Legislation

About: Legislation is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 62664 publications have been published within this topic receiving 585188 citations. The topic is also known as: law & act.

Care of Empowerment? A Disability Rights Perspective

Abstract: This paper challenges the notion of “care”, arguing that people who need support in their daily lives have been constructed as “dependent people”. Instead, the author argues, if we want to empower people we must learn from the Independent Living Movement, from the people who struggled against segregation and insisted that access to personal assistance over which they have control is a civil rights issue. The paper takes issue with Clare Ungerson's perspective on the new direct payments legislation. This legislation is an important stage in the achievements of a civil rights movement and social researchers have a moral responsibility to collaborate with this movement in any work which they develop on issues which are not of mere academic interest but which concern people's rights to choice and control in their lives.

European Union Law

Abstract: The European Union is the result of a unique attempt at international integration. While other integration movements have always relied on a continuous political affirmation of integration by the participating states, the European Union is characterized by a transfer of sovereign rights of legislation, execution, and adjudication to central institutions. At the same time, the Treaty of Rome has introduced the legal framework of a common market, providing for individual rights and obligations of citizens in the whole Union. This article sets out the basic legal structures of the Union and the Common Market, the types of legal instruments and their essential effects, and the efforts undertaken to harmonize national legal systems.

Overcoming the Inadequacies of Performance Measurement in Local Government: The Case of Libraries and Leisure Services

Abstract: The key to meaningful advances in performance measurement in local government may lie in meeting the public interest challenge. In this case, the challenge will be met not only by formulating measures that address the public interest but, perhaps more critically, by reporting measures that capture public interest. Advocates of improved performance measurement in local government have long emphasized the importance of suitable performance yardsticks for municipal functions in lieu of the private sector's bottom-line measure of profit or loss. Absent a marketplace barometer of product value and customer satisfaction, well-conceived measures of municipal services would nevertheless offer a gauge of progress or slippage over time--and perhaps even a gauge of performance adequacy relative to targets, standards, or comparison jurisdictions. A scorecard that could provide such information would be as vital to public sector success as it is in any other endeavor where evolving strategies are predicated on the knowledge of whether one is "winning or losing" (Hatry, 1978; 28; Hatry et al., 1992; xv, 207). For many years, measurement proponents have urged local governments to report not only how much they spend, but also how much work they do, how well they do it, how efficiently, and, ideally, what their actions achieve. Advocates have promised that more sophisticated measurement systems will undergird management processes, better inform resource allocation decisions., enhance legislative oversight, and increase accountability. The call for improved performance measurement, heeded by some local governments but unheeded by many others, has been taken up by a series of new voices throughout this century with only minor variations in the fundamental message. Among recent developments have been resolutions passed by the National Academy of Public: Administration (NAPA) in 1991 and by the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) in 1992 encouraging performance reporting (Epstein, 1992), and the declaration of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) that "information about service efforts and accomplishments (SEA) is an essential element of accountability" and that such information should have a place in general purpose external financial reporting (Hatry et al., 1990; v; GASB, 1992; iii; GASB; 1994; 1-3; Wholey and Hatry, 1992). Despite growing momentum in support of performance measurement and even recent legislation requiring measurement at the federal level and in some states,[1] as yet no decree has forced broad compliance at the local level. Moreover, even where legislative mandates seemingly have settled debate, issues of performance measurement defy simple solution and remain controversial. Measurement, in fact, recently has been labeled as one of "the big questions" in public management (Behn, 1993). What may prove distinctive and perhaps decisive in the current wave of performance measurement advocacy is the recently attenuated focus on the citizen--both as a consumer of performance measurement reports (Hatry et al, 1990) and as a source of input for performance measures (i.e., as an evaluator of the adequacy of particular services or as a judge of overall local government performance [e.g., Miller and Miller, 1991]). The recent surge of interest in service quality and in satisfying the citizen-customer, key elements of the "total quality management" and "reinventing government" movements, may prove to be a major boon to a reintensified focus on performance measurement (e.g., Cohen and Brand, 1993; Osborne and Gaebler, 1992). A half century ago, Clarence Ridley and Herbert Simon (1943) identified citizens, along with managers and city council members, as key beneficiaries of improved performance measurement. With proper measures, they suggested, citizens would have a "simple yardstick" by which to gauge whether they were getting "efficient government or inefficient government" (Ridley and Simon, 1943; ix). …

Violence against lesbians and gay men

Abstract: Hate crimes against minority groups such as homosexuals present a particular challenge for the criminal justice system. This report discusses the prevalence of anti homosexual violence in Australia, its characteristics, and its impact on the victim. It also examines the cultural climate and social norms which encourage anti homosexual violence. Preventative measures are considered under the following headings: decriminalisation and anti discrimination legislation; education; the media; the criminal justice system; the police; research and statistics; and community prevention and education programs.

Property and Justice

Abstract: Property is a legal and social institution governing the use of most things and the allocation of some items of social welfare. As an institution, property is a complex organizing idea. Despite its complexity, property, as an organizing idea, is now very old and is now used worldwide. The oldest written records atttest to it. Few primitive peoples, whose societies have been researched by anthropologists, have turned out to lack any conception of it. In the modern world, any normal person will have heard of it, from childhood onwards. In the modern world, the institution of property is everywhere embodied in law. That is to say, the various organs of government deploy it, officially as part of the mechanism for controlling the use of things and as part of the mechanism for supervising or directing the allocation of wealth. This work examines the legal and philosophical underpinnings of the concept of property and offers a new alaytical framework for understanding property and justices. Bridging the gulf between juristic writing on property and speculations about it appearing in the tradition of western political philosophy, Jim Harris has built from entirely new foundations an analytical framework for understanding the nature of property and its connection with justice. Dr Harris' achievement is a monumental one marrying the subtlety of contemporary political philosophy with the fine detail of technical legislation and difficult litigation in English property law. The result greatly improves our understanding of the philosophical dimension of property and at the same time allows us to stand back from the detail and see the patterns which emerge.