Word: legalism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...shoulder joints. You looked at me skeptically when I explained how I fell. You asked if I had been drinking, and when I admitted that I had, you rudely thrust a Breathalyzer into my face to register my BAC. At somewhere between .082 and .112, it was above the legal limit to drive—but hardly criminal. Yet that’s what you treated me as. (I was drinking, but that’s not why I fell down...
...experts caution that China still needs a wholesale examination of how its legal system handles detainees. A report released Nov. 12 by New York-based Human Rights Watch describes a system of "black jails" in Beijing and provincial capitals that operate outside the law, though with the implicit approval of police and judicial officials...
...Chinese government said there were no black jails in the country. "The very sinister aspect of black jails is that they are completely off the books," says Phelim Kine, an Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch. "These are unlawful, secret detention facilities that are not under any due legal process. The detainees don't have access to lawyers. They are stripped of their mobile phones. They're not able to contact friends and families. People in black jails are not part of the Chinese judicial system. It's a legal black hole...
...migrant worker in Guangzhou named Sun Zhigang was beaten to death while in police custody. Sun, who had been stopped for not carrying his temporary-residence certificate, was detained under a system known as "custody and repatriation." That system, a series of detention centers as well as the legal framework to hold people on administrative charges, was used to round up vagrants, beggars and petitioners...
...also unclear whether the sex-worker circuit would even be legal. Prostitution is a civil offense in Mexico City, and recent efforts to legalize it have gotten snared in legislative gridlock. Torres argues, however, that the rules are ambiguous and that international labor laws recognize sex work as legitimate employment. Further, prostitution zones have long been tolerated along some parts of the Mexico-U.S. border, providing havens for gringo truck drivers and young Texans looking to lose their virginity...