News

A murderer serving a life sentence in a Belgian jail, who asked to be allowed to die by lethal injection, was told in September that his wish would be granted. This week the Justice Ministry reversed that decision.

The case raises an interesting question - whether prisoners serving long jail terms should be allowed to choose medically assisted death. In Belgium, euthanasia is available for the terminally ill, and also for those who wish to end psychological suffering.

Victor Tadros and two other philosophers gave their view on Frank Van den Bleeken's case, and whether he should be allowed to die, to the BBC. Read the whole story on the BBC News website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30708585

Warwick's strength in philosophy of law has been recognized by the Philosophical Gourmet Report 2014-15, the most influential ranking of philosophy programmes. Warwick was one of only four UK departments to be listed in the top 25 programmes in the world.

The rankings of programmes are based on surveys by experts in philosophy of law. You can find the integrality of the rankings for philosophy of law here: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2014/12/more-2014-pgr-specialty-rankings-philosophy-of-law.html

The 2015 SLSA Annual Conference will be hosted by Warwick School of Law, 31 March - 2 April 2015.

The call for papers for the 2015 SLSA annual conference is now open. Abstracts for papers are invited for the streams and themes listed on the conference website, including (but not limited to!) Criminal Law and Criminal Justice; International Criminal Justice: Theory, Policy and Practice; Renewing Critique in Criminal Justice; Sentencing and Punishment. Poster ideas are also welcomed.

Abstracts should be submitted via the submission system ‘EasyChair’. Instructions about how to submit to EasyChair and further details of the calls within each stream and theme are available on the conference website www.warwick.ac.uk/slsa

The deadline for submission is Monday 19 January 2015.

The Midlands Branch of the British Society of Criminology organises events that might be of interest to CJC members.

Theme: Crime Drop

4th March 2015 (4-6pm), Loughborough University

Speakers:
Professor Sylvia Walby OBE, Lancaster University
Professor Stephen Farrall, University of Sheffield
Professor Nick Tilley, University College London

Contact: Professor Andromachi Tseloni: a.tseloni@lboro.ac.uk

Theme: Futures of Imprisonment

May 2015 (6-8pm), Nottingham University (date and room to be confirmed)

Speakers:
Professor Dirk van Zyl Smit
Dr Evi Girling
Dr Melanie Jordan

Contact: Professor Bill Dixon: William.Dixon@nottingham.ac.uk

Professor Jacqueline Hodgson, one of several experts in the case of Hassan Diab, who was extradited to France on Friday after six years of legal proceedings in Canada, has described the situation as “troubling”. She provided evidence about the investigation and prosecution procedure in terrorism cases in France, in particular, the problematic nature of using unsourced intelligence.

Her comment in full: “The case of Hassan Diab, a 60-year-old sociology professor who has been extradited to France, is a troubling one. France has charged Diab with first degree murder in relation to the Rue Copernic terrorist bombing in Paris in 1980, which killed four people and injured dozens more.

“The evidence against him hinges firstly on unsourced intelligence that would be inadmissible in a criminal court in England and Wales (reliability cannot be tested if the source of information and the manner in which it was obtained are unknown); and secondly on the opinion of a handwriting expert described as wholly unreliable by five of the world's leading handwriting analysts.

“The opportunity to challenge the evidence presented by the requesting state in extradition proceedings in Canada is limited. The Ontario Superior Court judge, who originally committed Diab for extradition, did so despite acknowledging the weakness of the French case.”