Rule Of Law Research Articles

Quick Fix Solutions-Anticorruption as Core/Peripheral Modality of the ‘Rule of Law’

AbstractAnticorruption has become the fulcrum of conditionalities for unstable democracies. In the EU, antigraft packages formed the common denominator of stabilization policies for Romania, Bulgaria, the Western Balkans, Moldova, and Ukraine. Union conditionalities trailed broader international trends and campaigns. The shift led to a crescendo of institutional innovations. Discursively, it generated a degree of conceptual overlap: anticorruption, for peripheral stabilization purposes, equates with the rule of law. I argue that the exclusive stress on anticorruption as a panacea for the (semi)periphery is fraught with perplexities. Paradoxically, in systems that can be reliably described as corrupt, the policy has a propensity to be derailed from its ostensible purposes. This danger results partly from categorial tensions between RoL normativity, on the one hand, and, on the other, the ethical purism and policy quantification inextricably linked with anticorruption. In the context of peripheral crusades, tendencies towards legal instrumentalism and populist emotionalism are exponentially higher than in stable jurisdictions. Consequently, unidirectional attempts to stabilize such systems by way of repressive anticorruption backfire. Likelier results are instability or forms of stability that might not correspond to central, received understandings of how a rule of law liberal-democratic system should operate. By the same token, in the integrated transnational constitutional system located at the intersection of EU and Council of Europe guarantees, “reverse conformities” tend to upset core tenets and representations of the rule of law. The paper argues that anticorruption policies, albeit eminently useful, should be fettered by rule of law constraints, not equated with the notion of the rule of law.

The concept of effectiveness of ensuring the rights and legal interests of a person in pre-trial criminal proceedings

The following factors have a significant impact on the level of effectiveness of ensuring human rights and legitimate interests in criminal proceedings: the political regime in the country, the level of legal culture of the population, the level of economic well-being of the population, the state of compliance with the rule of law, etc. It is possible to assess the effectiveness of ensuring human rights and legitimate interests in criminal proceedings only taking into account the above factors. The purpose of this scientific work is a legal analysis of signs of the effectiveness of ensuring human rights and legitimate interests in criminal proceedings; based on the studied characteristics, formulate the concept of the effectiveness of ensuring the rights and legitimate interests of a person in pre-trial criminal proceedings. The methodological basis of the research is based on general scientific and special methods, in particular, dialectical, comparative legal, formal logical, structural and functional, and the method of theoretical generalization. It was found that the effectiveness of ensuring the rights and legitimate interests of a person in criminal proceedings is manifested in two aspects: 1) the ability of procedural guarantees to achieve the goal of providing an individual with a legal and actual opportunity to use the right and satisfy the legitimate interest in a minimum period of time; 2) the ability of procedural guarantees to achieve the goal of providing individual with a legal and actual opportunity to renounce the right and legitimate interest in a minimum period of time. It has been determined that the effectiveness of ensuring the rights and legitimate interests of a person in criminal proceedings is the ability of procedural guarantees in a minimum period of time to achieve the goal of providing individual with the legal and actual opportunity to use the right and satisfy a legitimate interest or the opportunity to renounce the right and legitimate interest in pre-trial criminal proceedings.

The Impact of the European Union on the Endorsement of the Justice Reform in Albania

European integration has been the primary goal of Albanian foreign policy since the collapse of the communist regime, regardless of the ruling political party. The political elite and the Albanian people embrace and support the integration process. Also, the European Union has grown as a transformative power in Albania, fostering democracy, influencing structural reforms, and impacting the rule of law through the promise of future accession. However, the enlargement process has been slow due to internal and external factors. The article analyzes the EU as a transformative power and the use of Conditionality in Albania as an essential diffusion channel of the EU's values and norms, using the adoption of justice reform as a key study. The article's objective is to examine how the EU perspective membership has influenced the endorsement of justice reform in Albania. The paper argues that the EU approach has succeeded in fostering compliance with formal accession criteria but has yet to implement the justice reform due to internal factors and a not linear enlargement perspective. Progress Reports, literature, surveys, and media articles will be analyzed to fulfill the paper's objective. Received: 10 February 2024 / Accepted: 20 April 2024 / Published: 5 May 2024

Strengthening the Rule of Law Through Community Policing: Evidence From Liberia

How to improve security and strengthen the rule of law in fragile states? Community policing programs have long been at the forefront of policymakers’ efforts to address this challenge. These programs tend to be more expansive than those found in developed countries, focusing not only on building trust through meetings and foot patrols, but also on eliciting ‘coproduction’ from communities to supplement scarce police capacity and provide alternatives to vigilantism. I partnered with the Liberian National Police (LNP) to experimentally evaluate the effectiveness of this approach in Monrovia, Liberia, one of sub-Saharan Africa’s most crime-ridden cities. Drawing on a large-scale resident survey and administrative crime data, I find that the program improved relations between police and citizens, strengthened social norms against vigilantism, and mobilized communities to participate in the police’s “Watch Forum” initiative by forming and sustaining local security groups designed to facilitate cooperation with police. These changes were accompanied by a roughly 40% reduction in the incidence of mob violence. Despite these improvements, the program did not reduce the overall incident of crime, improve perceptions of security, or increase crime reporting.

How effective are green innovations as a remedy for mineral resource scarcity in the European region?

The relationship between environmental externalities and green innovation is being increasingly explored in the literature but there is no paper exploring the nexus between green innovation (GI) and sustainable development. This article sheds light on the connection between GI and mineral rents from 2007 to 2021. In order to verify our results, we conduct a robustness assessment using a variety of natural resource rents, encompassing coal rents, gas rents, and forest rents. Our research furnishes evidence indicating that the adoption of environmental innovation is poised to curtail the consumption of most mineral resources, with the exception of forest rents in the PCSE and FGLS estimates. While GI does not exhibit statistical significance in the short term, its long-term impact reduce reliance on mineral rents. These findings maintain their robustness and reliability when accounting for endogeneity, fixed effects, and heterogeneity. To illuminate the relationship between institutional quality and mineral rents (MR), we incorporate six different indicators of institutions: voice and accountability (VA), government effectiveness (GE), rule of law (RL), regulatory quality (RQ), political stability and absence of violence/terrorism (PV), and control of corruption (CC). Our findings underscore the fact that integrating GI with institutions diminishes activities associated with mineral rents; from this we provide important policy recommendations for promoting GI development to use mineral resources more efficiently.

An assessment on the competencies in local governance among the punong barangays in the Municipality of Hadji Panglima Tahil, Province of Sulu

The study evaluates the competencies of Punong Barangays in Hadji Panglima Tahil, Province of Sulu, in terms of delivery of basic services, executive functions, and legislative functions during the Fiscal Year 2023. The study involved 100 respondents, mostly female, married, aged 31+, with high school education and an average monthly income of 5,001-10,000. With 100 samples taken through non-probability sampling method via purposive sampling, and with the use of weighted mean, standard deviation, t-test for independent samples, One-way ANOVA, and Pearson’s r the findings indicate that Punong Barangays are generally competent in their duties and functions. The study supports the Antal Szerletics, Gerry Stoker, and B. Guy Peter’s model, which emphasizes the importance of establishing a good governance structure to guide and manage sustainability and responsibility. This structure allows leaders to set direction, establish goals, and create policies to execute strategies. Good governance can be conceived as a basket of practices, including professional civil service, anti-corruption policies, transparency and accountability, democratic decision-making, the rule of law, protection of human rights, and independent judiciary. The findings suggest that the Punong Barangays in Hadji Panglima Tahil, Province of Sulu are competent in their duties and functions, with age, gender, average monthly income, and educational attainment not significantly mediating their assessment of competencies.

Exploring cross-national divide in government adoption of artificial intelligence: Insights from explainable artificial intelligence techniques

Despite the recognized potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to improve governance, a significant divide in AI adoption exists among governments globally. However, little is known about the underlying causes behind the divide, hindering effective strategies to bridge it. Drawing on the AI capability concept and the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework, this study employs Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) models to analyze the multifaceted factors influencing AI adoption by governments worldwide. The results underscore the critical roles of internet security and internet usage within the technological dimension, regulatory quality, government effectiveness, government expenditure, rule of law, and corruption control within the organizational dimension, and globalization, median age and GDP per capita within the environmental dimension. Notably, our analysis explores the intricate effects of these variables on government AI adoption, identifying inflection points where their impacts undergo significant shifts in magnitude and direction. This nuanced exploration provides a comprehensive understanding of government AI adoption globally and illustrates targeted strategies for governments to bridge the AI adoption divide, making theoretical, methodological and practical implications.

Misuse of emergency powers and its effect on civil society—the case of Hungary

Democratic tolerance has been used for their own destruction in Hungary. Gradually, various forms of crisis management have become the very nature of the governing political parties since 2010. Under the framework of Carl Schmitt's enemy-friend dichotomy, the Orbán regime has created its own “enemies” partially among those who would never be thought to be a threat to a constitutional democracy but to be considered its foundational elements (political opposition, NGOs, free media, etc.). This article shows how emergency powers and autocratic legalism were misused against civil society. There is one simple goal for the Hungarian autocratic regime: defending “our democracy” against “them,” who would still like to promote liberal democracy and the rule of law.

Police Victimization: A Threat to Life

This is a phenomenological study of the victims' views of police misconduct. In data collection, phenomenological interviewing was employed to capture the phenomenon's essence. This study was conducted in Cebu City, Philippines, where the participants were those victims who had experienced police misconduct. These were ten participants who were selected through purposive convenient sampling. The study utilized an interview Guide to elicit in-depth responses from the participants. Extensive interviews were conducted to establish the three stages necessary for data gathering in the survey. The research aimed to explore several areas: the participants' adverse encounters with police misconduct, how they managed these experiences, and the effects of police misconduct on both the participants and their families. Results revealed two themes regarding the participants' negative experiences of police misconduct: Sadists in Uniform: A Deep Threat and Bill of Rights: Gone with the Wind. In coping with the experiences of police misconduct, there were two themes: Silent Outcry for Justice, Keeping in Silence Outcry for Justice, and Forgetting the Pain and Moving On. Regarding the impact of police misconduct on the lives of the participants and their families, two (2) themes emerged: On the Verge of Distrust and Loss of Confidence and Not Being Protected but Disparaged and Prosecuted. It was recommended that police-community relations should be strengthened. This caters to information dissemination in the community, and it is a tool to establish rapport by winning again the trust and confidence of the community. And observance of the rule of law by the police officers greatly affects every common dweller in the community; if these law enforcers respect human dignity and uphold the law of the land, there will be no more police victimization.

The Development of Interim Measures Procedure in Cases Against Poland Before CJEU

Abstract This article presents a contemporary model of applying interim measures by the Court of Justice of the European Union, drawing on an increasingly rich body of case law in Polish cases. The disputes that the European Commission has engaged in with the Polish government, along with the non-standard obstruction in compliance with EU law, have become the basis for a new approach to this ancillary procedure offered by the Rules of Procedure of the Court. The article focuses on two sensitive areas where judicial intervention has proved necessary, the protection of the natural environment and ensuring the rule of law, especially in the operation of the national judiciary. There is no doubt that this body of work constitutes a significant contribution to the overall development of EU law, as it has led to the adoption of a completely new interpretation of Article 279 TFEU. According to the latest case law, the possibility of imposing financial penalties on member states is not limited to cases provided for in Article 260 TFEU, that is, non-compliance with a judgment finding a breach of EU law; these penalties can also be imposed in cases of non-compliance with the Court’s interim orders.

Militant Rule of Law and Not-so-Bad Law

AbstractThe article provides intellectual arguments and tools from legal dogmatics that can help to counter the rule of law backlash. It argues that resilience can be boosted by a systemic militant rule of law approach. When it comes to restoring the rule of law, legal theory turns to the Radbruch formula (supra-statutory law). This approach remains contested by lawyers who are convinced – following the tradition of positivist legal theory – that invoking this formula is unacceptable because it violates a fundamental requirement of the rule of law, namely that of legality. Irrespective of the value of this concern, Radbruch’s formula is not applicable to the current demise of the rule of law, as the law resulting from cheating and abuse in illiberal regimes does not result in evil law (though it may facilitate such developments). Instead of evil law, we face not-so-bad law. Legal imperfections exist in every legal system, and militant rule of law necessitates the systemic revision of these shortcomings in order to preempt the abuses of an anti-formalistic populist regime. In illiberal regimes, the self-corrective mechanisms of the rule of law are gradually eliminated, but the name of the game remains the rule of law. It means that judges still have (some) power to counter the backlash using extant interpretive techniques (for a while). This article will begin by introducing the concept of not-so-bad (NSB) law as an imperfection of the rule of law. In Part Two, the validity of NSB laws is discussed by relying on the source theory. It argues that even if validity is a matter of conformity to the source, the source can be understood to contain a legal merit component as determined by the rule of law, and falling short on this legal merit component can constitute a ground for declaring the norm’s invalid. Part Three describes the abuses of the rule of law in illiberal democracies and describes how the NSB law of illiberal regimes does not satisfy the validity requirements of legal positivism. Part Four discusses the opportunities open to judges for resisting or undoing NSB law using existing techniques of legal interpretation and without violating rule of law principles.

Court-packing and judicial manipulation

Judicial independence is a fundamental pillar of a liberal democracy. In one of its most basic functions, judicial independence impedes the ability to engage in executive overreach. Judicial manipulation, particularly the infamous practice of court-packing, threatens this pillar. Court-packing and other forms of judicial manipulation can exacerbate executive corruption and worsen government accountability and the rule of law. Using synthetic control analyses, we examine three countries (Hungary, Poland, and Turkey) that recently implemented waves of judicial manipulation that included outright court-packing. Our results provide evidence that in every case, executive corruption worsens and scores on accountability and rule of law decrease relative to the counterfactual. Furthermore, the gap between the de jure constitutional provisions and the actual de facto practice of those provisions (constitutional compliance) widens. In each case, these results are large in magnitude and almost always statistically significant.

Unraveling the Environmental Consequences of Trade Openness in South Africa: A Novel Approach Using ARDL Modeling

Abstract Free trade and environmental sustainability are currently top economic and environmental research priorities. While numerous theories connect trade openness with environmental quality, empirical evidence often fails to support these claims. Using data spanning from 1980 to 2020, our study examines the effect of trade openness on CO2 emissions in South Africa. By employing a novel ARDL modeling framework, our analysis confirms the presence of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis in South Africa. Our findings reveal that while GDP square enhances environmental quality, trade openness and economic growth have a degrading effect over time. Additionally, the study identifies that energy consumption, FDI, and value-added activities all contribute to environmental degradation. Findings also highlights the influence of institutional quality on the environment, demonstrating that political stability and control of corruption lead to increased CO2 emissions, while the rule of law reduces CO2 emissions. The research suggested that the potential of green economies should be leveraged in developing renewable energy, sustainable development, the recycling industry, and green financing sectors. A shift in economic activity in this direction will thus foster long-term economic growth and sustainable development.

“Above the Written Law”: Iran-Contra and the Mirage of the Rule of Law

AbstractWhy have scandalous sprees of lawbreaking by U.S. government officials proven so seductive yet so difficult to prosecute? This article takes the Iran-Contra scandal of the Reagan–Bush era as an instructive case study and red flag in the attitudinal erosion of the belief in the rule of law among American conservatives. Before the scandal broke, officials and legal counsels willfully mis-interpreted a clear prohibition to fund counter-revolutionaries and fabricated a post-facto presidential permission in order to sell weapons to Iran without congressional oversight. Congress's assumption that government officials would obey its statutes resulted in neither wrongdoing being punishable by criminal sanctions. Conservatives therefore argued that ends justified neglecting certain laws while also denying they had broken any laws. Prosecutors found themselves compelled to prosecute Iran-Contra's defendants over more prosaic crimes such as lying and stealing rather than more abstract and damaging ones. President George H. W. Bush's pardon of Iran-Contra defendants contributed to an impunity that further eroded the American rule of law to this day.

Education and economic growth in Sub-Saharan African Countries: Does governance quality Matter?

This paper examines the dynamic relationship between education, governance and economic growth in 28 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries from 2002 to 2018. The study first examines the effect of education on economic growth and, thereafter, examines the modulating effect of governance quality on the nexus between education and economic growth. Two proxies of education, namely primary and secondary education, and five proxies of governance quality, namely a) corruption control, b) government effectiveness, c) regulations, d) rule of law, and e) voice and accountability, have been used to examine this linkage. Using the GMM techniques, it was found that the effect of education on economic growth is weak at best. Although secondary education has an unconditional positive effect on economic growth in one of the five specifications of governance quality (i.e., regulatory quality), primary education has no impact whatsoever on economic growth in all the specifications. The study also found that, although governance quality spurs economic growth in most of the primary and secondary education specifications, it interacts with secondary education to foster growth in only one of the five specifications (i.e., regulatory quality). However, when considering primary education specifications, governance does not interact with education to spur economic growth in any of the five specifications. These findings, though contrary to some of the previous studies and the global trend, are not surprising given the primary and secondary education landscape in some SSA countries. According to UNESCO, SSA has the highest rates of education exclusion in the world.

The master key to international law: systemic integration in climate change cases

This article is the first scholarly examination of the function of systemic integration in the climate change context. The article assesses the role that the notion of ‘systemic integration’ is playing in making climate change justiciable internationally, and traces the path along which it brought the principle to become a key notion in climate litigation. It explores the fundamental question of how pre-existing legal norms (to the Paris Agreement) have been used to address questions about climate change. Systemic integration is a principle of treaty interpretation enshrined in Article 31(3)(c) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which requires consideration of other rules of international law in the course of interpreting a treaty. Often operating ‘as an unarticulated major premise in the construction of treaties’, its function is nevertheless ‘analogous to that of a master-key in a large building’ (McLachlan 2005). The underlying premise is that international law is, in essence, a system. This article looks into how the principle is currently operating in practice in climate litigation and, in doing so, it draws some reflections on the wider significance of the principle for international law more generally. The article explores the systemic integration arguments considered in the Torres Strait Islanders case, the first international case on climate change to be adjudicated on its merits, which set in motion a wave of international climate cases, and considers the function of systemic integration in the pending advisory opinions before international courts.

Self-Defense and Political Rage

This Article considers how American political polarization and the substantive issues driving it raise unique challenges for adjudicating self-defense claims in contexts of political protest. We live in an age where roughly a quarter of the population believes it is at least sometimes justifiable to use violence in defense of political positions, making political partisans somewhat more likely to pose a genuine threat of bodily harm to opponents. Furthermore, the psychological literature shows that people are more likely to perceive threats from people with whom they politically disagree and that juries tend to evaluate reasonableness claims according to their own political positions. All three of these phenomena create challenges for the rule of law due to the increased risk that factually similar cases will turn out differently and that the justice system will merely recreate the monomaniacal, us-versus-them polarization of society at large. This Article surveys the relevant political science and psychological literature on partisanship and reasoning and proposes two interrelated solutions: one pragmatic, at the level of individual trials, and the other cultural, at the level of social discourse. It suggests that judges import what we know about the distortive effects of partisanship into the courtroom through the use of court-appointed psychological experts and jury instructions. Both have shown some success—if tailored precisely to the facts of a specific case—in correcting some forms of juror bias and reasoning errors. This Article further argues that incorporating these processes into the adjudication of politicized self-defense claims will have a broader, expressive value for society as a whole. Trials provide a model for truth-finding, which, for better or for worse, impacts how private citizens evaluate culpability in their day-to-day lives. If trials draw even some people’s attention to the ways in which partisan thinking can generate or justify acts of violence, they may be a force for moderation in how people deal with their political disagreements, which will have benefits far beyond the courtroom.

Tunneling motivation or legitimacy motivation? The impact of digital transformation on controlling shareholders' share pledging

With the profound integration of technology and finance, the governance impact of digital transformation has emerged as a prominent discussion in the realm of corporate governance. This study seeks to investigate whether corporate digital transformation, supported by digital governance models, influences controlling shareholders’ share pledging. Leveraging data from A-share listed companies spanning 2010 to 2021, we explore the effects of corporate digital transformation on controlling shareholders' share pledging from the perspectives of tunneling and legitimacy motivations. The findings reveal that corporate digital transformation acts as a deterrent to controlling shareholders' share pledging. Particularly, in cases where companies lack vertical integration in top management, encounter significant financing constraints, or operate in regions with lower levels of rule of law, the suppressive impact of digital transformation on controlling shareholders' share pledging is more pronounced. At a micro level, corporate digital transformation diminishes the tunneling motivation of controlling shareholders and curbs their equity pledge actions through mechanisms such as executive failure tolerance and external supervision. Furthermore, driven by legitimacy motives, it restrains controlling shareholders’ share pledging by enhancing short-term financing capabilities through the avenue of digital transformation. This study contributes to a deeper comprehension of how corporate digitalization bolsters corporate governance, offering novel governance insights to advance the high-quality evolution of the capital market.

Оформление прав на публичные земельные участки для целей разработки месторождений полезных ископаемых: практические аспекты

The author comes to the conclusion that current problems associated with the registration of rights to a land plot are largely provoked by conflict of laws rules or gaps in the legislation. We are talking, first of all, about determining the spatial boundaries of a land plot that a subsoil user can lease without bidding, as well as about transferring an agricultural land plot into industrial land. In the latter case, difficulties arise due to the wording of the Law “On Transfer” regarding references to town-planning documents, as well as the need to provide a reclamation project. The article highlights the changing approach of judicial practice to the interpretation of the term “exclusive right” and the negative consequences of the lack of support from Rosnedra when registering rights to a land plot.

Optimization of The Executorial Power of Peace Deeds Over Land Disputes and Conflicts Mediated by BPN

Optimization of The Executorial Power of Peace Deeds Over Land Disputes and Conflicts Mediated by BPN