Admissibility of Evidence Obtained through Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters between Mainland China and Hong Kong: Inter-Regional Conflicts of Law
This article explores the issue of admissibility of evidence obtained through mutual criminal assistance between mainland China and Hong Kong. First, confessions obtained by hope of advantage are inadmissible in Hong Kong courts. However, evidence derived in such a manner cannot be used as grounds by the mainland court to exclude evidence. Second, if the...
The changes of criminal law and collective consciousness in contemporary China: A Durkheimian approach
Durkheim’s extensive analysis of crime, repressive sanction and penal law is carried on as a means of illuminating the changes of collective consciousness (CC hereinafter) and mechanical solidarity. Repressive sanctions are deemed as a social institution which is caused by CC. Durkheim, in this sense, tries to look for the underpinning moral substance in repressive...
The Place of Liberty: Staying the Sentence of Imprisonment in a Comparative Constitutional Perspective
When an individual charged with a criminal offense is convicted and sentenced to imprisonment, the question arises as to whether the higher courts exercising judicial review should stay the sentence until the result of such a review is determined. The question is particularly interesting in the context of that group of cases in which the...
The Special Criminal Court: Hollowing out the Right to Trial by Jury in Ireland
The Irish Constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann, was adopted via plebiscite in 1937. It guarantees a right to jury trial. The drafters, acutely aware of the threats to security which had stalked the precursor Irish Free State, included an emergency powers clause & the ability to legislate for non-jury trial where the ‘ordinary courts’ were deemed...