Legislative History Research Articles

The economic impact of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act: A case study of the Bajju Sub-Division of Bikaner District in Rajasthan

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is a program for poverty alleviation and an employment generation which provides employment to rural unskilled labourers. It can provide a guarantee of 100 days’ paid employment in a financial year to a rural unskilled labourer who demands it. The program also helps to reduce hunger in rural India. It is different from earlier wage employment programs because it provides a guarantee for work, whereas earlier programs had no such provisions. This paper analyses the employment, consumption and income effects of MGNREGA, including the resulting increase in the purchasing power of rural labourers, after its introduction in the rural area. It also examines the economic and social impact of the scheme in rural areas due to asset creation as result of employment provided by MGNREGA. Lastly, the paper examines the impact of MGNREGA on women’s employment and how MGNREGA changed women’s income, employment and consumption patterns, which can be argued to be indicative of female empowerment. This study concludes that MGNREGA brought positive change to the lives of people in the rural area that was examined. MGNREGA, a landmark in the history of social security legislation in India or indeed anywhere in the world, promises to be a major tool in the struggle for securing employment guarantees in rural areas. The 100-day employment scheme, which came as a bolt from the blue, raised the living standards of rural India in terms of income, employment and consumption. Overall, the study found that MGNREGA has significantly improved the social and economic well-being of its beneficiaries in rural India.

Meccan and Madani


 
 
 
 One of the main features of Islamic law is that it has revealed gradually. So the Qur’anic verses are revealed to the greatest messenger, our master Muhammad (peace and blessings of God be upon him), keeping pace with the progress of the Islamic society, advising it, correcting its path, legislating the rules necessary for its integrity.
 The Prophet’s migration was considered as a fundamental difference between two different stages of the Islamic call, and that migration shapes also a difference between two types of the Holy Qur’an, namely the Meccan Qur’an and the civil Qur’an.
 
 
 
 
 Hence, it lies that the Meccan and the Madani are an important foundation and pillar in understanding the history of Islamic legislation, knowing the retracted and abrogated, the reasons for revelation, etc..

Gloss to the Judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 13 October 2022 on the agent's entitlement to commission on contracts concluded with customers previously acquired by the agent (Case C-64/21)

The gloss refers to the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 13 October 2022 in Case C-64/21. The court adjudicated on the problem presented in the request for a preliminary ruling from the Polish Supreme Court (Case I CSK 483/18). The issue considered by the Supreme Court related to the legal nature of the provision of Article 761 1 in fine of the Polish Civil Code, and more specifically to the determination whether this provision is dispositive, imperative or semi-imperative. In reality, the question was whether Article 761 1 in fine of the Polish Civil Code ‘imposes’ the agent's entitlement to commission on contracts entered into by the ordering party with clients previously acquired by the agent for contracts of the same kind, or whether that entitlement may be contractually excluded. The referral to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling resulted from the fact that Article 7(1)(b) of Council Directive 86/653/EEC had been transposed into Polish law by means of Article 761 1 in fine of the Polish Civil Code and, in the Supreme Court’s opinion, it was desirable to apply a pro-EU interpretation. In the glossed judgment, the Court ruled that Article 7(1)(b) of the Directive is dispositive and that the agent's entitlement to commission on such contracts may be derogated. In general, the author of this gloss considers the CJEU's judgment to be correct in the context of the arguments cited by the Court, with those arguments being based on the interpretation borne out by the legislative history of the directive, its genesis and the process of creating its legal provisions at the initial stage.

Tryb wystąpienia Polski z Unii Europejskiej. Niekonstytucyjność art. 22a ust. 1–2 ustawy z 14 kwietnia 2000 r. o umowach międzynarodowych

Art. 22a para. 1 and 2 of the Act of April 14, 2000 on International Agreements stipulates that supplying the President, by the minister responsible for foreign affairs, acting on the basis on the resolution of the Council of Ministers, with a draft decision on Poland’s withdrawal from the EU is possible only with prior consent granted in a statute enacted by the Sejm and the Senate with a simple majority of votes in the presence of at least half of the statutory members of each chamber. This provision, adopted in 2010, has been reminded with fear in last years, due to the consistent anti-constitutional and anti-European policy applied by the Sejm’s prevailing political parties, by the government and by the President alike, supported by the subordinate organs and institutions of the state, including the Constitutional Tribunal, which is sometimes aptly named as an actual and even legal gradual polexit. The first objective of the paper is to reconstruct the legislative history of the aforementioned regulation on the procedure of Poland’s withdrawal from the EU and the competing legislative proposals in that matter that were formulated parallelly. The second objective is to defend the thesis stating that for the decision on Poland’s withdrawal from the EU, Art. 90 of the Constitution, construed a contrario (and not Art. 89), should apply, where in order to pass the statute granting consent for renunciation of an international agreement referred to herein, it is necessary to have a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers, in the presence of at least half of their statutory numbers, and where granting of such a consent may also be passed by a nationwide referendum.

“Local guys wanted”: homoerotic photography, censorship, and national belonging in apartheid South Africa – the case of Alternative Books (1981-1991)

This article explores the singular case of Alternative Books (AB), a South African publisher of homoerotic photography active in the late apartheid period. While AB's titles broadly engaged established Western aesthetic traditions of the male nude (salient in gay print cultures of the twentieth century), their erotic scenes frequently played out against national landmarks and symbols, suggesting a distinct mode of vernacular homoerotic photography. Given the widespread disenfranchisement of gay men during apartheid, this study considers the affective and political potential of such images for reconciling same-sex desire with national identity, albeit for a limited (that is, predominantly white) historical audience. First, to plot the history of social homophobia and anti-gay legislation in apartheid South Africa, this study considers censorship discourse a compelling barometer of the state's attitude towards male homosexuality during this time. Second, via comparison with contemporaneous homoerotic commodities distributed in apartheid South Africa, accessed from the GALA Queer Archive, this article suggests that AB's visual language uniquely challenged heteronormative associations with the South African landscape to open the nation to queer possibilities.

НАКАЗАНИЕ В УГОЛОВНОМ ПРАВЕ: ПОНЯТИЕ И ПРИЗНАКИ

The article reveals the concept of "punishment" in the history of domestic criminal legislation and at the present stage. The author analyzes various approaches formed in the scientific community regarding the essence and content of the concept of "punishment". Also, the signs of the criminal law institute "punishment" are subject to research

Inclusion of Disability within the Spectrum of Diversity and the Implications for Accounting Education

ABSTRACTThe number of students with disabilities in higher education has grown significantly. Although society and higher education have become increasingly diverse, discussions and efforts related to diversity, equity, and inclusion on college campuses frequently exclude disability, and research on the topic is narrowly focused. In this paper, we seek to reconceptualize the understanding of diversity as a way to promote a more-inclusive environment, where students with disabilities feel welcomed and engaged. Current attitudes are shaped by legislative history and models of disability, so we review the background of both aspects. With better awareness, higher education, including accounting programs, can break down barriers and model social justice. Responsibilities fall on faculty, student peers, and administration, including disability services, to foster these changes. Regarding accounting education, universal design for learning (UDL) and associated learning theories offer many promising avenues to create active and inclusive learning environments for all students.

Social Justice Suite

Social Justice Suite (SJS) is a collection of five HeinOnline databases in the areas of historical slavery, civil and human rights, and gun regulation and legislation. The databases were added between 2016 and 2022. The majority of the databases include Supreme Court briefs. Other databases include hearings, legislative histories, and Congressional Research Service (CRS) and Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports. Databases can be searched individually or at once. Scholarly articles are available only to HeinOnline Core subscribers. The databases are complimentary for Core subscribers and free to interested organizations (requires registration). SJS benefits from a clean and uncluttered interface, and the top navigational menu and search components are the same across databases.

Finding Meaning in the Congressional Globe: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Problem of Constitutional Archives

Few legislative terms left a bigger mark on U.S. constitutional law than the first session of the Thirty-Ninth Congress, which met from December 1865 through July 1866. Although legislative history has become more controversial in modern legal interpretation amid the rise of public meaning originalism, this ses-sion and the men who drafted the Fourteenth Amendment so fundamentally altered the constitutional politics of modern America that their stories remain the subject of deep scholarly interest and fierce debate. In Punish Treason, Reward Loy-alty, Mark Graber takes a comprehensive look at this session through the Congressional Globe—which then served as the “official” records of the legislative branch—to explain the broader constitutional and political considerations of the men who framed the Fourteenth Amendment. Using the Globe’s text, Graber ar-gues that Sections 2, 3, and 4 were the heart of that amendment, rather than the better-known Section 1. Yet, a closer look at the context in which the Congressional Globe operated shows that such debates were far from an accurate depiction of con-gressional business. Instead, the Globe’s pages contained an outsized number of “buncombe” speeches designed for constituents rather than for persuading or ne-gotiating with colleagues; the men who make up Graber’s book used these speeches as a tool of dialogue with the broader public. Ultimately, the Globe may tell us just as much about the public meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment—and many other constitutional and statutory concerns—as it does about legislative in-tent.

Some Issues in Detrerming Crime for Obtaining Property by Fraud in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

A crime related to the appropriation of property is a crime that is regulated relatively early in the history of criminal legislation in Vietnam. Through the amendments and supplements to the Penal Code, the provisions for this crime have been changed to suit each historical period. In the Criminal Code 2015 (amended and supplemented in 2017), Obtaining property by fraud is provided for in Article 174. However, in practice, the criminal determination of Obtaining property by fraud in Ho Chi Minh City in recent years still has some issues to concern.

The Emergence and Evolution of Anti-Communist Legislation in Interwar Yugoslavia

The aim of this paper is to outline the history of anticommunist legislation in interwar Yugoslavia and to bring to the fore its key phases. This approach is employed to re-examine the effectiveness of the introduced laws, to pinpoint their shortcomings, but also their strong points. Virtually from its creation, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia) was hostile to communism. Anticommunist convictions of the ruling elites influ­enced many aspects of governance, not only internal affairs, as the outlawing of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in December 1920, but also foreign policy, as postponing the recognition of the Soviet Union to 1940. There are three distinct phases of anticommunist legislation, each clearly marked by a key anticommunist law. During the first phase (1918-1921), there were few legal instruments for combating left-wing radicalism. The second phase (1921-1929) was marked by the introduction of a highly controversial Law on the Protection of Public Security and State Order, which gave previous unprecedented powers to the prosecutors and police to crush the emerging communist movement. This legal framework was further expanded after the proclamation of the King`s dictatorship in 1929, and the overhaul of the Law, as well as the introduction of a special tribunal – The State Court for the Protection of the State.

Cannabis Unveiled: An Exploration of Marijuana’s History, Active Compounds, Effects, Benefits, and Risks on Human Health

Marijuana, also known as cannabis, is a psychoactive drug that comes from the Cannabis plant. Marijuana can be smoked, vaporized, or consumed through edibles in a variety of ways. Perception changes, changes in mood, and problems with coordination are all possible side effects. Marijuana is used for both recreational and medical purposes to treat a variety of health conditions. The literature review on the effects of marijuana on the human body has increased in recent years as more states legalize its use. It is important to investigate the benefits and harmful effects of marijuana on individuals due to the widespread use of cannabis-derived substances like marijuana for medical, recreational, and combined purposes. The paper will review different aspects of marijuana in 4 main domains. A thorough discussion of marijuana’s definition, history, mechanism of action, pharmacokinetics, and effects on human cells will be given in the first domain. The second domain will concentrate on marijuana’s negative effects, while the third domain will look at marijuana’s possible positive impacts, such as its usage in controlling multiple sclerosis, treating obesity, lowering social anxiety, and managing pain. The fourth domain will concentrate on marijuana’s effects on anxiety, educational attainment, and social consequences. Additionally, this paper also will provide a highlight of the history of marijuana use and governmental legislation, both of which play a significant role in determining how the public views marijuana. In conclusion, this paper provides a comprehensive review of marijuana’s effects, which may be of interest to a large readership. This review adds to the continuing discussion about the use of marijuana by analyzing the data that is currently available about the possible advantages and disadvantages of marijuana usage.

The first Criminal Code of Soviet Russia and the responsibility of professional criminals

In 2022, 100 years have passed since the adoption of the first Criminal Code of Soviet Russia — a fundamentally new codified act in the history of Russian legislation. The objectives of this study: to identify and analyze the provisions of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1922 aimed at combating professional crime; to assess their validity, novelty and consistency in the context of the criminal-political tasks that were set before the legislative bodies, as well as their conditionality of the socio-economic and criminological situation that was developing at that time; to create prerequisites for further research on the extent to which the approaches of the legislator to the criminal-legal fight against professional crime were embodied and developed in the subsequent criminal legislation. The article analyzes the main and qualified elements of crimes containing such signs as engaging in crimes of a certain type as a profession and committing a crime in the form of fishing. The rules of sentencing professional criminals and the application of other social protection measures to them, in addition to punishment, are considered. The prescriptions of the criminal law are set out in combination with the characteristics of the socio-economic and criminogenic situation of the early 20s of the twentieth century, the views of domestic lawyers of that time on the problems of criminal professionalism, assessment of the bases of legislative decisions, their gaps and shortcomings.

Former Whistleblowers: Why the False Claims Act's Anti-Retaliation Provision Should Protect Former Employees

Since the Civil War, the False Claims Act has served as a tool to combat fraud perpetrated against the government. Early fraud by government contractors during the Civil War was quaint: contractors selling the same horse twice or filling a Union Army contract for sugar with sand. Today, the government recovers billions of dollars annually through actions under the FCA. Essential to the FCA’s functioning are “relators,” private citizens who serve as whistleblowers incentivized to report fraud by receipt of a percentage of whatever amount the government recovers in damages. The government relies on relators to blow the whistle on fraud—over two-thirds of FCA recoveries since 1986 come from cases brought by relators as whistleblowers. So important are these relators that in 1986 Congress amended the FCA and included an anti-retaliation provision to provide relief for employees who experience retaliation from their employers for reporting fraud. This Note discusses a recent circuit split over whether the anti-retaliation provision of the FCA protects former employees against post-termination retaliation by their employers, arguing that the anti-retaliation provision extends to retaliation against former employees. In arguing in favor of a more inclusive definition of “employee” in the FCA’s anti-retaliation provision, this Note explores the history and purpose of the FCA, the legislative history of the FCA’s anti-retaliation provision, and the arguments for and against the inclusion of former employees under the provision’s protections. Finally, this Note calls for Supreme Court intervention or congressional action to clarify that the FCA’s anti-retaliation provision protects former employees from post-termination retaliation.

The Constitutional Category of “Beauty” in the Polish Legal Order

The subject of the article is a reference to beauty in the preamble to the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 1997. First, the legislative history of the fragment of the introduction to the Constitution, which constitutes beauty as a universal value, has been presented. Then it has been interpreted, taking the position that the constitutional concept of beauty is not only an aesthetic category but also an ethical category. Finally, a study of jurisprudence and normative acts has allowed to define the scope of beauty operationalization as a constitutional value. Critical reference has been made to the state of affairs in which beauty, being an element of constitutional axiology, plays a barely noticeable role in the practice of creating and applying Polish law.

BODY OF CRIME IN CZECH AND POLISH CRIMINAL LAW

The Republic of Poland and the Czech Republic are countries with a similar legal culture and legislative history. This is also noticeable in the field of criminal law. Therefore, it is useful to conduct comparative legal studies on the structure of the crime and its elements (unlawfulness, social harmfulness and culpability). Determining the similarity also in this area will allow to justify further research that may contribute to solving specific problems related to individual elements of the crime body. Thanks to this, the arrangements made within one of the presented laws could affect the other.

The Realistic Approach of Criminological Theories to Reduce Social Evils: A Case Study of Pakistan with an International Perspective

Evolutions of humankind and crime have almost similar besides the human efforts to ensure a peaceful social setup. Still, despite intensive efforts, the eradication of crimes from the communities of this world could not be made possible. The ancient history of legislation from the Stone Age till to date is also a shred of evidence that from the code of Hammurabi - Babylon times to Ten Commandments, from Megna Carta to the Universal declaration of human rights, frequent conventions and implications of public as well as international private law were the part of accomplishing the desired goals but in vain. Still, unfortunately, what could not achieve the desired results by having implications of the adopted approaches introduced and implicated as Classical, Neoclassical, and Positivist theories. Crimes enhance social vulnerability. This study will explore the reality of how criminals have become brawny as a threat to peace and security in the modern world and how they can overcome the situation with the practical implication of criminological theories. This study will also explore whether criminological approaches are sufficient or if any additional legislation or reformed practice is needed to attain the desired rehabilitative errands for sustainable development goals.

RSFSR Land Code of 1922 as the first codified act in the history of Russian land legislation

The RSFSR Land Code of 1922 (LC), adopted as part of the comprehensive codification of Soviet law in the 1920s, is in the focus of this article. The Land Code is looked at as the first codified act that forms the branch of Soviet land law, defining its subject, method, and parameters of further development. The article is based on extensive historiographical material, which is systematized by periods. In the 1920s the Code of Law was in full force, therefore, a doctrinal interpretation of its norms, and authors’ comments on the Code were published. Subsequently, the Land Code of 1922 was studied with the aim of understanding and gaining historical experience in the development of new land laws. The article uses normative legal acts of the Soviet period, published documents, and archival sources. Particular attention is paid to the LC draft preparation and its further development until legislative approval. The methodology includes the dialectical method, as well as comparative legal and formal legal methods. The LC is studied as a historical source of legal content; its external criticism is given. The impact on the content of the LC of social and political conditions of previously issued acts is revealed. It is determined that the Land Code reflects consistency and novelty of the Soviet land legislation. The level of consolidation and incorporation of previously tested norms is very high. The LC most noticeable gaps and the ways to overcome them are outlined.

An Introduction to Pennsylvania Legal Research for Academic Librarians and Researchers

This article reviews electronic Pennsylvania legal research resources available to academic librarians and researchers, the structure of the Pennsylvania state government, and the types of information published by each branch of the government. The executive branch publishes the Pennsylvania Bulletin (the state’s administrative register) and the Pennsylvania Code (the state’s administrative code). The laws passed by the Pennsylvania state legislature are codified in two separate statutory codes: Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes and Pennsylvania Statutes. The legislature also publishes legislative history for statutes that can help to determine the intent of the legislature when the law was passed. The Pennsylvania courts consist of trial courts, two intermediate appellate courts, and a supreme court. All levels of courts publish case decisions and rules to govern court procedure. Citators help to determine whether a case decision is still valid.

On the Death of Diversity Jurisdiction: An Empirical Study Establishing That Diversity Jurisdiction Is No Longer Justified

American federal diversity jurisdiction was created in response to the concern that out-of-state litigants would suffer bias in state court due to their out-of-state status (“geographic bias”). As attested in the record from the state ratification conventions, in the legislative history of diversity jurisdiction, and in seventeen U.S. Supreme Court opinions (the most recent in 2021), the creation of an impartial tribunal to mitigate geographic bias was and is the central rationale for federal diversity jurisdiction. Even though geographic bias is the rationale for diversity jurisdiction, no (prior) empirical studies have established whether geographic bias remains a problem in the American civil justice system. This Article provides the results of an empirical study of objective data, representing over one million cases across thirty years, demonstrating that geographic bias is no longer an issue in the civil justice system. Given that this result eliminates the very reason for the existence of federal diversity jurisdiction, the outcome provides a strong basis for Congressto either modify or abolish diversity jurisdiction.