Booth, T 2016, Accommodating Justice: Victim Impact Statements in the Sentencing Process, 1, Federation Press, Sydney.
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Accommodating Justice explores the complex territory where victim impact statements (VISs), the law and legal institutions intersect with a focus on the requirements of justice, most particularly in the courtroom. And it does so from multiple perspectives: courts, offenders and victims. The book draws from a range of theoretical and doctrinal sources as well as empirical studies from Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. An ethnographic study of the performance of VISs in homicide sentencing hearings in the NSW Supreme Court woven through most chapters provides an innovative and evidence-based approach to the issues.
Millbank, J 2016, 'Reflecting the ‘Human Nature’ of IVF Embryos: Disappearing Women in Ethics, Law, and Fertility Practice', Journal of Law and the Biosciences, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 70-93.
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Many laws and ethical documents instruct us that disembodied embryos created through IVF processes are not mere tissue; they are ‘widely regarded’ as unique objects of serious moral consideration. Even in jurisdictions which disavow any overt characterization of embryonic personhood, the embryo, by virtue of its uniqueness and orientation toward future development, is said to have a ‘special status’ or command ‘respect’. The woman whose desire for a child or children created this embryo, and who inhabits the body to whom it may one day be returned, is an omission or at best an afterthought in such frameworks. This paper engages in an historical analysis of this conundrum in the Australian context. It argues that the institutional structure of foundational ethics bodies (made up of a mandated mix of scientific and religious representation, in practice dominated by men, and absent any requirement of the participation of women patients) has produced the embryo as an object of ideological compromise: ‘not mere cells’ and ‘not life’, but a poorly bounded and endlessly contested something-in-between. The paper then turns to engage with the narratives of a selection of women patients about their sense of connectedness to their stored or discarded embryos, drawn from a larger study on decision making concerning patient's experience of decision making about IVF embryos. I draw on these narratives to ask how we could reorient law and policy toward the concerns, needs and desires of such women.
Stuhmcke, A 2016, 'Australian Ombudsmen: A Call to Take Care', Federal Law Review, vol. 44, no. 3, pp. 531-556.
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Resolution of disputes in Australia is frequently achieved by ombudsmen. Yet there is no uniform model of an ombudsman. Consequently, across Australian jurisdictions, the development of the institution has been ad hoc and fragmented. What has followed, however, has been the transformation of the institution to apply to new contexts, to the extent that it is questionable in some instances as to whether ‘ombudsman’ remains the appropriate descriptor for the institution. This article explains and critiques these developments, observes that the conditions which have created such change are set to continue and argues that care must be taken to protect citizen trust in the ombudsman brand.
Booth, T 1970, 'Using a common law imagination to reconceptualise the sentencing hearing as a restorative event', Socio Legal Studies Association Conference, Lancaster University, UK.
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Increasingly, opportunities are being made available for victims and offenders to engage in restorative justice initiatives at multiple points in the criminal justice process across several common law jurisdictions including the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Examples of restorative initiatives at the sentencing point include: deferring the passing of sentence to allow a pre-sentencing restorative event to proceed outside of the courtroom in the UK and the use of circle sentencing for indigenous offenders as occurs in New South Wales. Restorative initiatives that impact directly on mainstream sentencing proceedings however – such as extending the purposes of sentencing to include restoration of the victim or enhancing victims’ entitlements to participate in the courtroom – are regarded as particularly controversial and resisted in many jurisdictions.This paper will explore restorative possibilities in the sentencing hearing and, in particular, Doak’s suggestion that such hearings should be restructured to reflect aspects of the partie civile model and relevant innovations at the International Criminal Court in order to be better responsive to victims’ interests (Doak, 2015). Using Shapland’s conception of the sentencing hearing as a ‘community forum’ that deals with the aftermath of crime (2010) as the frame, the paper will challenge the idea that restoration in mainstream sentencing hearings is well outside the perceived ‘normative boundaries’ of the ordinary legal proceedings. Findings of an ethnographic study of sentencing hearings in New South Wales will be used to highlight restorative possibilities that could contribute to the transformation of the sentencing hearing as a restorative event.
Sibbritt, D, Millbank, J, Stuhmcke, A, Kaye, M, Karpin, I & Wardle, J 2016, 'The failure of contemporary law and regulation to keep pace with growing complementary medicine (CM) use: The significance of examining ‘hidden’ gaps in Australia's current regulatory and legislative infrastructure', Elsevier BV, pp. 43-44.
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