Why UK public lawyers need to be legal and political theorists

My aim in this article is to encourage UK public lawyers to engage with contemporary debates in legal, political and constitutional theory. My argument is motivated by three related concerns. First, there is an extricable link between these disciplines: behind every proposition of public law can be found a theory of law, govenment, the state and so on; secondly, public lawyers have historically neglected or fudged theory in their work; finally, a growing number of public lawyers are now using cutting-edge legal and political theories to fashion radical new understandings of the British constitution: other (more conservative-minded) public lawyers have no option, I argue, but to answer these new challenges. I illustrate my argument with reference to debates about Parliamentary sovereignty, the constitutional foundations of judicial review, political constitutionalism, and judicial deference.

Are clinical documents optimised for patient safety? A critical analysis of patient safety outcomes using the EDA error model

Iatrogenic errors and patient safety in clinical processes are an increasing concern. The quality of process information in hardcopy or electronic form can heavily influence clinical behaviour and decision making errors. Little work has been undertaken to assess the safety impact of clinical process planning documents guiding the clinical actions and decisions. This paper investigates the clinical process documents used in elective surgery and their impact on latent and active clinical errors. Eight clinicians from a large health trust underwent extensive semi- structured interviews to understand their use of clinical documents, and their perceived impact on errors and patient safety. Samples of the key types of document used were analysed. Theories of latent organisational and active errors from the literature were combined with the EDA semiotics model of behaviour and decision making to propose the EDA Error Model. This model enabled us to identify perceptual, evaluation, knowledge and action error types and approaches to reducing their causes. The EDA error model was then used to analyse sample documents and identify error sources and controls. Types of knowledge artefact structures used in the documents were identified and assessed in terms of safety impact. This approach was combined with analysis of the questionnaire findings using existing error knowledge from the literature. The results identified a number of document and knowledge artefact issues that give rise to latent and active errors and also issues concerning medical culture and teamwork together with recommendations for further work.

Lessons from real estate partnerships in the UK: Drivers, barriers and critical success factors

Purpose – This paper seeks to summarise the main research findings from a detailed, qualitative set of structured interviews and case studies of Real Estate Partnership (REP) schemes in the UK, which involve the construction of built facilities. The research, which was funded by the Foundation for the Built Environment, examines the evolution of REPs in the UK and in Europe. The paper also aims to analyse best practice, critical factors for success, and lessons for the future. Design/methodology/approach – The research in this paper is based around ten semi-structured interviews conducted with senior representatives from corporate occupiers, property consultants, legal practices and REP service providers. Findings – The research in the paper demonstrates that REPs are particularly suited to the UK, where lease lengths are relatively long, and the level of corporate real estate owner-occupation is often higher than elsewhere. It also shows that further research is needed to examine the future shape and form of the UK REP market. Research limitations/implications – The paper is based on a limited number of in-depth case study interviews. The paper shows that further research is needed to find better ways to examine REPs empirically. Practical implications – The paper is important in highlighting a number of main issues in developing REPs: identifying with occupier's objectives; risk transfer and size of contract; and developing appropriate innovation and skills. Originality/value – The paper examines the drivers, barriers and critical success factors (at strategic and operational levels) for REPs in the UK in detail and will be of value to property managers, facilities managers, investors, financiers, and others involved in the REP process.

The margin of appreciation, domestic irregularity and domestic court rulings in ECHR environmental jurisprudence: Global legal pluralism in action

Global legal pluralism is concerned, inter alia, with the growing multiplicity of normative legal orders and the ways in which these different orders intersect and are accommodated with one another. The different means used for accommodation will have a critical bearing on how individuals fare within them. This article examines the recent environmental jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights to explore some of the means of reaching an accommodation between national legal orders and the European Convention. Certain types of accommodation – such as the margin of appreciation given to states by the Court – are well known. In essence, such mechanisms of legal pluralism raise a presumptive barrier which generally works for the state and against the individual rights-bearer. However, the principal focus of the current article is on a less well-known, recent set of pluralistic devices employed by the Court, which typically operate presumptively in the other direction, in favour of the individual. First, the Court looks to instances of breaches of domestic environmental law (albeit not in isolation); and second, it places an emphasis on whether domestic courts have ruled against the relevant activity. Where domestic standards have been breached or national courts have ruled against the state, then, presumptive weight is typically shifted towards the individual.

Conceptualising public-private partnerships: a critical appraisal of approaches to meanings and forms

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to survey various meanings attached to a public-private partnership (PPP) and related aspects in Western literature, and identify commonalities and differences between them. Additionally, the article intends to critically assess conflicting and overlapping views on contractual and institutional PPPs, their forms and models, and draw insights for transitional economies. Design/methodology/approach – The article contrasts and compares views on PPP meanings, forms and models within Western PPP literature, and also draws comparisons with understanding of partnership aspects in the Russian language sources. The article examines theories underpinning PPPs, builds connections to PPP advantages and drawbacks, and provides critical assessment of net benefits that PPPs may bring along to the society. Findings – The article concludes that future PPP research in transitional countries such as Kazakhstan and Russia, particularly in the area of organisational and power arrangements in partnerships, may delineate new concepts such as government as a guarantor of a PPP project, social significance of a PPP project, and risk management in a country's contextual environment. Practical implications – In transitional countries, in which PPPs are in their infancy, clarification of theoretical positions, and identification of commonalities and differences between meanings attached to the PPP terminology may enable better decisions by researchers and practitioners in their selection and further development of partnerships and related concepts. Originality/value – Research in the field of PPPs in transitional countries such as Russia and Kazakhstan is in its infancy. The paper intends to contribute to the body of knowledge about PPPs by providing detailed account and categorisation of their principal meanings, forms, models, underpinning theories, and drawing insights for future research in transitional countries.

'he perceives himself as a caterpillar […]' constructions of the disabled subject in the critical response to Alfred Hitchcock's 'Rear Window'

This chapter focuses on critical responses to Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, especially their construction of disability. The suggestion is that such criticism takes the disabled body to be both necessary and superfluous to the meaning of the film, a difficulty that, I argue, can be read more widely within film theory. Ever since Christian Metz’s ‘the Imaginary Signifier’, the condition of being ‘bound to a wheelchair’ is understood to have a resonance for theories of film spectatorship, but only ever in a sense that does away with the wheelchair as a mark of difference.

Bound Variable, Split Antecedent and Ellipsis Interpretations in L2 Portuguese: Implications for L2 Acquisition Theories.

Recently, in light of minimalist assumptions, some partial UG accessibility accounts to adult second language acquisition have made a distinction between the post-critical period ability to acquire new features based on their LF-interpretability (i.e. interpretable vs. uninterpretable features) (HAWKINS, 2005; HAWKINS; HATTORI, 2006; TSIMPLI; MASTROPAVLOU, 2007; TSIMPLI; DIMITRAKOPOULOU, 2007). The Interpretability Hypothesis (TSIMPLI; MASTROPAVLOU, 2007; TSIMPLI; DIMITRAKOPOULOU, 2007) claims that only uninterpretable features suffer a post-critical period failure and, therefore, cannot be acquired. Conversely, Full Access approaches claim that L2 learners have full access to UG’s entire inventory of features, and that L1/L2 differences obtain outside the narrow syntax. The phenomenon studied herein, adult acquisition of the Overt Pronoun Constraint (OPC) (MONTALBETTI, 1984) and inflected infinitives in nonnative Portuguese, challenges the Interpretability hypothesis insofar as it makes the wrong predictions for what is observed. The present data demonstrate that advanced learners of L2 Portuguese acquire the OPC and the syntax and semantics of inflected infinitives with native-like accuracy. Since inflected infinitives require the acquisition of new uninterpretable φ-features, the present data provide evidence in contra Tsimpli and colleagues’ Interpretability Hypothesis.

Legal and regulatory barriers to effective public-private partnership governance in Kazakhstan

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical assessment of legal and regulatory impediments to effective governance of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in Kazakhstan. Design/methodology/approach – The qualitative study develops propositions from the PPP literature and then tests them against findings from in-depth interviews. Interviewees have been selected by a purposeful sampling from PPP projects in Kazakhstan as well as from national and regional PPP centres. Findings – The identified barriers to effective PPP management include irregularities in the PPP legal framework, such as lack of legal definition of a PPP and controversy with the government guarantee’s legal status for its long-term payments to partnerships; bureaucratic tariff setting for partnership services; non-existent opportunity for private asset ownership; and excessive government regulation of PPP workers’ wage rates. Practical implications – The partners’ opposing perspectives on a number of PPP issues show that management needs to identify and carefully reconcile stakeholder values in a partnership in order to achieve more effective PPP governance. Practitioners, particularly those in the public agencies, have to be concerned with ways to reduce the government overregulation of the private operators, which is likely to result in greater PPP flexibility in management and, ultimately, higher efficiency in delivering the public services. Originality/value – By elucidating multiple examples of overregulation and PPPs’ inefficiency, the paper demonstrates that the government dominance in PPP management is conceptually inappropriate. Instead, the government should adopt the concept of co-production and manage its relations with the private sector partner in a collaborative fashion.