Dispensing Justice is designed to serve as a sourcebook of Islamic judicial practice and qadi judgments from the rise of Islam to modern times, drawing upon court records and qadi court records, in addition to literary sources. The volume fills a large gap in Islamic legal history. "Dispensing Justice" is designed to serve as a source book of Islamic judicial practice from the rise of Islam to modern times, drawing upon legal documents, qadi court records, archival marerials and literary souces. The volume fills a large ap in our understanding of Islamic legal history. (modified by Powers).
Michael is just another high school freshman genius concealing his potential until the day his father--secretly a superhero and member of the crime fighting Nova League, is killed in battle. Suppressed grief turns to confusion when a nearly perfect duplicate of his father picks Michael up after school. At home they find Michaels mother is on the brittle edge of a breakdown, refusing to acknowledge that she too saw her husband die and playing along with the duplicates charade. A family melt-down is averted by the timely arrival of Michaels oldest friend Penny and her family armed with a casserole, salad, and pie. Pennys mother--another secret member of the Nova League--imposes domestic peace with the same practiced ease that she fights supervillains, albeit with fewer broken bones. In the days that follow, Michael only wants to retreat to the secret lab beneath his suburban home and prepare for vengeance upon his fathers killers. A run-in with members of the varsity football squad leads to a pummeling and the realization that fitting into his fathers old battle-suit isnt the only leverage he needs. He needs a master plan for wreaking justice. Falling for the blind daughter of his martial arts instructor isnt part of the plan, nor is fending off the well-meaning attacks of Pennys twin younger siblings before they fatally cheer him up. His life and the plan become more complex as his best friend starts to develop powers, and doubly so when he finds out that his fathers legacy was more than just a battle-suit and a place to hang it, but the well-being of the supers community as well. Michaels story plays out in Nova Genesis, a world that diverged from ours in 1947 when a supernova bathed our system in deadly cosmic rays. Without the intervention of the interstellar civilization of the Galactics, life on Earth would have been wiped out. Instead, humanity is altered, a few made more--or less--than human. Thirty-seven years later the second generation of supers born on Earth are starting to come into their powers. Michael and his friends, some reluctantly, some enthusiastically, find themselves becoming part of a new generation of heroes.
This book shows the significant impact and success that can be accomplished when courts are designed to meet the needs of the community regardless of traditional proceedings. The presentation of this unique approach marks the way for courts and ancillary justice agencies of all sizes to work together to build community confidence and assure not only quality of life but quality of justice.
Women Judges in the Muslim World: A Comparative Study of Discourse and Practice offers a socio-legal account of public debates and judicial practices surrounding the performance of women as judges in eight Muslim-majority countries.
Two centuries ago, American criminal justice was run primarily by laymen. Jury trials passed moral judgment on crimes, vindicated victims and innocent defendants, and denounced the guilty. But since then, lawyers have gradually taken over the process, silencing victims and defendants and, in many cases, substituting plea bargaining for the voice of the jury. The public sees little of how this assembly-line justice works, and victims and defendants have largely lost their day in court. As a result, victims rarely hear defendants express remorse and apologize, and defendants rarely receive forgiveness. This lawyerized machinery has purchased efficient, speedy processing of many cases at the price of sacrificing softer values, such as reforming defendants and healing wounded victims and relationships. In other words, the U.S. legal system has bought quantity at the price of quality, without recognizing either the trade-off or the great gulf separating lawyers' and laymen's incentives, values, and powers. In The Machinery of Criminal Justice, author Stephanos Bibas surveys the developments over the last two centuries, considers what we have lost in our quest for efficient punishment, and suggests ways to include victims, defendants, and the public once again. Ideas range from requiring convicts to work or serve in the military, to moving power from prosecutors to restorative sentencing juries. Bibas argues that doing so might cost more, but it would better serve criminal procedure's interests in denouncing crime, vindicating victims, reforming wrongdoers, and healing the relationships torn by crime.
The well-being of individuals routinely depends on their success in obtaining goods and avoiding burdens distributed by society. Local Justice offers the first systematic analysis of the principles and procedures used in dispensing "local justice" in situations as varied as the admission of students to college, the choice of patients for organ transplants, the selection of workers for layoffs, and the induction of men into the army. A prominent theorist in the field of rational choice and decision making, Jon Elster develops a rich selection of empirical examples and case studies to demonstrate the diversity of procedures used by institutions that mete out local justice. From this revealing material Elster fashions a conceptual framework for understanding why institutions make these crucial allocations in the ways they do. Elster's investigation discloses the many complex and varied approaches of such decision-making bodies as selective service and adoption agencies, employers and universities, prison and immigration authorities. What are the conflicting demands placed on these institutions by the needs of applicants, the recommendations of external agencies, and their own organizational imperatives? Often, as Elster shows, methods of allocation may actually aggravate social problems. For instance, the likelihood that handicapped or minority infants will be adopted is further decreased when agencies apply the same stringent screening criteria—exclusion of people over forty, single parents, working wives, and low-income families—that they use for more sought-after babies. Elster proposes a classification of the main principles and procedures used to match goods with individuals, charts the interactions among these mechanisms of local justice, and evaluates them in terms of fairness and efficiency. From his empirical groundwork, Elster builds an innovative analysis of the historical processes by which, at given times and under given circumstances, preferences become principles and principles become procedures. Local Justice concludes with a comparison of local justice systems with major contemporary theories of social justice—utilitarianism, John Rawls's A Theory of Justice, Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia—and discusses the "common-sense conception of justice" held by professional decision makers such as lawyers, economists, and politicians. The difference between what we say about justice and how we actually dispense it is the illuminating principle behind Elster's book. A perceptive and cosmopolitan study, Local Justice is a seminal work for all those concerned with the formation of ethical policy and social welfare—philosophers, economists, political scientists, health care professionals, policy makers, and educators.
