as a way to protect subjective civil law, compensation for hedonic damage should occur in any case. Based on the analysis of case law, it is established that the right to compensation for hedonic (non-pecuniary) damage arises as a result of violation of a person’s right, regardless of the existence of special rules of civil law. The article proves that compensation for non-pecuniary damage is a universal way to protect violated consumer rights, which is applicable even in cases where the terms of the contract do not provide for the right to compensation for hedonic damage.

The rapid development of digital technologies makes life easier in many ways. One of these advantages is the ability to use digital evidence in criminal proceedings. At the same time, this gives rise to new challenges in protecting the right to privacy, since digital evidence often contains a large amount of personal information. Thus, the author of the article aims at exploring the issues of balance between the use of digital evidence in criminal justice and the protection of the right to privacy. The research methodology includes an analysis of scientific publications, current legal provisions, case law, and international standards. The author of the article emphasizes that, on the one hand, the legislation operates with the concept of “digital evidence” and emphasizes the possibility of its use. On the other hand, the norms of international law and Ukrainian legislation determine the need to respect the right of every person to privacy. This raises the issue of combining these two phenomena. An analysis of the ECtHR case law has shown that this issue is important. The Court does not consider digital evidence, the acquisition of which has led to a violation of the right to privacy, to be legitimate. Based on the analysis of the case law, the author emphasizes the critical importance of the right to privacy as a basic human right that should be upheld even during a criminal investigation. The results indicate the need for clear legislative regulation of the use of digital evidence, ensuring its proportionality, and the need to take into account the right to privacy as a fundamental right. The conclusions of the article emphasize the importance of international standards and case law in shaping approaches to the use of digital evidence, with a particular focus on the protection of the right to privacy in the context of criminal justice. The author also proposes a number of approaches that can ensure the lawful and appropriate use of digital evidence.

Street-level health bureaucrats have actively contributed to implementing the COVID-19 prevention, control, and treatment policies of the Myanmar government. However, the need for bureaucrats on the frontlines of policy implementation to maintain a safe distance from others to prevent the spread of COVID-19 has posed challenges for the sharing and exchange of information related to health risks. In this context, this study examined what health risk communication patterns have emerged and developed among street-level health bureaucrats during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how this risk communication has been affected by street-level health bureaucrats’ perceptions of client meaningfulness and willingness to implement COVID-19 policies. The results reveal that street-level health bureaucrats in the health risk communication network are embedded in reciprocally or transitively connected discussion relationships that sustain their health risk communication over time. Moreover, when specific healthcare staff members perceive more benefits of COVID-19 policies for their patients and are more willing to care for patients, other healthcare staff avoid them to protect themselves from COVID-19 infection. Due to their higher level of understanding of the adopted measures, healthcare staff members who are highly willing to implement COVID-19 policies are frequently approached by other staff members to communicate about COVID-19 issues. This study empirically contributes to the literature on street-level bureaucrats in times of pandemic crisis by examining the formation of health risk communications in the context of street-level health bureaucrats’ responses to and participation in public healthcare policy implementation processes.

Can street-level bureaucrats’ exercise of discretion lead to clients’ dissatisfaction with policy implementation? If so, under what conditions could such disaffection lead to the alternative supply of public services? Building on Albert Hirschman’s model of exit, voice, and loyalty, this article contributes to the literature by pointing to street-level bureaucrats’ exercise of discretion as influencing citizens’ dissatisfaction with policy implementation. We identify three main elements—personal, organizational, and environmental—influencing discretion informally, causing clients’ dissatisfaction. We also point to a combination of three conditions triggering the creation of an alternative supply of services: (1) citizens’ dissatisfaction with policy implementation; (2) street-level bureaucrats’ monopoly over policy implementation because only one supplier exists; and (3) clients’ perceptions of participation channels as blocked. Using a qualitative case study approach, we test our claims by analyzing the case of Israeli marriage registrars. We demonstrate how Israeli citizens’ dissatisfaction with how government bureaucrats implement marriage regulations led to the creation of the Tzohar non-governmental organization that provides alternative marriage services. Points for practitioners In situations in which street-level bureaucrats have a monopoly over policy implementation and citizens feel they cannot exercise their voice about that implementation, their dissatisfaction with how street-level bureaucrats use their discretion in implementing the policy may eventually lead to the creation of alternative sources of public services.

In the United Kingdom a combination of high profile incidents and reports personally critical of mental health policy in general and individual practitioners’ actions in particular (Sheppard 1995) highlight the pressures which operate on mental health professionals in the community (Mechanic 1995a). These pressures are exacerbated by policy contradictions and resource limitations. Consequently community mental health practitioners (e.g. psychiatrists, community psychiatric nurses and social workers) can be sensitive to political and managerial agendas which may have a negative impact on their implementation of individual care programs (Marks ef al. 1994). Using the concept of ’street level bureaucracy’ (Lipsky 1980), this paper examines recent literature. It is argued that practitioners’ reception and implementation of policy is influenced by the need to balance the tension between four elements: the political and policy imperatives, the agenda of local management, the professional and peer cultures in which practitioners operate and the balance of perceived personal advantage. It is further postulated that managers and policy makers may have a vested interest in not scrutinizing practitioners’ implementation of policy too vigorously as a way of deflecting responsibility for its consequences. The ’Care Programme Approach and recent legislative changes regarding community supervision (Department of Health 1995a) highlight the important and sometimes negative consequences for the service user that may result.

To date, research on politicians’ influence on the work of street‐level bureaucrats (SLB) and the consequences for policy implementation has mainly focused on disruptive effects of political involvement—for instance, poorer social equity in public service provision or political patronage. Our study opens up this perspective and argues that the relationship between politicians and SLB is a two‐way relationship shaped by capacities of the stakeholders themselves and their organisational environment. We link SLB research with policy capacity literature. We focus on the effect of political capacity because this type of capacity meaningfully influences whether SLB can actively control the relationship with politicians. We ask: What is the relevance of political capacity for policy implementation? We use data from Swiss social assistance where the phenomenon of interest, that is the political involvement, is institutionalised by law within the implementing agencies. We show that political capacity at the organisational and individual level has a confidence‐building effect. SLB and politicians learn how to engage with each other and how to make the most of the exchange. Politicians gain a deeper understanding and are able to politically legitimise the policy.Points for practitioners Existing research on politicians’ influence on the work of street‐level bureaucrats (SLB) has mainly focused on disruptive effects of political involvement—for instance, poorer social equity in public service provision or political patronage. We show that the relationship between SLB and political actors can actually lead to ‘non‐disruptive’ or even positive effects on public service provision due to certain capacities of the stakeholders themselves and their institutional environment. We identify two types of capacity that foster a constructive relationship between SLB and politicians: organisational and individual political capacity. Organisational political capacity: The institutional or organisational setting within which SLB and politicians implement public policy and provide public services can promote regular exchange and cooperation between these two types of stakeholders to a greater or lesser extent—or even require it (e.g. by law). If the setting is conducive, constructive contact between SLB and politicians takes place during policy implementation. Thus, SLB and politicians know each other and know how to interact, which enhances trust among them and mutual understanding of their respective duties, challenges, and interests. Individual political capacity arises from this as SLB learn how to use this contact for their needs, that is to obtain and sustain political support for their policy actions. Politicians also benefit from the exchange because they gain a deeper understanding of the respective policy and feel more confident in representing it towards the public and the politics. In short, the findings show how capacity at different levels may reinforce each other. The organisational context can promote political capacity through regular contact between SLB and politicians. Actors have to learn to work with each other and thereby enhance their individual political capacity.

The article considers the controversies that arise during the court-appointed forensic examination process under Ukrainian administrative proceedings. This study examines procedural aspects of court-appointed forensic examination as the legal basis for preparing an expert report in administrative proceedings, with an analysis of case law. This subject matter has not been extensively researched by the academic community, which is why this study is relevant. The court-appointed forensic examination is an important procedural action for obtaining an expert report and helps establish the circumstances of the case that cannot be determined without specialist knowledge outside the field of law. The paper also highlights controversial case law regarding the possibility of the court appointing a forensic examination during the merits stage of proceedings. Administrative courts may either appoint such an examination at this stage or refuse on the grounds that the deadline for filing the motion has been missed. The courts should comply with the principle of official clarification of the circumstances of the case. The author argues that the courts must abide by the tasks of administrative proceedings. If there is a real need for specialized knowledge, the courts should avoid excessive formalism when deciding on the appointment of an examination. Current legislation does not allow the court to suspend proceedings at the merits stage due to the appointment of a forensic examination. This risks impeding the comprehensive establish­ment of the circumstances or forcing the courts to violate formal procedural requirements. The author therefore proposes amending the procedural legislation with changes to allow courts to suspend proceedings at the merits stage if they appoint a forensic examination.

The aim of the article is to analyse the possibility and necessity of empowering animals as ‘non-personal’ legal subjects under Polish law, indicating the relevant case law (of ordinary and, mainly, administrative courts). The research assumption is the statement that, although administrative case law contains elements of a fairly progressive approach that results in an interpretation of the applicable provisions on the protection and (rudimentarily regulated) animal rights, the existing provisions are far from sufficient and leave quite a lot of room for a very flexible interpretation. That may lead not solely to an animal-friendly interpretation, but also to abuses against them. Therefore, postulated amendments concerning constitutional protection of animal rights deserve attention, as they would be important for the systemic interpretation of law. The research subject is both philosophical and legal literature, as well as case law. The main method is the logico-linguistic analysis (with some elements of historical and comparative approach) of texts on philosophy, including legal philosophy and ethics, as well as the analysis of case law. The research findings have a mixed, descriptive-and-normative character, while the above combination of ethics, legal theory, and legal practice both manifests the evolution of the approach to the titular matter and makes an original contribution to jurisprudence as a scientific discipline.

The preliminary reference procedure has long been envisaged as a judicial dialogue between the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and national courts. However, in reality the relationship between the courts appears to be closer to a relationship of living apart together than to a happy marriage between equal partners. In this contribution, we study the use of so-called provisional answers as a means for national supreme administrative courts to send signals to the CJEU and to start a dialogue about the proper interpretation of EU law. Our analysis of case law and survey results, combined with the outcomes of interviews with judges from ten of the highest administrative courts and with judges and Advocate Generals from the CJEU, reveals there are both practical reasons and fundamentally different views on judicial law making behind the lack of dialogue. On a deeper level, there appears to be a lack of mutual trust that prevents supreme administrative courts from making better use of provisional answers to inform the CJEU and for the CJEU to take the supreme administrative courts more seriously.

Asylum procedures are full of knowledge gaps. Information from distant countries is difficult to obtain, and asylum decisions are risk assessments about an uncertain future. This book traces the journey of country of origin information, from its judicial investigation to its application in decisions. Drawing on over 40 interviews at administrative courts and an analysis of case law on Syrian draft evaders and on the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, it illustrates how judges manage both a lack of evidence and an information overload, and how they arrive at different assessments of the same situation based on the same country of origin information, leading to inconsistent decision-making.

Moving as a French or Dutch citizen to Belgium should be easy, given the freedom of movement of EU citizens. Reality paints a different picture, however. This paper analyses the practices of Belgian municipalities and the Immigration Office as to the registration of EU workers, self-employed, jobseekers and their family members. It is based on a desk study, a survey among a sample of municipalities as well as semi-structured interviews with municipal officials, the Immigration Office and other stakeholders. The paper adopts a legal understanding of ‘procedural justice’, focusing on dimensions of equal treatment and transparency. It shows that the achievement of procedural justice for EU citizens is impaired by divergent and at times questionable practices by street-level bureaucrats. These practices indicate, among others, that varying levels of ‘deservingness’ of residence in Belgium can be observed within the category of mobile EU workers. Furthermore, increased digitalization and the use of intermediaries in the registration procedure facilitate and reinforce differential treatments among EU citizens and their family members.

Between Two Worlds: Chinese Immigrant Children and the Production of Knowledge in the Era of Chinese Exclusion

Dilemmas within the case law of administrative courts on the abuse of the right to public information The right to public information is one of the systemic principles of the functioning of the state. However, restrictions in access to this particular right form exceptions to the constitutional principle. Recently, the case law of administrative courts and the views of legal authors and commentators have begun to invoke the framework of the abuse of the right to public information as a circumstance based on which an entity may deny the applicant access to information. In the absence of statutory regulation, the boundaries and guidelines for applying the framework of the abuse of the right to public information are set by the case law of administrative courts. When analysing the most recent rulings of the Supreme Administrative Court of Poland and the provincial administrative courts, one can see a certain dualism in the applicability of the framework in question. The lack of uniformity in this respect stems primarily from the need to balance the values between respecting the constitutional principle of the right to public information and the possibility of limiting it in events of abuse of an individual's right. As a result of the analysis of the recent case law of administrative courts, a position is outlined indicating that, according to the dominant line of case law, entities obliged to provide public information may invoke the framework mentioned above to protect themselves from actions that are contrary to the assumptions of the Polish Act on Access to Public Information.

Climate law is a fast-developing branch of law. It is regulated in a multi-centric way, since as a global issue, it needs systemic solutions that would be broader than national ones. Climate protection can also be achieved through the implementation of human rights, including the right to court. Thus, the multi-level regulation as a lex generalis is accompanied with a lex specialis regulation governing the right to court from a collective perspective and linked strictly with climate law under Article 9 of the Aarhus Convention. The theoretical and indirect aim of the article is to emphasise the relationship of environmental law in general and climate law in particular with human rights, using the example of the right to court. The direct and practical aim is to demonstrate in a horizontal manner the role of the Convention in the case law of the Polish Supreme Administrative Court. The essence of the problem is the finding of the lack of direct effect of the Convention, which weakens this protection. The article is of a scientific and research nature and the analysis of the previous case law may have cognitive value for practice. The first part provides a theoretical and legal outline of introductory issues, showing the links between human rights and climate law and the scope of application of the Aarhus Convention. The second part, concerning research materials and methods, contains an analysis of the provisions of Article 9 of the Convention made using the logical-linguistic method and teleological interpretation. The third part shows the results of the interpretation search carried out by the Supreme Administrative Court, some of them being widely accepted and some controversial. Polish administrative courts, when deciding on environmental matters under Polish administrative law, co-apply together with Polish national law the normative acts of European law, including the Aarhus Convention. However, the wording of its provisions precludes, according to the established case law, the possibility of their direct application, thus pointing to the importance of legislative actions, and administrative courts cannot substitute the legislature in this activity. It was noted in the conclusion that the implementation of the Convention is “generally correct”, which does not mean, however, that it implements the Aarhus-type principles in full and comprehensive.

Purpose. The objective of the article is to identify problems related to the regulatory establishment of the subjects of initiating the issue of securing a claim by suspending the acts (individual acts or normative legal acts) of subjects of imperious plenary powers and suggest ways to solve them. Methods. A special formal-logical method has been applied in order to study the issue f compliance with the requirements of the principle of legal certainty in the normative consolidation of the subjects of initiating the issue of securing a claim by suspending the acts of the subjects of imperious plenary powers. By means of such general theoretical methods as analysis, synthesis, generalization and modelling, legislative errors in establishing a range of the subjects of initiating the issue of securing a claim have been identified, and suggestions to correct them have been made. Results. The article analyses the provisions of the Code of Administrative Proceedings of Ukraine in terms of the subjects of initiating the issue of securing a claim by suspending the acts of the subjects of imperious plenary powers. Based on the analysis of scientific approaches and case law, the issue of whether the administrative court and all the parties of court proceedings (the plaintiff, the defendant, the third parties and the individuals granted by law to appeal to the court in the interests of others) are actual right holders to initiate the issue of securing a claim by suspending the acts of the subjects of imperious plenary powers has been investigated. Conclusions. It has been proven that the legislator, contrary to the principle of legal certainty, does not provide for all the subjects of initiating the issue of securing an administrative claim. It has been noted that there is a collision between the provisions of part 1 and part 2 of art. 150 of the Code of Administrative Proceedings of Ukraine. This collision lies in the fact that part 1 of this article imperatively establishes that the subjects of initiating the issue of securing a claim are exclusively the parties of court proceedings and the administrative court, whereas part 2 also refers to the subjects of initiating the issue of securing a claim the individual who has not acquired the procedural status of a party of court proceedings (the plaintiff) yet, although may acquire it. It has been substantiated that the legislator, referring the defendant and the third parties who do not declare independent claims regarding the subject of the dispute on the part of the defendant as parties of court proceedings to the subjects of initiating the issue of securing an administrative claim, did not take into account the legal nature of this procedural institution. It has been substantiated that giving the administrative court the right to secure a claim on its own initiative corresponds to the specifics of administrative proceedings. It has been proposed to amend part 1 of art. 150 of the Code of Administrative Proceedings of Ukraine in order to comprehensively consolidate the range of subjects of initiation of the issue of securing a claim, which in turn will improve the procedure for implementing the institution of securing an administrative claim.