Investigation Commission Research Articles

On the Legal System of the First Republic of Armenia (1918–1920)

Abstract This article examines the development of the judicial and legal systems in the First Republic of Armenia (1918–1920), highlighting key reforms and challenges. It explores the establishment of various courts, including conciliation, district, and appellate courts, as well as the introduction of a jury court and notarial activities. Despite progressive reforms aimed at democratizing the legal system, such as the creation of jury courts and the regulation of investigatory bodies, widespread malfeasance plagued state administration. Efforts to combat corruption through the establishment of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission and Extraordinary Court proved ineffective, leading to their abolition in 1920. The article also discusses the failure to adopt a constitution, largely due to the republic’s short-lived existence and unresolved political crises. This research draws on primary sources including materials from the National Archives of the Republic of Armenia, parliamentary and government session minutes from 1918–1920, official records, statistical data, periodicals, and contemporary writings.

‘… parents unknown … unheard of …’: Not I and the ‘Mother and Baby Homes Report’

This article re-reads Beckett’s play Not I (1972) in the light of the ‘Mother and Baby Homes Report’, published in January 2021. Beckett interrogates what James Smith, Clair Wills, and others have referred to as Ireland’s ‘architecture of containment’. Mouth, ‘brought up … with the other waifs’ in a mother and baby home, absorbed religious notions of sin and punishment. Through a close reading of selected passages, the article considers to what extent Not I can be read as a ‘survivor’s testimony’ such as those given to the commission of investigation into mother and baby homes.

The 1831 Cholera Riots in Staraia Russa

Abstract: As the first detailed study of the townspeople of Staraia Russa in the two cholera riots of July 1831, this article draws on the previously unexplored records of the military investigative commission that reported on 25 November. That commission tried some 139 individuals, whose motives, actions and ultimate fate are considered along with the attitude of the authorities towards them. Merchants were punished more severely than townsmen. While the revolts were triggered by unpopular measures taken to contain the cholera, they also revealed a wider dissatisfaction with billeting and the behaviour of the urban police after the town became a centre of military colonies in 1825. Looking further back, the article concludes by suggesting that popular discontent may have reflected a deeper scepticism towards the state authorities, brewing since the time of the Napoleonic wars.

Церковь и «красный террор» на Дону в 1918–1919 гг. в новейшей археографии

The article is a review of a documents collection prepared by well-known historians Yulia Alexandrovna Biryukova and Evgeny Anatolyevich Ageev “The Church on the Don during the Civil War of 1918–19. Investigation of the Special Commission.” The book was published in Volgograd in 2022. It contains an introductory source studies article on the documents of the Special Investigation Commission for Investigation of the Bolsheviks’ Atrocities, created on General A.I. Denikin’s order. The collection is based on documents “from the field”: questionnaires about Bolshevik persecution filled in by parishes of the Great Don Host in 1919. The collection contains photographs illustrating the Red Terror against the Russian Orthodox Church on the Don. It contains all necessary scientific reference apparatus to facilitate the search for information. The review emphasizes relevance and scientific significance of the documentary materials introduced into scientific use by the compilers. Regional and microhistorical approaches are scientific basis for the documents collection; the Don materials are grouped by districts, deaneries, and parishes. These approaches, respectively, have formed the basis of this article, which is devoted to the analysis of the collection. The principles of consistency and determinism permit to assess the publication, which is considered as a phenomenon of science with its own structure, while a part of the historical knowledge. The main scientific method used in this publication is problematic. The article offers considerations on the problem of Red Terror towards the Russian Orthodox Church. Attention is focused on the fact that a significant part of the published documents testify to local initiatives in the acts of Red Terror. They did not originate from the authorities, were not ordered, but manifested newcomer soldiers’ aggression towards the Church. The author comes to the conclusion that the published sources may be useful to researchers of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Civil War in Russia. Analysis of the attitude of the local Bolshevik authorities, the military, and the population towards church institutions may contribute to a better understanding of the nature of the Russian Orthodox Church persecution and, more broadly, of the role of the religious factor in the Civil War in Russia.

Improving the process of investigating industrial accidents using the focal object method

One of the important tasks of implementing the state policy in the field of labor protection is to ensure prompt and objective investigation of industrial accidents. The purpose of the study is to improve the quality of legal support for the investigation process and the objectivity of accident investigation. The article deals with the issues of improving the process of investigation of industrial accidents using heuristic methods, in particular, the method of focal objects. The process of applying the focal object method is investigated, indicating all the main stages and key properties of random objects. A brief review of the authors' publications on improving the process of investigating industrial accidents is made. The author considers the issues of interrelation between the processes of special investigation and investigation within criminal proceedings. The author analyzes the works of researchers on the possibility of using heuristic methods to obtain new modifications of methods and processes by applying the focal object method. As a result of the analysis of modern research methods, the author substantiates the possibility and effectiveness of applying the focal object method not only to objects, but also to processes, in particular, to the process of accident investigation. The article proposes a set of tools for obtaining, forming and evaluating ideas through free associations that arise in the process of combining various properties of focal objects. An approach to the formation of individual elements and the structure of the composition of key properties of random objects is proposed. The results of research based on the obtained ideas are presented in the form of specific useful solutions. The author indicates the ways of synchronizing the processes of special investigation carried out by the accident investigation commission and the investigation carried out within the framework of criminal proceedings by pre-trial investigation bodies. The author also considers the issues of developing strategies and measures aimed at improving the process of legal support for the investigation of industrial accidents

Fostering Pharmacists to Succeed in a Drastically Changing Society

In 2006, Japan's pharmaceutical science education was revised to a 6-year enrollment course, placing greater emphasis on cultivating practical clinical ability. Quality Assurance (QA) measures have been implemented including offering education based on a model core curriculum and third-party assessments. In August 2021, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) launched an investigative commission to review the above. For QA, the commission summarized a comprehensive report in August 2022 for items including: modality of selecting entrants; revising enrollment limits; securing education management; information disclosure; corresponding to pharmaceutical education assessments. For revising the model core curriculum, the commission is reviewing correspondence to: demographic changes due to decreasing birthrates, an ageing population, changes in the structure of diseases; rising and emerging infectious diseases; utilizing Big Data and artificial intelligence (AI). As Japan's ageing population is forecast to peak in 2040s, pharmacists must be fostered to provide safe and quality medicine towards a drastically changing future. Medical care is provided through the collaboration of various professions. In such changing demographics, team medicine is crucial to provide quality medical care. Moreover, towards all medical professions sharing the same vision, revisions to the model core curricula for medical and dental education are also being reviewed. The commission is now reviewing detailed curricula to foster pharmacists with competencies to: comprehensively assess patients and ordinary citizens; utilize information science and technology; professionalism. Towards securing quality pharmaceutical education, pharmaceutical departments at universities must also organize and implement an educational curriculum based on the Model Core Curriculum for Pharmaceutical Education. This paper will introduce the investigative commission's review.

Book Review: We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Ireland Since 1958 by O’Toole, FintanFinal Report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes by Government of Ireland's Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth

Book Review: <i>We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Ireland Since 1958</i> by O’Toole, Fintan<i>Final Report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes</i> by Government of Ireland's Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth

Parliamentary Control and Investigative Commissions: Comparative View

The Constitution of the Republic of Albania in its basic principles defines that sovereignty belongs to the people, to all citizens. The people exercise their sovereignty in the ways and within the limits provided by the Constitution itself. One of the most important ways of expressing popular sovereignty is the election of members of the Assembly. So, citizens participate in the governance of Res Publica through their representatives. Parliament structurally consists of one chamber and is a central institution in our constitutional system. In addition to the representative function, it performs the legislative function and the control function. Parliamentary control over the Government is concretized in several institutions of parliamentary law and aims to highlight its political responsibility towards the Assembly. For the sake of truth, it should be emphasized that it makes sense to talk about parliamentary control only for the period of political pluralism because before this period the Parliament executed the party-State directives. The government, in parliamentary republics, answers to the Parliament for its activity because it is inextricably linked to the vote of confidence it receives from it. One of the most important tools to oversee the Government's activity is the establishment of Investigative Commissions. These Commissions aim to guarantee the transparency and responsibility of the activity of the Government supported by the parliamentary majority.&#x0D; &#x0D; Received: 05 May 2022 / Accepted: 16 May 2023 / Published: 20 May 2023

The monstruous and the miscount: a radical theory of accountability

ABSTRACT Can public inquiries and truth commissions provide a space for political transformation? This article investigates the field of transitional justice to address this question, focusing on pessimistic accounts of the persistent failure of truth-telling practices. It identifies three main narratives on why truth commissions fail to promote change, namely the failure of implementation, failure of design and failure by design narratives. This article contends that none of these narratives satisfactorily answer the question raised by this special issue due to their attachment to a referentialist ontology and a linear temporality of truth-seeking. Combining Rancière’s critique of political philosophy with insights from Lacanian psychoanalysis, the article advances a radical theory of accountability capable of circumventing these limitations and elucidating the links between truth-telling and political transformation. Based on an anti-foundationalist approach, this theory sees the work of truth commissions as situated in struggles that constitute the after-maths; the process of counting the parts of a conflict (victims, perpetrators, collaborators) and making suffering count (as violence) by attaching it to an object source (a cause). Seen in a radical light, truth-telling appears trespassed by two organizing principles: the management of monstrosity (as a regime of visibility that formalizes suffering and apportions blame and culpability) and the inevitable miscount of the identities that populate the victim-perpetrators spectrum. The article argues that investigative commissions are doomed to fail, but it is thanks to this failure that they can offer a space for political transformation.

Türkiye’nin bir güneydoğu ili Adıyaman’da Covid-19 pandemi sürecinde bebek ölümlerinin değerlendirilmesi

Aim: Evaluation of infant deaths during the Covid-19 Pandemic period in Adıyaman, a southeastern province of Turkey. Materials and Methods: All infant mortality files submitted to Adıyaman Provincial Health Directorate Infant Mortality Investigation Commission in 2020 and 2021 were examined. Results: 109 out of 11.019 live births in Adıyaman in 2020 and 135 of 11.979 live births in 2021 died before their first birthday. While the infant mortality rate was 9.9 per thousand in 2020, in 2021, it increased by 24% to 12.3 per thousand. There was no evidence that the Covid-19 pandemic directly increased infant mortality. Conclusion: A significant portion of infant deaths are babies of mothers who had risky pregnancies. Therefore, all steps to protect maternal health will be the first and most effective way to reduce infant mortality.

Performance of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Nepal: A Good Governance Perspective

Several anti-corruption laws and dozens of Agencies including the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) have been working against corruption in Nepal. The current constitution has empowered the CIAA as a supreme body for fighting corruption. Nevertheless, the anti-corruption movement is not well enough. Scholars argue that only the establishment of Anti-Corruption Agencies (ACA) cannot assure the cure and substitute for a high level of corruption. Rather, a strong political will, by various means play a key role; for example, by means of the allocation of sufficient personnel and the budget. Others argue that ACA must also be free from political interference and ACA must also be out of fear and favor in investigating political leaders and senior civil servants. Using empirical evidence derived from unstructured interviews with government officials and the net-work sampling method, this paper investigates the institutional challenges to corruption reduction in order to achieve good governance in Nepal. The study finds that administrative corruption and policy-level corruption are the major hindrances to achieving good governance in Nepal.

An examination of ‘institutional ascription’: Capture of the gatekeepers of accounting veracity

This paper aims to apply the theory of gatekeeping — institutional ascription — using the financial crisis of 2008–2009 in Iceland as a case. An investigation of the theory was conducted (Gabbioneta et al., 2014). The research question tested is whether the auditors, regulators, rating agencies, and analysts failed in the duty of stewardship to assess the scale and scope of accounting scandals and fraud perpetrated by executives of financial institutions. The paper shows that unless legal cases are prosecuted, where a complete presentation of evidence is presented, the theory has explanatory power but little predictive power, as all information must be in the public domain. The data applied in this paper is enriched by several unique elements of the situation described: a Special Investigation Commission (SIC, 2010), a report by a well-known regulator, the Office of a Special Prosecutor, (Jännäri, 2009) the role of the Supreme Court in reviewing all cases emanating from the crash, and a Report on Financial Stability (Central Bank of Iceland, 2010). Because of the extensive database provided by a combination of disinfectant and sunlight, this paper permits a richness of data across all financial institutions and an investigation of the theory of institutional ascription. The paper teaches authorities the need for more active use of the criminal system to prosecute wrongdoing.

О документальной основе очерка А. Блока «Последние дни императорской власти»

This work is devoted to issues related to commenting on the first chapter of the essay “The Last Days of Imperial Power” — “The State of Power.” The introduction briefly outlines the main stages of Block’s work in the Extraordinary Investigative Commission “to investigate the illegal actions of former ministers, chief executives and other senior officials of both civil and military and naval departments.” The paper presents an analysis of individual portraits of government officials, derived in the first chapter, and notes the sources of hidden and direct quotations. Characteristics from “The Last Days…” are compared with Blok’s portrait sketches from his notebooks, diaries and notes based on the protocols of interrogations of former representatives of the tsarist government. The article also presents unknown archival materials from the Manuscript Department of the Pushkin House.

Заготовительное дело в сфере военного имущества: к деятельности Русского заготовительного комитета в Америке в 1917 г.

In the article has been attempted to consider the position of the Russian Supply Committee in America, the problems and the state of its structural units during the significant 1917 year of last active cooperation with the Allied powers in military procurement during the First World War. As the Russian Supply Committee is currently presented fragmentally in the scientific historical literature, the author has identified the following purpose of this article — to reduce and expand the available material on the activities of the Russian Supply Committee into a unified picture, paying special attention to the perception of its activities in the American press, the problem of transportation, the issue of the introduction of liquidation policy in relation to purchase order, efforts to purchase transport property. The article is written on the basis of unpublished sources (materials of the office work of the Russian Supply Committee, correspondence of General N. M. Khrabrov with the Main Directorate for Foreign Supply and the authorized Ambassador from the Russian government B. A. Bakhmetyev, orders and instructions of the Main Directorate for Foreign Supply, materials of the Special Investigative Commission) identified in the funds of the Russian State Historical Archive. As a result, the author concluded that in the conditions of political instability and stagnant organizational and structural problems, the Russian Supply Committee could not properly resolve the issue of purchasing military property on the American market.

A Second Life for A Second Life: The 1994 and 2010 Editions of Dermot Bolger’s Novel

This article proposes to compare the two versions of Dermot Bolger’s novel, and to show how A Second Life: A Renewed Novel (2010) reflects the changes which have taken place in Ireland between 1993 and 2010. Little was Dermot Bolger to know that over a decade after the reworked novel’s publication, the Final Report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes (2021) would still have failed to answer some of the questions raised in both his 1994 and 2010 editions of the novel. Of the changes introduced when Dermot Bolger gave a second life to the novel, some are entirely new sentences or longer passages; others are tweaks of the original giving them a slightly different twist; others are suppressions of words or whole sentences. Some simply reflect a greater sensitivity in the choice of words, such as the systematic replacement of “real mother” with “birth mother”. The changes this article aims to understand fall into three categories: a greater insistence on the situation of unmarried mothers and the shame they were made to feel; passages which aim to home in on how the country allowed the situation to endure for such a long time, and how that situation has (and has not) changed in the Ireland of 2010. Finally, a number of both subtle and more significant changes reflect an increased understanding in 2010 of the suffering for both mothers and adopted children around not knowing the truth. This desperate need to know and to have proof or evidence which will back up this knowledge takes on a particular sheen for the narrator-protagonist whose profession as photographer is tied up with the evidential role understood to be played by photography.

Actions of the aviation on-board fire protection system caused by short circuits in control blocks

Abstract The article presents the results of simulation tests of the SSP-FK aviation fire protection system and identification of the main reasons of its false operation on many aeroplanes and helicopters of the Polish Armed Forces using a diagnostic simulator built at ITWL. The results of the performed statistical analyzes pointing to the execution blocks as the key factors in false fire signalling are discussed. Selected test results of the developed simulation model of the actuator block under electrical short-circuit conditions in its control circuits (particularly on printed circuit boards) are presented. The effectiveness of the proposed test method with a simulation model of a fire protection system, which can be used to train the engineering and aviation service and pilots and to support the work of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission, was pointed out.

False actions of the aviation fire protection system caused by disturbances in power circuits

Abstract The article presents the results of simulation tests of the SSP-FK aviation fire protection system and the identification of the main causes of its false operation on many airplanes and helicopters of the Polish Armed Forces with the use of a diagnostic simulator built at ITWL. The results of the performed statistical analyzes pointing to the execution blocks as the key factors in false fire signaling are discussed. Selected test results of the developed simulation model of the actuator unit under the conditions of disturbances occurring in its supply circuits (in particular instantaneous voltage drops) are presented. The effectiveness of the presented test method with the use of a simulation model of a fire protection system, which can be used to train the engineering and aviation service and pilots, and to support the work of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission, was pointed out.

ДОЦІЛЬНІСТЬ ВСТАНОВЛЕННЯ КРИМІНАЛЬНОЇ ВІДПОВІДАЛЬНОСТІ СУДОВОГО ЕКСПЕРТА ЗА НАДАННЯ ЗАВІДОМО НЕПРАВДИВОГО ВИСНОВКУ ТА ОЗНАКИ ТАКОГО КРИМІНАЛЬНОГО ПРАВОПОРУШЕННЯ

The expediency of establishing the forensic expert criminal liability for providing a deliberately false opinion and the features of such a criminal offense under Part 1 of Art. 384 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine are analyzed in the article. The necessity for norms providing for the liability of the forensic expert is stated, and the requirement for their actual application is pointed out. A criminally illegal act provided by Art. 384 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine is analyzed: Deliberately expert false opinion, which was made for submission or submitted to the body conducting pre-trial investigation, enforcement proceedings, court, High Council of Justice, temporary investigative or special temporary investigative commission of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Within the research, authors identify the main shortcomings of Art. 384 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine formulation. The researchers propose to amend the disposition of Art. 384 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine so that criminal liability of the forensic expert to draw a deliberately false opinion will exist regardless of the circumstances of such a criminal offense. The application of Art. 384 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine in terms of criminal liability of the expert liability for providing a deliberately false opinion is analyzed. The researchers find that there are no convictions that have entered into force in Ukraine to bring experts to justice under the relevant part of Art. 384 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Consequently, the researchers note that, despite the existence of certain shortcomings of this article of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, the main problem is the lack of its real application in practice. This means that public authorities do not prosecute experts for drawing deliberately false opinions. At the same time, the proper and effective application of criminal law will help experts to comply with their responsibilities. In addition, the suggestions on improving the sanction of Art. 384 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine are stated.

Application of risk assessment methods in rail transport

This article presents the safety management issue in rail transport in the context of the principles defined in the European Union regulations, i.e., the Common Safety Methods (CSM) dedicated to risk assessment. It describes regulations applicable to the process of risk assessment process including risk analysis and evaluation. The most important challenges related to the application of risk assessment methods are also presented in the article. The regulations of the European Union do not precisely define the way in which risk assessment should be carried out in an organisation. Furthermore, the legislation only requires a risk assessment process to be carried out following a change to the railway system if such a change is assessed as a 'significant change'. This aspect remains problematic in the railway system, due to the considerable discretion left to the railway companies in their approach to conducting assessments of the significance of a change and the low percentage of so-called “significant changes”. As shown by some railway accidents and reports of the State Commission for Investigation of Railway Accidents, omissions in the process of risk assessment and inconsistency of approach of various undertakings to analogous situations may lead to an uncontrolled increase in the level of risk in railway transport.

“The Blood of Innocent Children”: Race, Respectability, and “True” Victimhood in the 1985 MOVE Police Bombing

In 1985, Philadelphia police responded to a stand-off with Afrocentric environmental group MOVE* by dropping a firebomb on their home, killing eleven MOVE members, five of them children. Highly critical of the bombing, the media and the Investigative Commission grieved for the “true victims,” the children who perished alongside adults whose radicalism seemingly made them unworthy of grief. Yet the focus on the children functioned to deflect larger ethical questions—chiefly, if there were no children present, should the state be permitted to bomb its own citizens? Such questions about race, policing, racialized understandings of innocence, and the meaning of childhood, continue to resonate today.