Reseña del libro de María Angélica Corva: "Constituir el gobierno, afianzar la justicia. El Poder Judicial de la provincia de Buenos Aires (1853-1881)". 1a ed. Rosario. Prohistoria Ediciones; Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Investigaciones

Fil: Calandria, María Sol. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación. Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales (UNLP-CONICET); Argentina.

La palabra de los "naturales" en la justicia : Posibilidades y limitaciones en el análisis de la documentación judicial referida a indígenas (Jujuy, siglo XVII)

El presente artículo se propone establecer variables de análisis en lo que respecta al rol de los indígenas en la documentación judicial colonial. En ese sentido, el corpus principal de análisis lo constituye el Pleito de los indios de Paipaya contra Francisco Salas Valdez (1671) a través del cual vislumbraremos las condiciones de producción del documento, el rol de los mediadores, la distancia cultural o la influencia de las condiciones de subordinación actuantes en el mismo. Consideramos al presente trabajo una aproximación que no pretende ser definitiva, si no abrir un panorama a la reflexión sobre la temática ya que este extenso documento nos brindará elementos de reflexión metodológica y heurística con que abordar el estudio de los indígenas a través de la fuente judicial

The need for competence tests : Queensland judicial perspectives on non-accused child witnesses in criminal proceedings : Part 1.

To examine the question of whether Queensland judicial officers endorse the need for competence tests for non-accused child witnesses in criminal proceedings, a mail survey was sent to judicial officers - questions considered the need to distinguish between children's sworn and unsworn evidence - relevance of age to competence - desirability of competence test formalities.

The content of competence tests: Queensland judicial perspectives on non-accused child witnesses in criminal proceedings: Part 2

Part 1 appeared in UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND LAW JOURNAL 22 (2) 2003 : 199-223 (AGIS 04/2890) - judicial perspectives on the content of competence tests for sworn and unsworn evidence - substantive criteria may vary according to whether a child is to testify sworn or unsworn - formal framing may vary given a judicial appraisal of a child's capacity and understanding - referability of competence tests to the Queensland legislation.

The rearrangements of naphthyinitrenes: UV/Vis and IR spectra of azirines, cyclic ketenimines, and cyclic nitrile ylides

Ar matrix photolysis of 1- and 2-naphthyl azides 3 and 4 at 313 nm initially affords the singlet naphthyl nitrenes, (1)1 and (1)2. Relaxation to the corresponding lower energy, persistent triplet nitrenes (3)1 and (3)2 competes with cyclization to the azirines 15 and 18, which can also be formed photochemically from the triplet nitrenes. On prolonged irradiation, the azirines can be converted to the seven-membered cyclic ketenimines 10 and 13, respectively, as described earlier by Dunkin and Thomson. However, instead of the o-quinoid ketenimines 16 and 19, which are the expected primary ring-opening products of azirines 15 and 18, respectively, we observed their novel bond-shift isomers 17 and 20, which may be formally regarded as cyclic nitrile ylides. The existence of such ylidic heterocumulenes has been predicted previously, but this work provides the first experimental observation of such species. The factors which are responsible for the special stability of the ylidic species 17 and 20 are discussed.

Judicial (in)activism in Australia's secular commonwealth

his article addresses two aspects of Australia's soft secular government. The first aspect explains how, and asks why, judges have been inactive in helping to draw the contours of secular government in Australia. The principal reason is that much of the social regulation that provokes the interest of faith-based groups is the constitutional concern of the States, and no State Constitution claims to coordinate relations between church and state. Moreover, the electorate has twice refused to pass referenda, in 1944 and 1988, for extending a constitutional demand of secular governance to the States. However, this is not so for the Commonwealth. It falls under the restrictions of section 116 of the federal Constitution, which states: The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion ('the establishment clause') or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion ('the free exercise clause'), and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth. As will be explained, while methods of legal interpretation suggest that section 116's establishment clause could place mild demands of non-discrimination on the federal Parliament, judicial inactivity in policing such demands on the Commonwealth, paradoxically, has arguably been secured by judicial activism in the High Court. A second aspect of secular government addressed is the High Court's disposal of 'the separation of church and state' as a constitutional principle in Australia. The contrast, of course, is to the United States, where for sixty years 'separation' has been given uneven recognition as a rule of constitutional law, and has undoubtedly driven the development of hard forms of secular governance in that country. The centrepiece of American secular government is the 1971 decision in Lemon v Kurtzman, where the US Supreme Court held that valid legislation had to pass three tests, ie: First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion .. . finally, the statute must not foster 'an excessive government entanglement with religion. The third 'entanglement' prong of Lemon is the modern, less ambitious, form of the 'wall of separation', prohibiting too close an engagement between church and state. As this paper will demonstrate, 'entanglement's' destiny shows how unlikely it is that 'separation' can survive as a meaningful constitutional principle in the USA. And, it will also be argued that 'separation' has even poorer prospects for import to Australia.