Justice Legitimacy Research Articles

Judicial people’s power: concepts, forms

It is emphasized that the concept of “judicial people’s power” defines a key aspect of the judicial system in democratic societies. This phenomenon reflects the fundamental idea that the judicial power, usually exercised by judges, should function under conditions of active influence and control of citizens, who are the main subjects of state power in a democratic system.
 It has been established that the study of judicial people’s power is of great importance for strengthening democracy, legal state formation and ensuring justice in modern societies. It promotes the development of effective mechanisms for the protection of the rights and freedoms of citizens and ensures that the courts serve the interests of society, observing the principles of justice and equality before the law.
 It has been determined that judicial people’s power as a constitutional and legal phenomenon plays an important role in ensuring the openness, fairness and legitimacy of justice. It can be implemented through forms of direct and indirect participation of citizens in the exercise of judicial power.
 It is emphasized that the involvement of experts contributes to increasing trust in the judicial system, as court decisions are based on objective data and scientific conclusions. Experts help to avoid suspicion and influence of the parties on the legal process, which is important to ensure justice.
 It was noted that citizen participation in the development of laws and reforms of the judicial system helps to ensure that laws meet the needs and expectations of society. It contributes to increasing the legitimacy and adoption of court decisions by citizens, as they take an active part in the process of forming legal norms and principles. Citizen participation makes the judicial system more open and democratic, contributes to increasing trust in the courts and their work. In general, the participation of citizens in the development of laws and the discussion of reforms of the judicial system is an important mechanism for ensuring citizen participation in the formation of justice and the improvement of the judicial system as a whole. This process reflects the principle of popular sovereignty and supports the idea of democracy in society.
 In summary, judicial democracy is a principle based on the idea that judicial power, including the appointment of judges, decision-making and accountability before the law, should be subjectively controlled by citizens who are the bearers of democratic power in society. Judicial people’s power involves the participation of citizens in the formation and functioning of the judicial system, ensures the openness of judicial processes and the accountability of the judiciary to citizens and the law.

Development of the judicial system as a subject research in post-non-classical science

Social concern with issues of justice, objectivity, independence and effectiveness of justice has accompanied humanity since the time of the need to resolve disputes that arise by turning to a third independent judge. Much has been said about this in the writings of ancient authors during the existence of classical scientific rationality. In non-classical scientific rationality, this discourse acquires its specific characteristics, and the achievements of post-non-classical science objectify the need for further transformations in the judicial sphere, the legitimacy of justice. This is due to the fact that the structure of the judiciary is in a relationship of functional dependence on social systems as one of the substructures of state power, which has a huge impact on the economic, political, rule-making, cultural and moral spheres of social practice. For the judicial system at all times, the attributive properties are not only the continuity of its existence, but also the dynamism of its own structures or individual institutions, which at various stages of real existence are characterized by transformational changes, sometimes cardinal. In order to increase the efficiency of the social functioning of the judicial system, to meet its needs of legal development, it is necessary to generalize scientific ideas about judicial transformations as a real historical and legal phenomenon that accompanied the existence of state power. The article characterizes the essential features of the concepts “judicial system”, “judicial reforms”, “judicial reform”.

TRIAL RITUALS IN MOROCCO: ATTEMPTING TO UNDERSTAND THE REPRESENTATIONS AND EXPLICITNESS OF MODERNISATION CHOICES

This research aims to retrace and interpret the symbolic representations of trial rituals inherited from colonial times in North African countries, attempting to recycle them and make them more compatible with the principles of justice and fairness on which each trial is based. To this end, the researcher used a qualitative descriptive approach, which involved presenting the research problem, collecting the relevant data and analysing it before drawing conclusions. The research has produced several findings, the most important of which is that the symbolic framework of the trial, while helping to present the authority and legitimacy of justice, is in contrast to the values of justice, fairness and equality between the adversaries. It tends to condemn the still innocent accused, even practising intentional violence and ritually contaminating his identity by the insinuations and innuendoes it practices.

French early release: McProcedures and McRe-entry

Before 2009, the main rationales of the French early release system were reinsertion and resocialisation; the prevention of reoffending, the interests of society; and the rights of victims. With the chronic prison overcrowding and the cost for public finances a radical change occurred with three law reforms (2009, 2014, 2019). The new main – if not unique – objective is to free as many prisoners as possible, this, as quickly as possible, without through the gate programmes that address prisoners’ release needs. As a research conducted from 2014 to 2016 shows ‘bad fast’ procedures are rejected by both reentry judges (they lack ‘moral alignment’) and with prisoners (they are perceived as unfair and unsupportive). This article will deal with these subjects by drawing upon theories of innovation diffusion and legitimacy of justice.

Distributed Courts and Legitimacy: What do we Lose When we Lose the Courthouse?

While courthouses often reveal a profound gap between the professed ideals of justice and their delivery, their designs supposedly symbolize the authority of the community over the individual and lend legitimacy to the discipline occurring within. This article considers what happens to the experience and legitimacy of justice when legal participants no longer enter the courthouse, but appear remotely by videolink. Drawing on empirical evidence regarding the use of videolinks in Australian courts, this article reveals current iterations of distributed courts ignore the important symbolic function of the courthouse as the home of justice and the presence of law.

Consent and probation: An analogy with contract law

The Journal EJprob recently published a special issue on consent in sentencing. The EPR (2010) refer to consent on numerous occasions, and in most legal systems consent is required at the sentencing stage. However, in many cases, the alternative is custody, which raises concerns over how freely consent is given and whether it is a mere formal exercise. Social scientists have tried to theorise consent building on compliance, legitimacy of justice, or notions such as therapeutic alliance and offender agency. Some have deplored the existence of a ‘contractual governance’. This article shall argue that a renewed analysis of contract law has the potential to respect offenders’ agency and their right to govern their own lives, whilst taking stock of their need for treatment and compensating for their vulnerable condition. It shows that more rather than less contract is needed in order to avoid both punitive governance and neo-paternalism.

Political Liberalism, Ethos Justice, and Gender Equality

Susan Okin criticizes John Rawls’s ‘political liberalism’ because it does not apply principles of justice directly to gender relations within households. We explain how one can be a ‘political liberal feminist’ by distinguishing between two kinds of justice: the first we call ‘legitimacy justice’, conceptions of which apply to the ‘legally coercive structure’ of society; the second we call ‘ethos justice’, conceptions of which apply to citizens’ ‘non-coercive’ relations. We agree with Okin that a society in which most persons act in accordance with ‘gender equal’ ethos justice is morally superior to one in which most persons do not. A shared commitment to a particular conception of ethos justice, however, cannot be required by a conception of legitimacy justice. A political liberal feminist is committed to promoting gender equality with respect to both legitimacy justice and ethos justice, but recognizes that different means are necessary to do so.

Prevalence of Law and Legitimacy of Justice

Prevalence of Law and Legitimacy of Justice