Legal Studies Info

Are Criminal Trials efficient?
In December last year the NSW Attorney General commissioned a special team to evaluate the current criminal trial process. The special group looked at the possible increasing of juries to 15 (then choosing a random 12 to make the verdict), the way juries are chosen, whether juries comprehend their task, the presentation of evidence and the conduct of legal counsel. There is some interesting information which is highly relevant for your course.
For more reading go to HSC Legal Studies media watch page from the State Library.

Alternatively you go to the link on my blog for the LIAC and look at all the links set up for the HSC course. Another good part of this is the Crime Library which is a download which goes through a number of important cases. It is not even recommended that you attempt to remember a number of these cases however you may be looking for important recent cases and here is where you find them.

Lastly the NSW law Reform Commission is a good place to look at recent law changes and the even the upcoming investigations that have been looked at. The one that I looked up recently was on complicity. This involves whether a principal in the second degree is guilty of murder (they did not actually commit the act) if an understanding that a crime will be committed has been agreed upon. Whilst a considerable amount of this is in legal language you can easily see the issues which are being discussed.

Welcome Year 12 Eco Class

Fellow economists, here is a copy of a blog I posted last year (Thursday, March 19, 2009). It is highly relevant to what we have been studying and the hyperlinks lead to an interview on the ABC.

Is Foreign Aid good for Africa?

On the 17th of March, Foreign Correspondent (yes on the ABC) had an interview with Dambisa Moyo a Zambian-born economist. This is some of the information from the ABC web site.

"In her new book, Dead Aid, she argues that official aid is easy money that fosters corruption and distorts economies, creating a culture of dependency and economic laziness.
Moyo is particularly dismissive of the ‘celebrity aid’ model popularised by international stars such as Bob Geldof and Bono and says many aid organisations and NGOs are more interested in perpetuating poverty in order to justify their own existence."

Interesting thoughts indeed. Moyo is a believer in trade and the power of the market as opposed to the aid model in which she claims the only growth occurring is in the Swiss banks accounts of the political elite.
Lastly she claims that 10 percent of Africans were living in poverty in the 1970s compared to 70 percent now.
What do you think? It would be good to hear some comments via the blog.... (PS this is not a new concept it is new for an African economist to be suggesting it though)