Official Capacity Research Articles

The European Mobile Laboratory: key insights from a decade of outbreak response

Abstract EMLab has responded to emergencies including the West Africa Ebola virus outbreak (2014-2016), the COVID-19 pandemic, and outbreaks of yellow fever, Marburg virus, and Lassa fever. It has deployed mobile labs and experts to many countries, including Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Germany, and Greece. With accumulated experience from each deployment, EMLab’s diagnostic expertise has evolved beyond RT-PCR and serological testing to include basic point-of-care tests, haematology, and genomic surveillance capacities, also focusing on interoperability with other response capacities such as EMTs. Critical to mission success, the organization works closely with the WHO and GOARN, and was certified in 2023 as an official German response capacity within the European Civil Protection Pool. The two-year continuous deployment from 2014-2016 was pivotal in shaping EMLab’s evolution, also leading to significant capacity-building efforts in West Africa. In Guinea, for example, a surveillance network of three diagnostic laboratories has been established and successfully detected cases of viral haemorrhagic fevers, including the re-emergence of Ebola virus and the first reported case of Marburg virus in Guinea in 2021. Ultimately, EMLab’s extensive experience demonstrates that effective public health emergency response requires constant evolution, strategic partnerships, and a commitment to building local capacities, paving the way for a more resilient and prepared global health community.

Stress-testing the international poverty line and the official global poverty statistics

We investigate the current method of derivation of the international poverty line used for monitoring SDG 1 in two key directions: (a) we ask whether the official method used by the World Bank is fit for the purpose of measuring extreme poverty and if their method is defensibly valid both internally and externally; and (b) we ask whether the resulting statistics perform acceptably well in terms of accuracy and precision. Using comparative analysis, error accounting methods, and minimization criteria, on key poverty indicators, our investigation gathers compelling evidence that leans towards a negative answer to both questions. We conclude that the adoption of alternative methods for monitoring global poverty should be considered in an official capacity with urgency.

Considerations of (Non)-Application of Immunity of State Officials from Foreign Jurisdiction in Cases of International and Transnational Crimes

Abstract This article examines the scope and limitations of jurisdictional immunities afforded to high-ranking state officials accused of international and transnational crimes in foreign courts, including international courts. It discusses how international law balances the immunities granted to facilitate international relations and uphold state sovereignty against the need to address serious crimes that threaten the international community as a whole. The analysis delves into key legal debates and landmark cases shaping the understanding of these immunities. A focal point of the analysis is the work of the International Law Commission (ilc) on the topic of Immunity of State Officials from Foreign Criminal Jurisdiction, particularly Draft Article 7. It is argued that ilc’s Draft Article 7, while explicitly clarifying the application of immunity in international crime cases, also provides valuable insights into the scope of immunity for transnational crimes. Transnational crimes, like corruption, are fundamentally private acts carried out for personal gain, regardless of whether they are committed by someone in an official capacity or utilizing the resources and instrumentalities of the state. Therefore, these acts cannot be considered official and do not trigger the application of immunity ratione materiae. By highlighting the implications of Draft Article 7, the article contributes to the broader understanding of how international law can reconcile the need for state officials to perform their duties without fear of foreign prosecution with the necessity of holding them accountable for serious crimes. It suggests a more restrictive approach to immunity, particularly concerning transnational crimes, thereby enhancing the potential for legal accountability for offending state officials.

Promoting sustainability through equality, peace, and justice: A luck-dependent decision-making practice in an economically successful intentional community

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the United Nations address global challenges such as reducing inequality (Goal 10) and promoting peace and justice (Goal 16). Intentional communities inherently support the SDGs through their focus on equality and their decision-making practices to settle interpersonal conflicts to achieve peace and justice for their members. While intentional communities have garnered recent interest as potential models for meeting these goals, research in this area remains limited. In addition, the economic success of the intentional community is crucial for its sustainability and societal relevance. This study investigates how an economically successful intentional community, the Korean popular music group Stray Kids, contributes to Goals 10 and 16 through its decision-making practices that promote equality, peace, and justice. What is unexpected is that the mutually agreed-upon practice for decision-making involves accepting luck and often settling community disputes through the game of Rock-Paper-Scissors—an unusual, though not unheard-of, practice in various official capacities. This study investigates the significant features of this practice and its relationship to group cohesion and individual mental health using the historical research method, considering both its strengths and weaknesses. Insights are provided regarding the potential application of this decision-making method to mainstream society, aiming to improve the social and economic sustainability of its institutions in achieving Goals 10 and 16.

The Role of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Resolving Israeli War Crimes Against Palestinian Civilians

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially in the context of war crimes that harm Palestinian civilians, has become the focus of world attention. The International Criminal Court (ICC), based on the 1998 Rome Statute, has jurisdiction over crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression. This research analyzes the role of the ICC in dealing with Israeli war crimes against Palestinian civilians. The ICC, as a permanent international tribunal, can try perpetrators of war crimes regardless of their official capacity in their country of origin. The ICC has the potential to provide justice for Palestinian victims of war crimes, although the challenge is to exercise jurisdiction over non-party states and ensure its decisions comply with international expectations for justice and peace

Legal Actions Of Notaries Who Feel Aggrieved By The Decision Of The PTUN Court On Dismissal In PTUN Decision Number 200/PK/2022 In Jakarta

As a public official, a Notary can be dishonorably dismissed if proven to have committed a criminal offense, as stipulated in the Notary Position Law. Although regulations related to dishonorable dismissal for notaries already exist, they are considered somewhat unclear. The issues discussed in this study include the substance of legal remedies for notaries who are dishonorably dismissed due to criminal convictions with a threat of less than five years. The research method used is normative juridical, with data collection through document study and literature review. The analytical approach used is qualitative. The research findings regarding the substance show that criminal offenses that can lead to dishonorable dismissal for notaries are criminal offenses with a prison sentence of 5 (five) years or more that have obtained legal force, whether committed in a personal or official capacity. Furthermore, the legal remedy for a Notary who is faced with dishonorable dismissal when convicted with a sentence of less than five years is to file a lawsuit to the State Administrative Court. This lawsuit is addressed to the Minister of Law and Human Rights as Defendant I, and the Notary as Defendant II.

Organizing States: The continuing relevance of formal organization within political administration

In this paper, we argue for the continuing relevance of formal organization. We do so by examining contemporary challenges to ‘formality’ in one particular sphere of organizational existence: that of political administration. We deploy the latter term to refer to those formal organizational activities involving the constitution, maintenance, projection and regulation of governmental authority. Political administration, we argue, maintains its distinctive character because of the singularity of its purpose or ‘core task’ – namely, the activity of governing in an official capacity through and on behalf of a state. We begin by outlining how formality has regularly been opposed to substance in the social sciences, and how this has led to a series of unfortunate misunderstandings concerning the status of ‘formal organization’. We then turn to show what it means to serve a state in a formal capacity. Here the concept of office is of crucial import and we seek to indicate its key components and their relation to classical organizational theorizing concerning formal organization. Having established the centrality of office to the organizational conduct of the work of the state, we proceed to examine two different but linked developments in politics and public management that have compromised or undermined formal official conduct in political administration and highlight the organizational, political and ethical problems they raise. These problems are not inconsequential but rather go to the heart of debates concerning intense political partisanship and radical scepticism towards public institutions. In taking this route, the paper makes two overall contributions. First, against the ongoing problematization of formality within organizational theorizing, we seek to revive the relevance of classical conceptions of formal organization for organization theory as a practical science. Second, we argue that formal organization within state, government and political administration remains practically crucial to navigating the ‘extreme circumstances’ that confront us in the here and now in what has been termed the ‘New Era of Tragedy’.

Aantekeninge: Trustaktes en die risiko’s van ’n onnadenkende kopiëring van template

The formulations used in many deeds for a trust inter vivos are probably examples of the type of fallacy that accepts that because there are thousands if not millions of trust deeds for a trust inter vivos that have an identical preamble, they must be legally valid. In many of these trust deeds the preamble and first clause in essence reads: “TRUST DEED XYZ TRUST ENTERED INTO BETWEEN XYZ Identity Number 801023 4567 089 (hereinafter referred to as FOUNDER) and XYZ Identity Number 801023 4567 089 And ABC ID nr And DEF ID nr (hereinafter referred to as TRUSTEES) ON BEHALF OF: THE INCOME AND CAPITAL BENEFICIARIES AS DEFINED IN PARAGRAPH 1.2.1 OF THIS TRUST DEED WHEREAS the founder is desirous of creating the trust herein referred to for and on behalf of the aforementioned beneficiaries subject to the terms and conditions as hereinafter set forth in more detail. AND WHEREAS the trustees declared themselves willing to accept the donation and to hold and utilise it on behalf of the beneficiaries subject to the conditions as set forth by the founder and as it is recorded in this deed of trust; The founder hereby donates to the trustees the amount of R100 (One Hundred Rand) which immediately vests in the trustees in their official capacity to be held in trust and administered according to the terms of this deed. The current trustees are as scheduled in the preamble to this deed …” (emphasis added). In the example the agreement is seemingly concluded with itself by XYZ acting simultaneously as the founder and as primary trustee. However, it is an established legal and logical principle that a legal subject, with the possible exception of a recognised agency construction with an existing principal, cannot enter into an agreement with himself and that any attempt to establish such a construction is necessarily doomed to complete nullity. In the initial editions of LAWSA, this principle was repeated without qualification with regard to a representative construction: “a contract is a juristic act for which expressions of common intention by at least two persons are required”. The later qualification in the case law applies only to the said existing principal and agency arrangements. The envisaged future trust inter vivos can be established, however, at the earliest after all the parties involved have signed the document to express their agreement to the terms incorporated in the agreement. Until then, there is still no trust, and no one can “in an official capacity”, in the sense that Honoré argues that trusteeship is an “office”, represent the non-existent trust. Where a person seeks to conclude an alleged agreement with himself, the law attaches as little value to it as to an arbitrary New Year’s resolution – no legal consequences flow from it. Such an “agreement” is ab initio void and without any legal consequences. Void agreements cannot later be rectified. This is not to be confused with an incorrectly recorded agreement where any of the parties to the existing agreement is entitled to rely on their real consensus and to have the document formally corrected to express their true common intention. Apparently, the trust deed in the example of the XYZ Trust above is void from the outset regardless of whether or not the master of the high court officially registered it later. The administrative act of registration by the master cannot amend the legal position and breathe legal life into a void document. It is submitted that there is an easy way out of the self-caused “practice crisis” where the naïve use of the trusted template of the trust deeds unintentionally jeopardises the validity of these trusts because of the unnecessary cloning of the founder as primary trustee. The trusted template should be amended so that the founder does not allegedly contract with himself as trustee but merely enters into the agreement with the other two persons identified as the original trustees of the XYZ Trust. In order to give effect where applicable to the interest of the founder to retain as a trustee (albeit effectively as one of the controlling trustees) say in the execution of “his” trust, a simple additional conditional clause may provide for a resolutive condition that applies if the other two trustees with whom he as founder initially signed the trust deed do not enter into an agreement with him within the prescribed period in order to add him as an additional trustee on his acceptance of all the controlling powers provided for in the deed. The template often provides for the later appointment of additional trustees: “The current trustees are as scheduled in the preamble to this deed … but the trustees are entitled to appoint additional trustees of their own choice … .”

Inclusion of Individuals as Subjects of International Law

The classical notion of international law as a body of laws or rules that regulate the relations of States inter se is no longer sustainable. This paper is an attempt to appraise the inclusion of individuals as subjects of international law. It uses the doctrinal methodology. It makes the claim that the activities of individuals attract international judicial notice and produce certain consequences. Individuals now have rights and obligations under international law. As incumbents of rights under international law, individuals have some procedural capacity to protect these rights. Again as rights are corollary of duties, individuals could be held accountable before international courts when they are in default as regards their international obligations. Thus, officials of the State can no longer find shelter in the rubric of State capacity or official capacity to occasion gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Using Expertise in Performing Linguistic Examination

The article describes the usage of expertise in performing linguistic examination in regards to the procedural aspect of forensic practice, as well as the level of expert’s professional competence. The possibility for non-state experts to apply their specialized knowledge during a trial is noted to depend on who initiates the examination – the court, the prosecution or the defence. The notions of “an expert” in the sense of “standing in the proceedings”, “qualifications as per graduation certificate” and “official capacity at an expert institution” are analysed. The author provides cases from personal practice which expose errors related to competent establishment of an object of examination and to remaining within the boundaries of expert speciality.

FUN ARCADE, LLC, and BARRACUDA VENTURES, LLC, Plaintiff,v.CITY OF HICKORY, THURMAN WHISNANT, HICKORY CHIEF OF POLICE, in his official capacity, CITY OF CONOVER, ERIC LOFTIN, CHIEF OF POLICE, in his official capacity,Defendant.Court of Appeals of North Carolina.Case No. COA22-557.APPEALFiled August 1, 2023.

FUN ARCADE, LLC, and BARRACUDA VENTURES, LLC, Plaintiff,v.CITY OF HICKORY, THURMAN WHISNANT, HICKORY CHIEF OF POLICE, in his official capacity, CITY OF CONOVER, ERIC LOFTIN, CHIEF OF POLICE, in his official capacity,Defendant.Court of Appeals of North Carolina.Case No. COA22-557.APPEALFiled August 1, 2023.

Approaches for bridging the sanitation delivery gap in urban informal settlements in Namibia

Shacks in urban informal settlements will be the most common form of housing in Namibia by 2025. Informal settlements are usually not connected to municipal sewage systems for multiple reasons, including lack of land tenure and lack of official capacity to invest in infrastructure in unplanned spaces. On-site decentralised sanitation is therefore the norm for shack dwellings in Namibia, but any official opposition to this system results in complete absence of sanitation and inadvertently promotes open defecation. This grey zone of urban informality and the gap in sanitation delivery is the focus of this study, which evaluates interactions between local communities, non-government organisations (Clay House Project and Development Workshop Namibia) and an international development agency (GIZ) as they navigate the physical, economic and political landscape of implementing bottom-up sanitation solutions for informal settlements in Namibia. In critical analysis of the three different sanitation delivery models of these organisations, we consider their historical development, underlying philosophies and technical solutions. We also examine how products from different sanitation systems are managed and whether urine source separation could improve their management. Overall, the results provide insights into bridging gaps in sanitation delivery in informal settlements, which are home to more than a billion people worldwide.

The Sentencing Effectivity on the Criminal Offense of Corruption Through the Perspective of Indonesian State Administrative Law: A Review

Corruption is an act of abusing the legally given power by an entitled public officer or a legal entity, at the length of acting outside of their official capacities that are within the legal duty, with the intention of taking advantage of the policy’s loopholes that are mainly regulating the act of conduct. Presently, corruption can be described as an act that is done by the person per se, not per the Actions solely, in which every action that ‘Actions’ outside of its formal domain of conduct, should be considered as corruption. Many scholars condemn the act of corruption as a discourse of discrepancy throughout the form of an interpersonal, social, moral, and legal order from its own.

Use of Recycled Construction and Demolition Waste Material in Soil Stabilization

Abstract: Along with the growth of the construction sector, waste from construction and demolition has steadily increased. The Building Materials Promotion Council (BMPTC) estimates that India generates 1504.444 million tons of construction and demolition waste (C&D) annually. However, the official capacity is 6,500 tons per day (TPD), which is only about 1%. This article investigates the properties of black cotton soil and explores the use of recycled C&D waste from soil to stabilize black cotton soil. This study focuses on the inexpensive and environmentally friendly properties of C&D waste as a soil stabilization additive. Testing was conducted using different percentages of recycled C&D waste at rates of 15%, 20% and 25% to increase the strength of the Black Earth. The California Bearing Capacity Ratio (CBR) is 7.77 % to 12.36%, and the maximum dry density of (MDD) decreased from 2.104 g/cm3 to 1.86 g/cm3 and Optimum Moisture Content (OMC) showed change and increased from 13.15% to 18.04% with the addition of 25% C&D waste.

David Littlefield, Michelle Littlefield, Tracy Acord, Deborah Canary, Francis Canary Jr., Veronica Casey, Patricia Colbert, Vivian Courcy, Will Courcy, Donna Defaria, Antonio Defaria, Kim Dorsey, Kelly Dorsey, Francis Lagace, Jill Lagace, David Lewry, Kathleen Lewry, Michele Lewry, Richard Lewry, Robert Lincoln, Christina Almeida, Carol Murphy, Dorothy Peirce, and David Purdy, Plaintiffs,v.United States Department of the Interior; Debra A. Haaland, in

Gaming Law ReviewVol. 27, No. 4 CaseDavid Littlefield, Michelle Littlefield, Tracy Acord, Deborah Canary, Francis Canary Jr., Veronica Casey, Patricia Colbert, Vivian Courcy, Will Courcy, Donna Defaria, Antonio Defaria, Kim Dorsey, Kelly Dorsey, Francis Lagace, Jill Lagace, David Lewry, Kathleen Lewry, Michele Lewry, Richard Lewry, Robert Lincoln, Christina Almeida, Carol Murphy, Dorothy Peirce, and David Purdy, Plaintiffs,v.United States Department of the Interior; Debra A. Haaland, in her official capacity as Secretary of the Interior; Bureau of Indian Affairs; and Bryan Newland, in his official capacity as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs; Defendants, and MASHPEE WAMPANOAG TRIBE, Intervenor-Defendant.United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.Case No. 22-CV-10273-AK.Memorandum and Order on Cross Motions for Summary JudgmentFebruary 10, 2023.Published Online:15 May 2023https://doi.org/10.1089/glr2.2023.29076.casAboutSectionsView articleView Full TextPDF/EPUB Permissions & CitationsPermissionsDownload CitationsTrack CitationsAdd to favorites Back To Publication ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail View articleFiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 27Issue 4May 2023 InformationCopyright 2023, 2023 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishersTo cite this article:David Littlefield, Michelle Littlefield, Tracy Acord, Deborah Canary, Francis Canary Jr., Veronica Casey, Patricia Colbert, Vivian Courcy, Will Courcy, Donna Defaria, Antonio Defaria, Kim Dorsey, Kelly Dorsey, Francis Lagace, Jill Lagace, David Lewry, Kathleen Lewry, Michele Lewry, Richard Lewry, Robert Lincoln, Christina Almeida, Carol Murphy, Dorothy Peirce, and David Purdy, Plaintiffs,v.United States Department of the Interior; Debra A. Haaland, in her official capacity as Secretary of the Interior; Bureau of Indian Affairs; and Bryan Newland, in his official capacity as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs; Defendants, and MASHPEE WAMPANOAG TRIBE, Intervenor-Defendant.United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.Case No. 22-CV-10273-AK.Memorandum and Order on Cross Motions for Summary JudgmentFebruary 10, 2023..Gaming Law Review.May 2023.218-231.http://doi.org/10.1089/glr2.2023.29076.casPublished in Volume: 27 Issue 4: May 15, 2023PDF download

Eudora Welty House & Garden

Eudora Welty House & Garden Jessica Russell If the past year had one theme, it would have been the gift of friendship. How heartening to reunite with fellow admirers of Eudora Welty on the grounds of her family home as our flagship events made their post-pandemic returns. Even so, among staff, 2022 brought challenges that, while unexpected, served to deepen our commitment to our mission and each other. Moreover, for every achievement to follow in this report, there is a friendship to thank—whether with the Eudora Welty Foundation, our colleagues at the Mississippi Department of Archives & History (MDAH), individual volunteers, or community partners too numerous to list—each one a treasured marvel. For, in Eudora Welty's words, "as is true of all friendships, it might not have happened—and it did." Although we were saddened to say goodbye to our dear friend and former director Lauren Rhoades, to our delight she has returned time and again, as a volunteer, a guest, and even a guest speaker. Most impactful, Rhoades now supports sites like ours in an official capacity as the new director of grants at the Mississippi Arts Commission, where she connects arts-based organizations with potential funding opportunities. In this role, Rhoades informed the Eudora Welty Foundation about the Building Fund for the Arts Grant, to which they successfully applied. Because of this very grant, we can make perhaps our biggest announcement of 2022, which is that the Eudora Welty Foundation will break ground on the much-needed community arts building behind our Visitor Center. The report in this volume by the Foundation, which is supervising construction, contains more details on this exciting development. After Rhoades's departure, I had the great honor of transitioning to director. By December, we welcomed Lauren Claret to fill my former role as Garden Projects Specialist, ending a lengthy staff shortage. We even grew our team, adding Mary Atchley as a part-time Visitor Center Associate to handle our gift shop and ticket sales. All the while, my seasoned colleagues, Special Projects Coordinator Rachel Lott, and Education Specialist Jennifer [End Page 189] Rose, continued to shine in their respective roles: Lott coordinates volunteers and plans exhibits, events, and social media. Rose leads educational programs for students of all ages, in groups large and small, onsite and away. With such a small team, our museum depends heavily on volunteers to lead house tours and maintain the Welty garden, and recruiting new volunteers is our greatest need as we look ahead to 2023. We saw a precipitous drop in volunteers at the onset of the pandemic. Although visitation has started a noticeable rise, volunteer numbers have not yet picked up. (On that note, if you or someone you know is interested in becoming a Welty House volunteer, please email info@eudoraweltyhouse.com.) To each of our house docents and Cereus Weeders, we say a heartfelt "thank you." Fortunately, we had the support of two interns last fall. Victoria Richard (Millsaps College, via the Eudora Welty Foundation) led Welty House tours and updated our digital plant records database with an emphasis on the rose collection. Meanwhile, Nikki Maxwell (University of Southern Mississippi, via MDAH) worked primarily off-site with the MDAH Eudora Welty Collection, noting the numerous references to gardening in the recently unsealed Welty family papers. The annual teachers' CEU workshop took place virtually in February of 2022, comparing the works of Welty and Poe. Michael Pickard, Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Millsaps College, and Millsaps College Professor emerita Suzanne Marrs, led the course, and they will do so again on February 24, 2023—this time in person at the Eudora Welty House & Garden Visitor Center—comparing the work of Welty and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Thanks to support from MDAH and the Eudora Welty Foundation, teachers may attend the 2023 workshop at no charge. The in-person return of the Mississippi Book Festival in 2022 made for an exciting weekend in late August, when museum staff treated 110 festival panelists to private tours of the Welty House and Garden. We spent the next day seeing old friends, and making new ones, as 500 fellow book lovers visited our booth at the...

The Frontlines and Margins: Gendered Care and Covid-19 in the Indian Media

Among the many stories that emerged out of India during the pandemic, one was somewhat buried under the media discourse around the migrant crisis, lockdown regulations, and economic fallout. This was the story of striking accredited social health activist workers asking for fair wages, improved benefits, and better working conditions. The Covid-19 crisis highlighted the poor health infrastructure and the precarious, and often, stigmatized nature of frontline work, managed at the community level by paramedical workers, a significant proportion of whom are women. There has been considerable attention paid by feminist groups as well as health-related civil society organizations on the gender-based inequities that have emerged during the pandemic, particularly in relation to care work. This study explores how care work performed by the accredited social health activists was framed in the mainstream media, through an examination of articles in three selected English daily newspapers over one year of the pandemic. Drawing on theoretical work deriving from similar health crises in other regions of the world, we explore how the public health infrastructure depends on the invisible care-giving labor of women in official and unofficial capacities to respond to the situation. The systemic reliance on women’s unpaid or ill-paid labor at the grassroots level is belied by the fact that women’s concerns and contributions are rarely visible in issues of policy and public administration. Our study found that this invisibility extended to media coverage as well. Our analysis offers a “political economy of caregiving” that reiterates the need for women’s work to be recognized at all levels of functioning.

Oppression and internalized oppression as an emerging theme in accessing healthcare: findings from a qualitative study assessing first-language related barriers among the Kurds in Turkey

BackgroundLanguage has been well documented to be a key determinant of accessing healthcare. Most of the literature about language barrier in accessing healthcare is in the context of miscommunication. However, it is critical to consider the historical and political contexts and power dynamics underlying actions. The literature in this matter is short. In this paper we aimed to find out how first-language affects access to healthcare for people who do not speak the official language, with a particular focus on language oppression.MethodsWe conducted this qualitative study based on patient-reported experiences of the Kurds in Turkey, which is a century-long oppressed population. We conducted 12 in-depth interviews (all ethnically Kurdish, non-Turkish speaking) in Şırnak, Turkey, in 2018–2019 using maximum variation strategy. We used Levesque’s ‘Patient-Centred Access to Healthcare’ framework which addresses individual and structural dimensions to access.ResultsWe found that Kurds who do not speak the official language face multiple first-language related barriers in accessing healthcare. Poor access to health information, poor patient-provider relationship, delay in seeking health care, dependence on others in accessing healthcare, low adherence to treatments, dissatisfaction with services, and inability to follow health rights were main issues. As an unusual outcome, we discovered that the barrier processes in accessing healthcare are particularly complicated in the context of oppression and its internalization. Internalized oppression, as we found in our study, impairs access to healthcare with creating a sense of reluctance to seek healthcare, and impairs their individual and collective agency to struggle for change.ConclusionsA human-rights-based top-down policy shift, and a bottom-up community empowerment approach is needed. At the system level, official recognition of oppressed populations, acknowledgement of the determinants of their health; and incorporating their language in official capacities (particularly education and healthcare) is crucial. Interventions should include raising awareness among relevant professions and stakeholders that internalized oppression is an issue in accessing healthcare to be considered. Given that internalized oppression can be in other forms than language or ethnicity, future research aimed at examining other aspects of access to healthcare should pay a special attention to internalized oppression.

Legal Imperatives for Decongesting Correctional Centres in Nigeria: A Review of Recent Legislative Measures

One of the major drawbacks in the Nigerian criminal justice system is the congestions in correctional centres. Custodial centres are not only the pivot on which the wheel of criminal justice revolves. They are also institutions which provide homes for a technical segment of the society and protection for the general public. Having regard to modern objectives of correctional services, it has become more paramount for custodial or correctional centres to indeed provide platform not only for housing inmates but more importantly as an opportunity to rehabilitate, remould and make lives of inmates more useful whether during custody or after their release. Unfortunately, these objectives are very difficult to realize in Nigeria as a result of several factors accounting for the congestion of Nigerian prisons. It was in the light of this that certain critical legislations were enacted i.e. the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) 2015, the Police Act 2020, and the Nigerian Correctional Service Act, 2019 to deliberately arrest some of the major factors which are responsible for why custodial centres have always been overstretched beyond official capacity. Though the ACJA and others were overwhelmingly received with approval by all, it is observed that there is gross lack of will on the part of the government and other stakeholders in the criminal justice sector to fully adhere to and implement the provisions of the laws. The government is urged to increase efforts in empowering relevant and critical stakeholders like the police, the courts and the correctional centres in implementing the laudable objectives of the ACJA and other relevant legislations for a purposeful criminal justice delivery.

Male Police involved Intimate Partner Violence: Is it more Dangerous than Abuse by Civilians? An Argumentative Analysis

In the wake of the killing of George Floyd, Canadian and US policing has received mass scrutiny. These violent police behavior is currently prompting questions about the appropriate use of force by police officers. Police use of force usually focuses on police officer’s brutality in their official capacity, but there is a lack of empirical data on brutality and abuse perpetrated by police against their intimate partners in their private family lives. Although police officers are more likely than civilians to abuse their partners, the power and training provided to police officers by the state make them significantly more dangerous as domestic violence perpetrators. “Feminist theory” and “Hegemonic Masculinity theory” have been applied to understand the power and control that police officers have due to their training, which causes them to be considered more violent and dangerous for their families, especially for their intimate partners. To support the argument, three key themes have emerged: police abusers are skilled abusers; victims face a tremendous struggle to report the abuse; and available support systems for the victims of police abusers sometimes not adequate for them. Finally, some policy implications have been provided to address this problematic and potentially more dangerous issue.