Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

This paper aims to analyze the theme of authorship and co-authorship of scientific articles, especially in relation to Law field of knowledge. Basically, its aim is to answer: when can a researcher legitimately be nominated as coauthor of a scientific paper? This is a pertinent issue, considering the academic, social and economic impacts of the definition of authorship, as well as its importance in terms of accountability and integrity of scientific production. Thus, it will analyze the co-authorship conditions and the basic standards on the subject.

Jury trials have presented themselves in history as an important instrument for the consolidation of democratic processes, because they are a tribunal for which the people are summoned to discuss and directly judge facts that have occurred in their community. With the intention of strengthening the institution after a dictatorial period, the Brazilian Constituent Assembly rescued the sovereignty of the verdicts, and raised the institution and its characteristics to the level of a fundamental clause. From an exploratory perspective, of qualitative nature, the present work intends to investigate how the sovereignty of the verdicts impacts on the legal procedure of the intentional crimes against the life to the point of redefining the initial moment of compliance to the sentence, possibly justifying hypotheses of execution of the sentence in the first, second degree or after the end of the process. It will be discussed the possibility of forming a partial claim preclusion in relation to the criminal responsibility of the defendant, in face of the subjectively complex nature of the condemnatory sentence of the Jury procedure. 

The function of defense during the criminal proceedings in Romania is the result of traditional separation of the three procedural functions of accusation, judgement and defense. Exceeding the barriers of the contradictory principles the penal procedure in Romania features, the investigation bodies are interested in finding truth in penal cases and solving them legally and substantially. Both constitutive parts are achieved in criminal proceedings based on genuine evidence gathered legally from the crime scene. The current paper aims to identify elements which contribute to achieving the function of defense during the criminal proceedings in Romania by approaching and implementing tools and scientific techniques provided by forensic science. In reaching the study's proposed objectives, a mixed research methodology has been used consisting of qualitative methods.  

The present article examines criminal defense investigation in Brazilian legal system as an instrument necessary to improve the production of evidence in the criminal procedure. Although there are not rules about defense search for evidence, the study demonstrates the potential for Brazilian criminal procedure law based on Italian and North American experience, as well as the recent standard edited by the Brazilian Bar Association.

A decade ago, the Chilean Public Defense started a program of prison litigation. This article investigates institutional factors that may have an impact on the mobilization of the rights of persons deprived of their liberty. We wonder if the attention provided by the public service mirrors faithfully the demand for defense expressed by convicted persons, or if it responds to institutional policy decisions taken by the Public Defense office that outline or shape such demand? We are looking for institutional factors that determine the selectivity and activation of rights inside prisons. Our analysis starts describing the general public defense services provided to convicted prisoners, paying special attention to violations of constitutional and human rights caused by prison conditions and intra-prison violence. For our analysis, we used quantitative (statistics of the Prisoner Defense) and qualitative information (interviews with key actors). We found that factors associated with the organizational structure, as well as the professional practice of prison defenders, contribute to the fact that the matters handled by the Public Defense end up mirroring the indicators and standards predetermined by the Public Service, giving less importance to situations such as mistreatment, torture, intra-prison violence and inhumane living conditions. We conclude that this selectivity in mobilizing the rights of convicted prisoners violates their constitutional guarantees and, therefore, the institutional objectives of the Prison Defense Service itself.

In this paper, we intend to examine the highlights of the German Asset Recovery Act (Gesetz zur Reform der strafrechtlichen Vermögensabschöpfung), in force since 1st July 2017. It is a comprehensive law, with which the German legislator updated the confiscation regime in both its substantive and procedural aspects. Given the extent of this reform, we will focus on the confiscation of proceeds of crime, as it is the essence of asset recovery. Specifically, we will analyse those points of the reform emphasized by the legislator in the draft act. To this end, we will divide them between those that may seem more positive and those that are more controversial. In the first group, we will frame what refers to the position of the victims, the innovations for the decongestion of the criminal process and the regulation of the estimate of the proceeds. In the second group, we will study the new scope of the extended confiscation and the independent confiscation of assets of uncertain origin. 

This paper aims at having a closer look to the level of protection afforded by the Rome Statute to crime victims, as well by its Rules of Procedure and Evidence. The Rome Statute, which encompasses both substantial and procedural norms, has taken the Statutes and the decisions adopted by the ad hoc International Criminal Tribunals for ex-Yugoslavia and Rwanda. However, the latter did not provide a clear model that aimed at victims’ protection. Therefore, Rome Statute and its Rules of Procedure and Evidence added a set of central measures that aim at protecting victims and witnesses, giving them the opportunity to take part in the process and granting them proper reparation. It shows up as being a paradigm to be taken into account by the internal legislator, even if the State is not a member of the Rome Statute. Hence, the role played by the international community in this regard must be taken into account by the legislator, allowing the victim to regain a conflict that indeed belongs to him/her, as previously argued by Nils Christie. This study makes use of a qualitative methodology, essentially taking literature into deep consideration and starting from the study of the innovation brought by the International Criminal Court on this matter. It is the author’s aim to emphasize its importance as a potential model to be offered to the national legislator. Our hypothesis relies on the assumption that the model created by the Rome Statute towards victims has the potential to be considered by national legislator.

The present article aims to analyze the extended confiscation, recently incorporated to the Penal Code (article 91-A) and to the Drugs Act (article 63-F), and focuses on a specific procedural issue, regarding the burden of proof underlying the extended confiscation. The research problem can be summarized as the following: does the extended confiscation work based on a reversion of the burden of proof? The hypothesis points that there are two answers: reversion of proof exists in the Penal Code, however, it cannot be found in the Drugs Act. This paper, which is justified by the theme's relevance and novelty, is guided by the deductive method, because it begins with broad considerations regarding the extended confiscation and aims to find a specific conclusion about the reversion of the burden of proof. Firstly, it presents the extended confiscation, emphasizing its legislative background, its main characteristics and Brazil’s laws. Later, the article shows how the proof regarding the extended confiscation is produced according both to the Penal Code and to the Drugs Act; finally, it reflects on the consequences following the reversion of the burden of proof. The research's result confirms the hypothesis initially drawn.

The current state of organized and institutionalized crime control stresses the patrimonialization of criminal law. In this context, it is important, both for the repression of crimes and for the fundamental rights of the accused, that the proper use and limits of preservative measures provisioned by the Code of Criminal Procedure be observed. These measures refer to the purposes defined by the Penal Code to make certain the obligation to repair damages and to decree the forfeiture of instruments, products and proceeds of crime. In regard to crimes committed by multiple agents, the ammount of assets subject to preservative measures must be limited regarding each co-defendant. Unlike the obligation to repair damages, which has a solidary nature under the provisions of the Civil Code, forfeiture must observe strict subjective limits, with respect to the intranscendence of criminal penalties. For example, seizure of assets, a preservative measure that aims to constrain goods that, in the end, will be affected by forfeiture, is restricted by the unjust enrichment effectively perceived by a criminal agent, with no solidarity among these co-defendants at that point.

Spain has developed its legal framework regarding the forfeiture of illicit assets in order to increase efficiency in the prevention and the repression of crimes. To reach that goal, the forfeiture transcends the individual responsible for the crime, reaching third parties in possession of the assets. This quest to reach higher standards of efficiency brings tension between two fundamental principles of the legal framework: on the one hand, to fight crimes efficiently; on the other hand, to preserve due process and property rights. This paper discusses this tension analyzing, in the first section, the legal framework for the forfeiture of assets in possession of third parties unrelated to the crime. The following section focuses on the mandatory intervention of these individuals in the criminal process as a consequence of the asset forfeiture.