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Research conducted by Vogler between 1993 and 2013 on the theoretical principles and practical modalities of global criminal-justice reform led to specific influence on the Georgian Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) 2009, e.g. Arts 170-176 (arrest), 196-208 (pre-trial release), 49-50 (non-compulsion of witnesses) and 219-224, 226, 231-236 (jury trial). This was achieved through sustained and direct influence on the criminal-justice reform process in Georgia 2002-13. In addition, following the enactment of the new CPC, Vogler provided recommendations on implementation, and devised and conducted training for the constitutional court on the new CPC.
MMU's Policy Evaluation and Research Unit (PERU) has developed a distinct model for commissioning more personalised services for the resettlement of offenders. The model is being adopted by and influencing the approach taken by a range of policy-makers and senior practitioners involved in commissioning offender resettlement services or those bidding to deliver such services in the new `Transforming Rehabilitation' framework that has been introduced by the current government. The approach has had particular impact in the development of the Transforming Justice model developed in Greater Manchester where the team is based.
This case study describes the impact that has arisen from an extended research project carried out by Professor Shute, since 2009, on inspection of the main criminal justice agencies — police, prosecution, courts, prisons and probation — in the United Kingdom. The impact of the research has been at a number of levels: the development by ministers and senior civil servants of high- level strategy concerning criminal justice inspection; the translation of that strategy into inspection policy; and the conversion of inspection policy into inspection practice. Specific changes include: developing a risk-based approach; inspecting the use of the person escort record; and inspecting corruption in prisons.
A key challenge for Western policy makers and legal practitioners in formulating justice and security responses to mass atrocity in the African Great Lakes region is to understand the political, social and cultural causes of conflict, and the manner in which past conflicts can be resolved and potential future conflicts prevented. Phil Clark's research sheds much-needed light on these issues, and assesses the nature and impact of both local and international transitional justice responses. This research has prompted his active engagement with international judicial processes and debates on aid policy, encouraging international actors to be more aware of local dynamics around conflict and justice, with the wider aim of maintaining the vulnerable stability of post-conflict nations in Africa.
Hull City Council is deploying Restorative Practices (RPs) to transform the lives and experiences of children and young people. This has resulted in and continues to achieve significant reductions in youth offending, improvements in educational attainment, and higher levels of well-being and happiness. Research conducted by Gerry Johnstone and his research team has enabled service providers to use RPs more effectively to achieve their goals, resulting in enhanced personal well-being, more appropriate behaviour, and a strengthening of personal responsibility amongst young people in Hull.
New democracies face the critical challenge of dealing with past abuses of human rights. Professor Leigh Payne`s empirical research on transitional justice concludes that while no single mechanism successfully achieves the strengthening of democracy, human rights, and peace, combinations of prosecutions and amnesties (with or without `truth commissions') increase the likelihood of improved democracy and human rights measures. These findings have not only shaped the debate over transitional justice; they have played a key role in constructing and endorsing the policy decisions made by a range of political actors: victims` groups, NGOs, INGOs, policymakers, politicians, judges, and prosecutors. They have shaped policy debate, laws, practices, demands, and methodological approaches to transitional justice in Brazil and Colombia; and had a direct and specific impact on policies regarding the violent past in Uruguay.
Cherry Leonardi's research on local justice and traditional authority in Southern (now South) Sudan has influenced government policies and international aid agency programmes in the justice and governance sectors. It informed the drafting of a local government act by the Government of Southern Sudan [text removed for publication], by emphasising the importance and resilience of chiefship as a local institution of government and justice. It has also influenced the design of internationally-funded access to justice programmes in South Sudan, by recommending a bottom- up, empirical approach to judicial reform that focuses on the experiences and needs of litigants and local justice providers.
The impact relates to research carried out by Professor John Peysner, and subsequently with Dr Angus Nurse, into three linked areas of access to justice: (a) the cost of litigation, in particular fixed fees, budgeting and contingency fees; (b) the financing of claims, in particular Contingency Legal Aid Funds and Third Party Financing; and (c) forms of dispute resolution and redress. Litigation is of major importance in underpinning civil society, and as a global business, and changes in the costs and financing of it will potentially impact on all practising lawyers. The research has had impact on practice developments, government policy, and statutory and procedural rules of court, particularly in connection with the influential Lord Justice Jackson's Review of Litigation Costs(2009). The impact has been at a national and international level.
This case study demonstrates that the Transitional Justice Institute (TJI) peace process research has substantially impacted on key stakeholders in multiple conflicted and post-conflict states. Impacts include developing sustained relationships with public officials to inform policymaking, making recommendations for legal changes, capacity building with local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on peace process issues and addressing conflict-related abuses, informing public debate, and raising awareness of international and comparative legal standards among local judiciaries subsequently applied in their work. Impacts have benefited a range of users and contributed to growing sensitivity to victims' needs in conflict resolution.