Ngaire Naffine

The legal Structure of Self-Ownership: Or the Self-Possessed Man and the Woman Possessed

The purpose of this paper is to expound the legal meaning of self-ownership, to examine its internal logic and its applications to both men and women within the two major spheres of human relations. To date, discussion of the self-proprietor has largely been confined to his public manifestation. This paper provides a critical study of the person as proprietor of his person in both his public and private lives. More particularly, it considers whether women, as well as men, can be said to have property in their persons, not only when they are engaged in acts of gainful employment, but also when they enter lawful sexual relations.

Chivalry, Justice or Paternalism?: The Female Offender in the Juvenile Justice System

A substantial literature on the female status offender maintains that juvenile justice is discriminatory. It censures the sexually active girl, while turning a blind eye to the promiscuous boy. Less is known about the laws response to girls whose behaviour is criminal by adult standards. This article compares the treat ment of young males and females charged with criminal offences in South Australia. The relationship observed between the work ings of the justice system and the sex of the offender is found to be a complex one, mediated by a range of legal, social and demo graphic factors.

Lawyers in the Children's Court: An Australian Perspective

Using South Australia as a case study, this article examines the role and the impact of the lawyer in the childrens court. It suggests that the failure of English and American researchers to find a consistently significant role for the childrens lawyer may be a function of the narrowness of their focus: on the formal court process rather than on the informal processes of justice that precede the court hearing. It concludes that in South Australia, lawyers are most influential when bargaining a plea on behalf of their clients. It is in this area of discretionary justice that the young defendant may experience both the best and the worst effects of legal representation.

Legal Persons as Abstractions: The Extrapolation of Persons from the Male Case

This chapter examines the three most influential abstract conceptions of the legal person, in order to clarify and distinguish their meanings and also to show that each is a derivation from the male case. The legal person, at its most abstract, is the formal legal fiction, comprising formal rights and duties. The second abstraction is more loosely tethered to law. This is the person as the basic component of legal, political and social analysis: the person as basic irreducible analytical unit. The third abstraction of the person is a composite of positive law, consisting of the formal elements of any given law. In the case of criminal law, for example, there are offence and defence elements, there are definition and interpretation sections, which build up a kind of person for the purpose of this law. All three abstractions of the person are meant to be neutral as to sex and this neutrality is vital for their claims of universal application and fairness. I show why they are not.

AUS — Country Report Australia

Australia is a federation in which law-making powers are shared by the Federal Parliament and the States. Australia is also a common law country, and so its law is a mix of common (judge-made) and statute law. Some areas of law are almost exclusively the province of the Commonwealth,1 while others are the province of the States.2 Law-making powers related to health and medicine, which necessarily cover a diversity of subject matters, are possessed variously by the Commonwealth and the States and Territories.3 There are nine Australian jurisdictions: South Australia, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland, the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Tasmania as well as the Federal jurisdiction. Australian laws that safeguard the human rights of patients and research subjects therefore often differ from State to State, sometimes to a considerable degree. This necessarily complicates the task of expounding the rights of patients and research subjects. Further impeding the task of exposition is the fact that biomedical research in Australia is mainly regulated by national guidelines, rather than by national legislation, except where State Governments have seen fit to pass laws on particular types of research, as in the case of research on human embryos (discussed below). Again, this makes for a patchwork of laws and guidelines, with patients and research subjects possessed of variable rights, depending on their location within Australia.

Country Report Australia

Australian law on medical treatment depends on a mix of common (judge-made) and statute law. Because Australia is a federation, in which legislative powers related to health and medical matters are possessed variously by the Commonwealth and the States and territories1, it also depends on a mix of Federal and State law. There are nine Australian jurisdictions: South Australia, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland, the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Tasmania as well as the Federal jurisdiction. Australian law which safeguards the autonomy of patients at the end of their life therefore differs from State to State, often to a considerable degree. This necessarily complicates the task of expounding the rights of patients at the end of their life.

Book Reviews : WOMEN AND THE LAW: COMMENTARY AND MATERIALS. Jocelynne A. Scutt. Sydney, The Law Book Company Limited, 1990. lii+ 596 pp.

poorly titled, unexplained economic graphs, unannotated literary references, inconsistent citations and an annoying tendency to omit acknowlegiiietits of direct quotations. (I’m all for doing away with endless strings of author’s names cluttering up the text, but sometimes I’d like to be able to put a good quotation in the context of the original work). This is a dazzling synthesis of cultural, economic, historical geographic knowledge, but it lacks the precision and careru) argument that marked Harvey’s previous major books Social Justice alld the City (1973) and Limits to C<q>it<d (19H2).

69

Smith reviews the effectiveness of legislation in reducing rate and severity of crimes related to alcohol by discussion on topics of availability, pricing, taxing of alcoholic beverages and drink driving legislation within Australia. Traffic accidents and juvenile crime increase following the reduction in legal drinking age. Legislative changes that allow for drinking at a younger age, or facilitate greater ease of access to drinking will have undesired consequences. Alcohol education may impart knowledge, perhaps change attitudes, but it does little to overall consumption unless supplemented by appropriate legislative change.