First African Baptist Church (Richmond, Virginia)

The First African Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia is a prominent Black church. Founded in 1841, its members initially included both slaves and freedmen. It has since had a major influence on the local black community. At one point, it was one of the largest Protestant churches in the United States.
History.
The First African Baptist Church was founded in 1841 by a group of black members of Richmond's First Baptist Church. The First Baptist Church housed a multiracial congregation from its beginning in 1802 until the white members of the congregation built a new church in 1841. In the years leading up to the split, whites were a minority at the church—a fact which made some of them uncomfortable. Many black members had also called for a split because they were often denied entrance after the building became crowded. After they built a new church building for the white members of the First Baptist Church, the church leadership sold the building that they had been meeting in to the black members. It was then renamed by adding "African" to the title. Most of its early slave members were initially from the Tidewater region of Virginia before they were hired to businesses in Richmond. Many freedmen traveled from other cities to attend its services, as well.
In 1866 James H. Holmes, a former slave and highly gifted preacher, was elected assistant pastor, and in 1867 pastor at the Church. Under Holmes, the church grew by leaps and bounds and became one of the largest churches in the country. In 1871 he baptized 600 people, in 1878 he baptized 1,100. In 1876 the original building was torn down and the congregation built a new church costing $35,000 and installed an organ costing $2,500, which was the largest organ in any African American church, in 1877. The location of both the original church building and its replacement is at the corner of College Street and East Broad Street. The demolition of the original church building was an act which brought accusations of "a true lack of American veneration for old things" from "Harpers Weekly". Architect Thomas U. Walter designed the new building, using a Greek Doric temple design. Many of the white congregations in Richmond used a similar style when constructing their churches.
The First African Baptist Church congregation moved in 1955. The church building was then sold to the Medical College of Virginia. Some church members characterized the sale as insensitive to the church's contribution to African-American history. The building now holds offices, classrooms, and laboratories.
Attendance.
At the time that the congregation split from the First Baptist Church there were approximately one thousand three hundred black members. It soon experienced rapid growth, and by 1861, the services were regularly attended by more than three thousand people. The number of members swelled to four thousand five hundred by 1869. There was a dispute in 1880 which caused over seven hundred members to leave the church. "The New York Times" wrote that approximately four thousand members remained after the split.
Events.
As one of the largest meeting halls in Richmond, it was often rented for white events. Its large interior and prominent location in Richmond made it a sought after venue for events such as concerts and political rallies. The practice of renting the church was controversial among members due to the use of a church for secular events and due to the racial segregation often imposed at the events. The practice continued, however, due in part to the significant income that it provided.
John Hartwell Cocke lectured on temperance at one of the earliest major events hosted at the church. While the government of the Confederate States of America was based in Richmond during the American Civil War, the church was often used for speeches by politicians including Governor William Smith and President Jefferson Davis. Judah Benjamin also spoke at the church to recruit blacks into the Confederate Army. In 1865 Horace Greely, abolitionist publisher of the "New York Tribune" spoke at the church regarding the post-Civil War Reconstruction.
Practices.
Though it was a Black church from the time of its 1841 separation from the First Baptist Church, it was led by a white minister and a board of thirty black deacons because it was illegal for blacks to preach. Though the majority of the members were slaves in the years before the Civil War, most of the early leaders were freedmen due to greater liberties that they possessed. The first senior minister, Robert Ryland, served from 1841 until 1865. Ryland owned slaves and believed that slavery was the best way to convert Africans to Christianity. The church also sent several of its members to Africa as missionaries.
Though Virginia state law did not permit slaves to marry, the church would hold wedding ceremonies for its members. The church allowed slaves to divorce and remarry if their spouse were sold out of state.
Their services were marked by enthusiastic singing and exhortation and were a popular attraction for visitors to Richmond. There was a space located near the pulpit that was reserved for white visitors. Some white residents of Richmond frequently cited the positive tone of services there as proof that their slaves lived happy lives, much to the dismay of their slaves.
Even though it was against state law to teach blacks to read, Ryland published a catechism for members which allowed them to learn to read. This practice caused some controversy, but Ryland defended himself by citing the fact that his lessons emphasized submission to authority. His practice of educating slaves was initially controversial, in part due to a high-profile murder committed by a member of the congregation. Richmond's white churches eventually defused the situation by coming out in support of Ryland's educational programs. Ryland later touted the conservatism of his congregation against those who feared slave rebellions.
Some members were also allowed to occasionally preach from the pews, and some of the lay preachers were purchased from their owners and emancipated with funds raised by the church. It did not gain its first Black senior minister until 1867, however. The first Black man to serve as senior minister was James Holmes, a longtime deacon who was born a slave.


R v Darrach

R v Darrach, [2000] 2 SCR 443, 2000 SCC 46, is a case decided by the Supreme Court of Canada on the constitutionality of the "Criminal Code"'s "rape shield law". The Court upheld the law.
Background.
In 1994, Andrew Darrach, an Ottawa resident, was charged with sexually assaulting his ex-girlfriend. At trial, he attempted to introduce evidence of his ex-girlfriend's sexual history. A "voir dire", required under the rape shield law in section 276 of the "Criminal Code" to consider whether the evidence is admissible, was carried out. The judge refused to admit the evidence after Darrach refused to be cross-examined on his affidavit. Darrach was sentenced to nine months in jail. An initial appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal for Ontario. The case was then appealed to the Supreme Court.
Darrach argued he was denied a fair trial because he was unable to present evidence that he mistakenly believed that the ex-girlfriend had consented. He also argued that his right to silence and right against self-incrimination were violated by the requirement to testify at the "voir dire".
Opinion of the Court.
Gonthier J, writing for a unanimous Court, upheld the "Criminal Code" provisions. He found that requiring the complainant to testify would be unnecessarily invasive and would discourage victims from reporting such incidents.
Gonthier also found that Darrach's right to avoid self-incrimination was not infringed by the requirement for him to testify regarding his "voir dire" affidavit, because the accused made the voluntary decision to have the "voir dire" carried out. The decision to have the "voir dire", and by extension the requirement to submit an affidavit and accept cross-examination, was voluntarily made by Darrach. Any testimony at the "voir dire" would have solely been to determine the admissibility of the evidence Darrach wished to submit, and would have been unusable in the trial itself.


Vogt (Switzerland)

A Vogt (plural "Vögte") was a title and office in the Old Swiss Confederacy, inherited from the feudal system of the Holy Roman Empire, corresponding to the English "reeve". The German term "Vogtei" is ultimately a loan from Latin "[ad]vocatia".
"Vogtei".
There were two basic types of "Vogteien": "Obervogteien" (also "Landgerichte", "innere Vogteien") were administered by reeves ("Obervögte", "Venner") residing in the city, usually elected from among the city parliament, who visited their territories on certain fixed days to act as judges or collect taxes. They were represented by local lieutenants ("Untervögte").
"Reichsvogt".
"Reichsvogt" was the term for a "Vogt", that was nominated by the king as the representative of the Holy Roman Empire, and was especially in today's Switzerland in the High Middle Ages a very influential position.
"Landvogt".
The second type of "Vogtei" was a "Landvogtei" where the "Landvogt" ("sheriff" or "bailiff") resided permanently, usually in a castle within the "Landvogtei" known as "Landvogteischloss". There are several buildings still so identified, e.t. in Baden and in Willisau. A "Landvogt" was an official acting on behalf of the Confederacy or a one or several cantons, ruling a condominium ("Gemeine Herrschaft") of several cantons, notably acting as a judge for capital crimes (Blutgericht). The title first appears in 1415. The cantons took turns in appointing a "Landvogt" for a period of two years.
In exceptional cases, the population of the "Landvogtei" was allowed to elect their own "Landvogt". This concerned Oberhasli in particular, which was nominally a subject territory of Bern, but enjoyed a special status as a military ally.
The office of "Landvogt" was abolished in 1798, with the foundation of the Helvetic Republic.
The notion of "fremde Vögte" ("foreign reeves") is central to Swiss national mythology, since the early Confederacy in the 14th century is commonly believed to have had the main purpose to expel imperial judges. One of the core points of the Federal Charter of 1291 is that the "Eidgenossen" "will accept or receive no judge in the aforesaid valleys, who shall have obtained his office for any price, or for money in any way whatever, or one who shall not be a native or a resident with us." The "foreign "Vögte"" were replaced by native "Ammänner" called into office by the Landsgemeinde.
The term "fremde Vögte" is still in use polemically in Swiss politics, particularly by conservatives, in the context of Switzerland and the European Union.


Gay Alliance of Students v. Matthews

Gay Alliance of Students v. Matthews, 544 F.2d 162 (1976) is a United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit case in which a student at Virginia Commonwealth University sued Alfred T. Matthews, Dean of Student Life and Wyndham B. Blanton, Jr., member of Board of Visitors for recognition and access to university resources as a student organization. Upon application, VCU rejected a group of students' request to practice as an official student group at the university on the basis of the groups advocacy for gay rights and liberation. Two years after the rejection, the 4th District ruled for VCU to reverse their decision and grant the Gay Alliance of Students (GAS) the same rights as registered student organizations at the university are granted.
Background.
Originally organized September 1, 1974, GAS founding member, Brenda C. Kriegal, applied for registration as a student organization September 5, 1974. Original officers of the student group also included Sam Riggan, Margaret Ann Trotter, and Chuck Bateman, though founding member Walter Foery would serve as a large role in advocacy for the group.
Stated objectives for the student group were "1. To develop a supportive community among individuals who believe in the individual's right to self determination with specific regard to freedom of choice of sexual orientation and 2. To convene educative situations for the members and for the campus university with regards to gay life "
When submitted to the VCU Office of Student Life, normal practices were not taken and instead the application was forwarded to the Board of Visitors to decide. The Board ruled on October 17, 1974 that they would not approve for registration on the basis that the club "was not in the best interest of the institution in terms of the total job of the institution." Out of 145 registered student groups, only GAS was rejected registration
Efforts for registration.
The method in which the application was submitted was unusual in that it went straight to the Vice President for Student Affairs who then sent it to The Board of Visitors. The result was a ruling to deny the student group from registration (the only group to have been denied) with no further reasoning. Stated in the court case, The organization believed the reasoning for rejection was due to the belief that GAS would "increase the opportunity for homosexual contacts, encourage some students to join the organization who otherwise might not join," that some students would either benefit or not benefit from joining, or it would have no effect, and that "the existence of GAS would tend to attract other homosexuals to VCU." While these reasons were stipulations, the parties claimed that there was evidence of such reasoning in previous correspondence with the Board of Visitors.
Ruling.
On November 7, 1975, Judge D. Dortch Warriner ruled that VCU grant the Gay Student Alliance access to university facilities, and access and use of campus media outlets, specifically campus newspapers, radio, and advertising
While the group alone was responsible for all legal fees, GAS organized a dance benefit at Cha Cha Palace on February 15 with a turnout of over 300 people which resulted in success to repay their debt.
Supporting cases.
A number of previous court cases were used to defend the judge's decision. Healy v. James, 408 U.S. 169 (1972) referred to an individual's right to associate with their own personal beliefs and that a university could not restrict such association due to the university's opposition to it. In National Socialist White People's Party v. Ringers, 473 F.2d 1010 (4 Cir. 1973)(in banc), the state must support state institutions to provide support for groups with discriminatory membership policies under the first amendment.
Community context.
The Gay Alliance of Students had both in state and out of state support. LGBT publication, The Advocate, and GAS founder, Walter Foery, sent letters back and forth in 1975 regarding support for GAS. The National Gay Task Force, based in New York City, also reached out to Walter and the Gay Alliance of Students in 1975. Members of The National Gay Task Force even put pressure on the Virginia Civil Liberties Union to take the appeals case
Departments within the university also expressed their support in advocating for gay rights and the Gay Alliance of Students. A professor from the VCU School of Social Work and the Direction of Resident Education reached out to praise Walter Foery for his presentations on gay rights and the work of GAS.
While the group alone was responsible for all legal fees, GAS organized a dance benefit at Cha Cha Palace on February 15 with a turnout of over 300 people which resulted in success to repay their debt.
The lack of evidence for community opposition does not rule out that there were community and university members who did not support the group's recognition.
Historic significance.
In an era where the conversation about homosexuality was gaining momentum (articles such as "How Gay is Gay?" and "Masters & Johnson on Homosexuality" which both appeared in the April issue of 1979 of Time Magazine), Gay Alliance of Students v. Matthews was one of many cases taken to the federal courts regarding sexuality. Not only did GAS v. Matthews address homosexuality and individual choice, but it also raised the topic of legislating morality as an institution. The court stated "associations don't act. People do." This case gives insight to the public opinion of homosexuality in that era, and serves as the precedent for other state-institutions faced with regulating exercise of the 1st and 14th Amendments.


Trials and allegations involving Silvio Berlusconi

Trials and allegations involving Silvio Berlusconi have been extensive and include abuse of office, bribery and corruption of police officers, judges and politicians, collusion, defamation, embezzlement, extortion, false accounting, mafia, money laundering, perjury, tax fraud, underage prostitution influence and witness tampering.
Allegations.
Berlusconi has been tried in Italian courts in several cases. The outcome for six of those cases were politically altered to end with "no conviction", because of laws passed by Berlusconi's parliamentary majority shortening the time limit for prosecution of various offences and making false accounting illegal only if there is a specific damaged party reporting the fact to the authorities. Berlusconi claimed that "this is a manifest judicial persecution, against which I am proud to resist, and the fact that my resistance and sacrifice will give the Italians a more fair and efficient judicial system makes me even more proud", and added that "789 prosecutors and magistrates took an interest in the politician Berlusconi from 1994 to 2006 with the aim of subverting the votes of the Italian people" citing statistics that he said have constituted a "calvary including 577 visits by police, 2,500 court hearings and 174 million euros in lawyers' bills paid by me". Berlusconi has always been able to afford top lawyers and publicists, for example Nicolas Sarkozy was one of his French top defenders. Some of his former prosecutors later joined the parliamentary opposition. Some of his attorneys are also members of parliament.

Completed trials.
Propaganda Due (P2) trial: False testimony (1989).
In 1981, a scandal arose after the police discovery of Licio Gelli's secret quasi-Masonic (freemason) lodge Propaganda 2 (P2), which aimed to change the Italian political system to a more authoritarian regime. The list of people involved in P2 included members of the secret services and some prominent characters from political arena, business, military and media. Silvio Berlusconi, who was then just starting to gain popularity as the founder and owner of Canale 5 TV channel, was listed as a member of P2. The P2 lodge was dissolved by the Italian Parliament in December 1981 and a law was passed declaring similar organisations illegal, but no specific crimes were alleged against individual members of the P2 lodge. While the Italian Constitution had forbidden secret associations since 1948,
Berlusconi later (in 1989) sued three journalists for libel for writing articles hinting at his involvement in financial crimes. In court, he declared that he had joined the P2 lodge "only for a very short time before the scandal broke" and "he had not even paid the entry fee". Such statements conflicted with the findings of the parliamentary inquiry commission appointed to investigate the lodge's activity, with material evidence, and even with previous testimony of Berlusconi, all of which proved that he had actually been a member of P2 since 1978 and had indeed paid 100,000 Italian liras (approximately equivalent to €300 today) as an entry fee. In 1990, the court of appeal of Venice found Berlusconi guilty of false testimony in front of the Court of Verona, however the court could not pass sentence as the offense had been pardoned by an amnesty passed in 1989.
Some political commentators claim that Berlusconi's electoral programme followed the P2 plan.
Bribery of lawyer David Mills (1999).
David Mills, lawyer husband of the former British cabinet minister Tessa Jowell, acted for Berlusconi in the early 1990s, and was later accused by Italian prosecutors of money laundering and of accepting a gift from Berlusconi in return for witness evidence favourable to Berlusconi given in court. Mills claimed that the money in question came not from Berlusconi but from another client. Tessa Jowell then announced her separation from Mills, which some of the UK media suggested was an attempt to distance herself from a potential scandal. She also denied having discussed the money with her husband; "Private Eye" magazine published a satirical front cover of Jowell with a speech bubble stating: "I have never met my husband". In December 2010, information obtained by the Wikileaks website revealed Mr Berlusconi had become very fond of Ms Jowell, referring to her in private company as 'piccolo puntaspilli' (the little pincushion).
On 17 February 2009, Mills was found guilty of accepting a bribe of about 400,000 pounds sterling, allegedly from Silvio Berlusconi, and was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison. On 25 February 2010, the Court of Cassation gave a verdict towards David Mills of not guilty because the statute of limitations expired. The appeals court ruled on 25 February 2012, in a separate case against Silvio Berlusconi, that the crime should be dated on the exact day when the bribery transfer took place in November 1999, and not at the time of the counter service delivered in 2000, as prosecutors had previously argued, and on that ground Berlusconi was also awarded a Statute of limitation acquittal.
External relationship in mafia association.
The Court of Palermo investigated Silvio Berlusconi and his associate Marcello Dell'Utri, on the charge of external partnership with Mafia associations and money laundering. Nine years later the trial ended with a sentence of 9 years imposed on Marcello Dell'Utri and the acquittal of Silvio Berlusconi.
Massacres of 1992–1993.
The Court of Florence and Caltanissetta investigated Silvio Berlusconi's connection with the Sicilian Mafia. He was accused of connections with the people responsible for the massacres of 1992 (Capaci and via D'Amelio) where two prosecuting magistrates, involved in the Mafia trial known as "Maxi-processo" of the 1980s, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino were brutally murdered. The case was archived due to insufficient amounts of evidence found at the expiry of the investigative deadline.
RAI-Fininvest advertising cartel.
Berlusconi was through his status as upcoming Prime Minister accused of extortion towards RAI in September 1993, in the attempt of convincing them to sign a cartel agreement on the advertising shares between RAI and the Fininvest TV networks (45% each), for achievement of softer competition and higher prices. The prosecutors investigation was launched in August 1994. The proposed agreement was never signed, because of being rejected by RAI. Through interrogation of Claudio Dematte (former RAI president), (former RAI general manager), and (former RAI administration director), it became clear that Locatelli had received oral "threats" from Berlusconi in September 1993, that if RAI rejected the proposed deal, then it would automatically also remove political goodwill by Berlusconi's political party to ever support potential future recurrence of any RAI saving decrees. The preliminary hearing judge ruled in April 1995 for the case to be archived, due to insufficient amounts of evidence to proof extortion or incitement to corruption.
All Iberian 1 (Illegal financing of a political party in 1997).
Conviction set aside because the statute of limitations expired before Berlusconi exhausted all appeals.
Bribery of the Guardia di Finanza (Arces process).
Silvio Berlusconi (owner of Fininvest) was accused of complicity in corruption. The crime was perpetrated by Fininvest's payment of 380 million lira in bribes to three officers of the Guardia di Finanza engaged in tax audits, in the attempt of convincing them to "turn a blind eye" against tax frauds committed by the four Fininvest owned companies (all with headquarters in Milan): (1989), Arnoldo Mondadori Editore (1991), Mediolanum (1992) and (1994). The mix of interrogation by Paolo Berlusconi and (the former head of the tax office of Fininvest) made it clear, that the most important decisions were made by Silvio Berlusconi, who was aware of everything, and that sometimes the responsibility of managers were only a facade, because everything was decided by a very small group of people. Silvio Berlusconi was interrogated about his role in the case by the Milan prosecutor Antonio Di Pietro on 22 November 1994. An official indictment was launched against Silvio Berlusconi on 14 October 1995.
In April 2010, the supreme court noted through the published motivations of its ruling in the "Bribery of lawyer David Mills to commit perjury" case, that his false testimony had resulted in an incorrect acquittal for the charges against Silvio Berlusconi in the "Arces process". But when considering the statute of limitations now apply for all four charges in the case, the judicial system did not find it appropriate to reopen the case.
Illegal financing of a political party on All Iberian 1: statute of limitations.
Court of First Instance: sentenced to jail (2 years and 4 months) for paying 21 billion lire (about 10 million euro) to Bettino Craxi via an offshore bank account codenamed "All Iberian".

Court of Appeal: the statute of limitations expired before the appeal was completed so Silvio Berlusconi was acquitted.
Medusa Film company purchase.
In October 1995, Berlusconi received a "notice of investigation" from the prosecutor Margherita Taddei, on charges of false accounting and embezzlement connected to the purchase by (a subsidiary of Fininvest and the holding company of Canale 5) of the company , back in 1988. According to the financial statements of Reteitalia the purchase had cost 28bn lira, but according to the owners of Medusa Film they only received 18bn lira for the sale. The difference on 10bn lira (equal to €5.2 million) had been silently transferred by Reteitalia in monthly tranches of 100 or 200 million lira at a time into five private bank accounts owned by Silvio Berlusconi. The initial response of Berlusconi, which came during a TV broadcast on 5 October 1995, was to say: "It' s absurd accusing me of embezzlement, since I own one hundred percent of Reteitalia". The prosecutor replied, that in Italy it is a crime to make hidden (not accounted for) payments to shareholders. Subsequently, Berlusconi declined to show up for interrogations with the prosecutor, referring to that he knew nothing about the money transfers to his five private bank accounts, and claimed it was so small amounts that he never himself had noticed/questioned why these extra amounts had been transferred. The prosecutor then instead interrogated four other business people from Reteitalia, and in November 1995 filed an indictment request for all five persons (including Silvio Berlusconi) for having committed false accounting and embezzlement. If the embezzlement charges would be proven by the court, this part of guilt would, however, be granted impunity due to a 1988 amnesty for the crime.
Bribing a judge on Lodo Mondadori: statute of limitations.
First Court: A "Prima facie" case was issued, but the magistrate decided to drop the charges. The state attorney refused to file the case and appealed against the ruling.

Appeal Court: statute of limitations expired before the appeal was completed so Silvio Berlusconi was acquitted.
False accounting on All Iberian 2: not guilty (law changed).
First Court: On 26 September 2005, Berlusconi was acquitted because the new law on false accounting makes false accounting illegal only if there is a specific damaged party reporting the fact to the authorities. This new law was passed by Berlusconi's parliamentary majority after the beginning of the trial, and was claimed by the opposition to be an "ad personam" law, i.e. aimed at acquitting Berlusconi.
False accounting on Fininvest Media Group Consolidated: statute of limitations.
Allegation: 750 million euro of illegal (black market) funds stored by Fininvest in 64 offshore companies. The statute of limitations expired due to the new laws on false accounting approved by Berlusconi's government, therefore an acquittal was given because no specific damaged party reported it to the government.
Embezzlement, tax fraud and false accounting on Macherio estates: 3 acquittals and 1 amnesty extinct crime.
First Court: acquitted for embezzlement and tax fraud, the statute of limitations expired before a verdict was reached on the two cases of false accounting.

Appeal Court: acquitted for embezzlement, tax fraud and false accounting for the "Idra" company; while being guilty on false accounting for the "Buonaparte" company – a crime he however received amnesty for due to the 1992 fiscal remission law.
False accounting on Lentini affair: not guilty (law changed).
Allegation: 5 million euros paid secretly to Torino football club for buying the player Gianluigi Lentini bringing him to AC Milan.

First court: The statute of limitations expired due to the new laws on false accounting approved by Berlusconi's government, therefore the case was closed with an acquittal on 4 July 2002.
False accounting, embezzlement and tax fraud on Mediaset television and cinema rights: not proven.
Silvio Berlusconi was on trial in relation to transactions carried out by the Berlusconi family's media company Mediaset in the 1990s. Prosecutors suspected two offshore firms controlled by a Berlusconi family holding, Fininvest, bought television and cinema rights from a US firm. The companies, it was alleged, then sold the rights on at inflated prices to Mediaset, also controlled by Fininvest, to avoid Italian taxes and create a slush fund. The trial started on 21 November 2006. The court acquitted Berlusconi, giving him the benefit of the doubt (not proven).
Violation of antitrust law, money laundering, and tax fraud, through transactions by the Telecinco TV-channel (Spanish case): not proven.
In Spain, Silvio Berlusconi, along with other Fininvest managers, was charged with violation of antitrust law, money laundering, and tax fraud for 100bn lira, for the TV-channel Telecinco he founded. The trial was suspended from 1999 to 2006 due to the immunity enjoyed by Berlusconi from being a leader of a foreign government. In April 2006, when Romano Prodi replaced Berlusconi as Italian prime minister, the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón reopened the court procedure against him. In 2008, the lawyer Niccolo Ghedini announced the Spanish supreme court had ruled a complete acquittal towards Berlusconi and all other previously accused in the case.
Corrupting a judge and false accounting on SME-Ariosto: not guilty.
At its outset, the trial SME-Ariosto involved both Cesare Previti and Silvio Berlusconi. Subsequently, a bill was approved by the Italian parliament, the so-called "Lodo Maccanico" act (also known as "Lodo Schifani", after the name of Renato Schifani, the lawyer of Berlusconi and now speaker of the Italian Senate who was also a member of parliament working on the law). This law guaranteed immunity to the five highest officers of the state (premier, president of the Republic, Senate's speaker, Deputy Chamber's speaker, Constitutional Court's president) during their period in office. To avoid complete suspension of the trial, the Court of Milan split it into two parts, one regarding Cesare Previti, the other Silvio Berlusconi. The Cesare Previti part of the trial resulted in a guilty verdict. In the other part (regarding Silvio Berlusconi) the Italian Prime Minister's innocence had still not been proven but the case had to be stopped because of the "Lodo Maccanico"' immunity act. On 16 April 2004, the Constitutional Court declared that the "Lodo Maccanico" violated articles n. 3 and 34 of the Italian Constitution, therefore this immunity act was declared unconstitutional and the trial resumed.
After 12 years of trial, Silvio Berlusconi was acquitted on 27 April 2007, because of art.530 comma 2 ("He didn't commit the fact", i.e. full acquittal).
Tax fraud on Telecinco: not guilty.
Silvio Berlusconi has been indicted in Spain for charges of tax fraud and violation of anti-trust laws regarding the private TV network Telecinco. All the accused have been acquitted by the Spanish "Corte de Casacion" in July 2008.
Country flights.
On 3 June 2009, Silvio Berlusconi was charged Roman prosecutor Giovanni Ferrara with abuse of office for using government-funded flights for personal use.
Trani Episode.
Silvio Berlusconi has been signed in the register of suspects, for some telephone interceptions where "he forced the director of a tv channel, to close the tv political program Annozero" as said by the magistrate Michele Ruggiero.
Investigation of Milan.
In October 2010, Silvio Berlusconi and his son Piersilvio were investigated in connection with false financial statements.
Abuse of office in the Unipol case (2005).
In February 2012, Milan prosecutors charged Berlusconi with abuse of office in 2005, in connection with the publication of wiretapped conversations in the Italian newspaper "Il Giornale", which is owned by Berlusconi's brother Paolo Berlusconi.<ref name="FT 07/02/12"></ref> The publication of the conversations between then Governor of the Bank of Italy Antonio Fazio, senior management of Unipol and Italian centre-left politician Piero Fassino was a breach of secrecy rules and was seen at the time as an attempt to discredit Berlusconi's political rivals. Their publication also eventually led to the collapse of the proposed takeover of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro by Unipol and the resignation of Fazio. The head of the company used by Italian prosecutors to record the conversations has been previously convicted of stealing the recordings and making them available to Berlusconi. On 7 February 2012, at an initial court hearing, Berlusconi denied he had listened to the tapes and ordered their publication. The first-instance ruling was issued 7 March 2013, and sentenced Berlusconi to a year in prison and the joint payment together with his also convicted brother, of 80,000 euro as compensatory damages in favor of Piero Fassino in addition to court litigation costs of €10,000. On 31 March 2014, the Milan Court of Appeal ruled that the evidence did not clear Paolo and Silvio Berlusconi from guilt, but that the facts are now prescribed, which mean they were both acquitted due to the statutes of limitations. Although Paolo still had to pay €80,000 as compensatory damages to Fassino.
Convictions.
Tax Fraud in the Mediaset trial.
The Mediaset trial was launched in April 2005, with indictment of 14 persons (incl. Silvio Berlusconi) for having committed:
(A) false accounting and embezzlement in order to mask payments of substantial "black funds", committed in 1988–94.

(B) tax fraud equal in total to more than €62 million (120bn lira), committed in 1988–98.
Both indictments were related to achievement of personal tax evasion, through illicit trade of movie rights between Mediaset and secret fictive foreign companies situated in tax haven nations, causing fictive losses for Mediaset, with the trade gains being accumulated by the foreign companies owned by the indicted tax fraudsters, who ultimately had the gains paid out as personal profit without paying tax in Italy. In 2007, the court case at first-instance had not yet been launched, and the prosecutors dropped the (A) charges against Berlusconi due to the statute of limitations, and for the same reason the (B) charges were narrowed down to the 1994–98 period, in which the prosecutor charged Berlusconi for having committed a personal tax evasion of €7.3 million.
On 26 October 2012 Silvio Berlusconi was convicted of tax fraud in an Italian court and was sentenced to four years' imprisonment. He was also banned from running for public office for a five-year term. The sentence has been confirmed by the Court of Appeals in Milan on 8 May 2013.
The Court of Cassation decided to deal with the appeal to the sentence of the Court of Appeals on 30 July because for some parts of the verdict the statute of limitations would come into force at 1 August 2013. This caused the political party The People of Freedom with support of a part of their coalition partners to suspend the activities of the National Assembly and the Senate for one day. The Court of Cassation confirmed on 1 August the sentence of four years imprisonment (of which the last three years are automatically pardoned), and shortly afterwards the related additional court imposed public office ban was recalculated from five to two years by the Appeals Court; which subsequently also was confirmed on last instance by the Court of Cassation.
On 27 November 2013, the Italian Senate voted to expel Berlusconi from his seat in parliament due to his final court conviction, and bar him from taking any public office for an extended period of six years, based on the Severino law. While the court had already declared Berlusconi unfit for public office, the Italian Senate also had to confirm the expulsion in a full vote, before it took effect. The Senate vote came after Berlusconi no longer commanded enough support in parliament to bring down the government, which had previously been an issue. In its article about the expulsion, Reuters reported that Berlusconi is preparing his media empire to attack the Enrico Letta's coalition government. With his expulsion from Parliament, Berlusconi lost his parliamentary immunity, which can have consequences in other active court cases against Berlusconi. Berlusconi began serving his community service at a catholic care home center on 9 May 2014, where he is required to work four hours a week for a year with elderly dementia patients.
Ongoing proceedings.
Bribery of senators supporting the Prodi government (2006).
In February 2013, Silvio Berlusconi is under investigation for corruption and illegal financing of political parties from the public prosecutor of Naples, in the figures of Vincenzo Piscitelli, Henry John Woodcock, Francesco Curcio, Alessandro Milita and Fabrizio Vanorio. He is accused of bribing in 2006, with €3 million (of which 1 million declared and 2 million undeclared to the tax authorities), directed to Senator Sergio De Gregorio (the former leader of the Italians in the World party) to facilitate its passage into the ranks of the Berlusconi led coalition House of Freedoms. Along with Berlusconi, a journalist (Valter Lavitola) at the head of the newspaper "Avanti!" was also investigated, and Sergio De Gregorio self-confessed being the recipient of the bribery.
On 23 October 2013, Silvio Berlusconi and Valter Lavitola were both indicted by the judge for preliminary hearings, Amelia Primavera. For Senator De Gregorio the process has already been closed in a preliminary hearing, because he opted to self-confess and bargained a reduced sentence of 20 months in prison for the crime. The court hearing at first-instance for the indicted Silvio Berlusconi, has been scheduled to start on 11 February 2014. During the court proceedings, ex-senator (a former member of the Olive Tree party) also testified to have been offered a bribe from Berlusconi by another ex-Senator (a former member of the defunct Christian Democrats), to change political sides and join Silvio Berlusconi's center-right bloc, so that they together could cause the fall of the Romano Prodi government in 2006–08. According to the prosecutors, Valter Lavitola was as well working on behalf of Berlusconi as a go-between attempting to also bribe other senators.
When his solicitor, Professor Coppi, "recalled the constitutional basis of the freedom of parliamentary activity, the prosecutor Woodcock reacted indicating the illegality of the transfer of money, which resulted in the sale of senators. The Naples Court ruled in favor of the second" thesis.
On 20 April 2017 the Appeal Court of Naples ruled that, although the accusations against Mr Berlusconi were true, the statute of limitations applied, in other words the case had been "timed out". It is worth noting that in spite of the overwhelming strength of the evidence against him, Mr Berlusconi went unpunished whilst the recipient of the bribe accepted a prison sentence. This was due to Berlusconi's government (in 2011) shortening the time limits for completing a successful prosecution before the statute of limitations kicked in, which allowed his lawyer to play for time.
Defamation against Antonio Di Pietro (2008).
Berlusconi has repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of the educational degree of the former Operation "Clean Hands" magistrate and leader of the Italy of Values party, Antonio Di Pietro, when he during a 2008 election rally and in an episode of the talk show Porta a Porta in March 2008, repeatedly claimed, that Di Pietro had not obtained his magistrate degree by passing the exams, but with the complicity of the secret services diverted, in order to have a judge placed in the system to overturn the parties of the so-called First Republic. Di Pietro subsequently sued Berlusconi for aggravated defamation in June 2008. The public prosecutor concluded the preliminary investigation 13 November 2009, by indicting Berlusconi for the defamation offense referred to in Article 595 paragraph 2 of the Criminal Code. The Italian Chamber of Deputies then intervened in the case by passing a decree 22 September 2010, granting all Italian parliamentarians "absolute immunity" for words spoken while elected.
On 5 October 2010, the court in Viterbo considered Berlusconi could not be judged or punished, because of the parliamentarian immunity Article 68 of the Italian constitution forbidding any legal prosecutions against words spoken by parliamentarians in the process of their "exercise of parliamentary duties", in conjunction with the Chamber of Deputies recently having voted for a decree to appoint Berlusconi absolute immunity for any spoken words while serving as a deputy. On 19 January 2012, this judgment was set aside by the Supreme Court, which ruled that Berlusconi had been speaking during a campaign rally and not in an institutional setting; meaning he was not covered by the immunity protection provided for by the constitutions Article 68, and consequently should face a new court trial to be held either at the Viterbo court or the Constitutional Court.
On 10 January 2013, the Viterbo court decided to transfer the case for judgement directly to the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court ruled on 20 June 2013, that the Chamber of Deputies decree having extended Berlusconi's immunity beyond what was provided for by the constitution, was a case with conflict of powers and should be disregarded. This mean that Berlusconi do not enjoy any special immunity protection for his spoken words during election campaigns, and that a court case now shall be held by the constitutional court, to decide the merits of the case. Before the case against Berlusconi can begin, the Italian Chamber of Deputies however shall be called for trial to defend and explain the reasons for passing their unconstitutional law from 2010. The court hearing against the Chamber of Deputies took place on 8 July 2014, where the constitutional court was asked to deem the concerned Chamber of Deputies decree to be unconstitutional and annul it, by the Court of Rome and the Viterbo court. On 18 July 2014, the Constitutional Court indeed ruled the decree to be unconstitutional and annulled it; meaning that the civil court proceedings against Berlusconi now can continue.
Ruby process: Child prostitution and abuse of office (2010).
Silvio Berlusconi was indicted for paying Moroccan nightclub dancer Karima El Mahroug, also known by the stage name Ruby Rubacuori (Italian for "Ruby the Heartstealer"), for sexual services between February and May 2010 when she was one year below the sexual criminal minimum age of 18. He was also indicted for abuse of office, by having arranged to have El Mahroug released from police detention, during an incident in which she was briefly held on claims of theft in May 2010. As evidence for the crimes, the police investigators submitted lawful interceptions of mobile phone conversations. In June 2013, Berlusconi was convicted of the charge and sentenced to seven years imprisonment and a lifetime public office ban, pending an appeal launched to the Appeals Court – and ultimately perhaps also a final appeal launched to the Court of Cassation. In January 2014, Silvio Berlusconi deposited an appeal against the judgment, requesting the complete absolution. The appeal process began on 20 June. On 18 July 2014, the Italian appeals court announced the appeal had been successful and the convictions against Berlusconi were being overturned. According to the court's published summary of the judgement, Berlusconi was acquitted from the extortion charges (abuse of power) because "the fact does not exist" and from the child prostitution charge because "the fact is not a crime". The more detailed court reasoning for acquittal will be published within 90 days, and the prosecutor stated he would then most likely appeal the decision to the Court of Cassation.
Ongoing investigations.
In addition to the ongoing court trials, Berlusconi is currently also involved in the following two ongoing legal investigations, which will evolve to become an ongoing court trial if the judge at the preliminary hearing indict him of the alleged crime:


Fairness is a Two-Way Street Act

The Fairness is a Two-Way Street Act (Construction Labour Mobility) is a statute in Ontario, Canada, that was passed in 1999 and repealed in 2006. Quebec laws effectively made it nearly impossible for Ontario-owned construction companies and Ontario-trained tradespeople to work in Quebec. The Act retaliated by placing similar restrictions on Quebec-trained tradespeople and Quebec-based companies seeking work in Ontario.
Background.
Both sides of the Ontario-Quebec border are highly populated with major population centres on both sides - Ottawa, Cornwall, and North Bay on the Ontario side, and Montreal, Hull, and Temiscaming on the Quebec side. There are also several bridge links across the Ottawa River that link communities on both sides. As a result, it is common for persons to live in one province and work in the other. For example, many federal government workers in Ottawa live in Hull to take advantage of lower child care fees or French-language schools.
However, by the 1990s, the labour market in the construction industry in Quebec was highly regulated and unionized. In addition, the province of Quebec favoured Quebec-based contractors when awarding large infrastructure projects. For example, Hydro-Québec essentially restricted the awarding of contracts to Quebec owned firms. Skilled tradespersons from Ontario found it nearly impossible to work in Quebec, as the provincial government supported Quebec's labour unions, which enforced closed shop regulations and strict limits on what trades could perform such work. Ontario workers found it impossible to join Quebec locals, even in the same union.
Moreover, Quebec's labour ministry often refused to recognize the qualifications of skilled Ontario trade persons which did not exactly match those of Quebec's defined trades. Ontario, which had a largely non-union labour force, had no such restrictions, and the Ontario government bid jobs freely to all comers. As a result, by 1998, there were seven times as many Quebec residents working in the construction trades in Ontario than there were Ontario residents working in those trades in Quebec.
From Quebec's perspective, the restrictions were justified. Most union members felt that Ontario firms were only competitive because they paid their workers lower wages. They also believed that Ontario firms often ignored Quebec's strong occupational health and safety laws. However, when construction jobs were not available in Quebec, many unionized labourers sought non-union jobs in eastern Ontario.
Passage of the legislation.
Although the Ontario and Quebec governments reached an agreement in 1996 to allow more labour mobility, by 1998 it was clear that the situation had not improved - unemployment in Ontario's construction industry was higher than that in the province as a whole. The Progressive Conservative Mike Harris government passed the "Fairness is a Two-Way Street Act" in 1999 which had the following restrictions:
Although the legislation was passed in 1999, this was largely an attempt to force Quebec back to the bargaining table. However, the situation continued to worsen and the Act came into effect in 2002.
Effects.
The Act had a limited effect on construction mobility, although the situation did not grow any worse. Many Quebec companies that hired large numbers of Ontario workers (such as SNC-Lavalin) were unintentionally restricted from bidding for contracts and had to be exempted from the effect of the Act. In addition, most Quebec companies of sufficient size set up an Ontario company in order to comply with the new law, which put most of the burden on smaller companies that could not afford to have a dual presence in both provinces.
Resolution.
In 2006, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and Quebec Premier Jean Charest came to an agreement to remove the restrictions on Ontario workers. Chief among these was an agreement to allow Ontario firms to bid on jobs for Hydro-Québec in the Outaouais region, which has some of the largest spending on infrastructure in the province.


Beerhouse

A beerhouse was a type of public house created in the United Kingdom by the 1830 Beerhouse Act, legally defined as a place "where beer is sold to be consumed "on" the premises". Existing public houses were issued with licences by local magistrates under the terms of the Retail Brewers Act 1828, and were subject to police inspections at any time of the day or night. Proprietors of the new beerhouses, on the other hand, simply had to buy a licence from the government costing two guineas per annum, equivalent to about £150 as of 2010. Until the Wine and Beerhouse Act 1869 gave local magistrates the authority to renew beerhouse licences, the two classes of establishment were in direct competition.


Unsung Founders Memorial

The Unsung Founders Memorial at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a memorial located in McCorkle Place, one of the University's quads. It consists of a black granite tabletop supported by 300 bronze figurines and surrounded by 5 black stone seats. The inscription around the edge of the table reads:
The memorial was a class gift by the Class of 2002, described at the time of its construction as "the most successful senior class gift campaign".
History and funding.
The 2002 senior class raised about $54,000 towards the building of the memorial, exceeding their goal of $40,000. The students themselves contributed $20,000 of this, with the rest donated by parents, friends, faculty and friends of the University. An additional $40,000 was secured from the university provost's office. The final cost of the memorial itself was around $80,000, and the remaining funds were used for preparation of the site and the installation ceremony.
Emily Stevens, director of the young alumni program for the Office of Development, said "The effort the class put forth to get the word out was a major factor".
Students sent requests to around seventy artists, receiving responses from eleven. They then narrowed the choice down to four artists, three of whom came to Chapel Hill for interviews. Korean artist Do-Ho Suh, who has a background in work exemplifying the concepts of collective versus individual and identity versus anonymity, was eventually selected to create the memorial.
The location for the memorial was selected by agreement between Suh and the 2002 senior class officers, with final approval by the UNC Building Grounds Committee.
Suh identified three possible locations, which were reviewed by the committee to identify a prominent location which was sensitive to the existing tree planting on the campus.
Dedication.
The Installation of the Unsung Founders memorial occurred on May 11, 2005 and the dedication ceremony was held on November 5, 2005. The ceremony was held at 10 a.m. at the site of the memorial on McCorkle Place quadrangle in front of the Alumni Building, near Franklin Street, on the Carolina campus. The ceremony featured speakers including UNC Chancellor James Moeser and Dr. Bernadette Gray-Little, dean of the UNC College of Arts and Science, as well as 2002 senior class officers Ben Singer and Byron Wilson. Moeser said:
Moeser commented that the memorial did not emerge from some committee of campus administrators or panel of faculty experts, but "arose from the inspiration of our students." Furthermore, "The Class of 2002 voted overwhelmingly in favor of creating this as their senior class gift. They voted overwhelmingly to make an honest judgment on difficult events." He went on to state:
Gray-Little added that "One of the troublesome legacies of slavery is the pall that it casts over the family histories of those who were bought and sold, This monument finally recognizes the many unnamed whose toil and talent made the nation's first public university possible."
Vandalism.
In September of 2019, Ryan Barnett and Nancy McCorkle were found guilty in Orange County Court, of damaging property for vandalism at the monument in March of 2019. The following were written with markers on the monument: "Fuck this monument!!!" "Destroy this monument to racism!!!" "Confederate lives matter!!!" "Yankee go home, antifa sucks." "Racist—faggots—niger [sic]."


Eliza Winston

Eliza Winston (1830–?) was an enslaved American from Mississippi who was freed from her owners while with them on vacation in Minnesota, a free state. She received a hearing in court, where she said she and her late husband had purchased her freedom from a previous owner, but it was not honored. She was freed from her Mississippi owners and aided in getting to Canada. She returned to the Christmas family in Mississippi before the outbreak of the Civil War.
Events.
In the summer of 1860 Eliza Winston, an enslaved thirty-year-old woman, was taken to St. Anthony, Minnesota by her owners, Richard and Mary Christmas of Issaquena County, Mississippi. During that time it was typical for wealthy southern tourists to escape the yellow fever season by traveling via steamboat up the Mississippi River to northern destinations during the summer months. They took domestic slaves as servants. The Christmases traveled with their five-year-old daughter, Norma, and Winston to the Winslow House in St. Anthony, Minnesota, which was a free state.
Winston had already determined to seek her freedom there and told her story to Ralph and Emily Grey, who were free black citizens. According to her deposition, she and her late husband had previously purchased her freedom, but Ralph Christmas had purchased her from her previous owner, a Mr. Gholson, and did not honor her emancipation. Minnesota was a free state, and Judge Charles Vandenburgh agreed to hear her case.
The judge sent the sheriff to the Winslow House to take Winston into custody, but by then the Christmas family had moved to a country house on Lake Harriet. When the sheriff arrived, the Christmas family at first hid Winston, but did not resist further when she was located. The following day, after a hearing, the judge ruled that Winston was a free woman. The Saint Anthony "Weekly Express" opined that the event would damage the tourism trade. That evening, a pro-slavery mob surrounded the Greys' home and demanded that Winston be returned to the Christmases, but with the aid of people in the underground railroad, she was already on her way to Ontario, Canada. Canada had abolished slavery.
According to interpretations of the Dred Scott case of 1857, Winston would return to slavery if she returned to a slave state. She voluntarily returned to the Christmas family in Issaquena County before the Civil War broke out.


Miller v. United States

Miller v. United States, 357 U.S. 301 (1958), was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court, which held that one could not lawfully be arrested in one's home by officers breaking in without first giving one notice of their authority and purpose.
Background.
At 1:35 a.m., on March 25, 1955, Federal Bureau of Narcotics agents, serving an arrest warrant, arrested a heroin user, Clifford Reed, on a public street in Washington, DC, for various offences related to narcotics. While in custody, Reed informed federal narcotics agents that he had purchased 100 capsules of morphine from a drug dealer, Arthur R. Shepherd, via a middleman, William Miller, who was 17 years old at the time. Miller had had several run-ins with the law and had been convicted of a narcotics offence in 1953. Reed told agents that he was to meet Shepherd in the later morning hours to make another purchase. The agents then enlisted Reed to aid in the capture of Miller and Shepherd.
Later, at about 3:00 a.m., an undercover agent carrying $100 in marked currency went to Shepherd's home with Reed by taxicab. Reed introduced the agent to Shepherd as a buyer. The agent gave Shepherd the money, and Shepherd promised that another 100 capsules would be procured from Miller and delivered to the agent's home. Shepherd went by taxi to Miller's apartment. The taxi was monitored by federal agents, along with Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police officers. Shepherd got out of the taxi and went into the apartment, which Miller shared with a woman, Bessie Byrd, who was involved in the operation. He entered the basement to remove the drugs from storage, but federal agents could not observe him there. A few minutes later, he came out of the basement and re-entered the cab.
Shepherd was going back to Reed's apartment when the police officers pulled the car over, and he was then arrested and searched. The currency that was given to him by the agent was not found on his person, but he admitted to the officers that the 100 capsules of morphine found on the passenger seat were put there by him after the cab was pulled over. He claimed that the package of capsules was behind a fire extinguisher in the basement hallway, where he was sent by a "fellow" with Reed, who had promised him $10 for retrieving it.
The federal agents and police then returned to Miller's apartment. At about 3:45, they knocked on the door, and a low voice was heard, saying, "Who's there?" The reply was "Police." Miller opened the door, leaving the door chain on and asked what their purpose was. When the agent and officer did not respond, he attempted to close the door. According to the officer, "He took one look at me and tried to slam the door, at which time I grabbed the door and opened it. We put our hands inside the door and pulled and ripped the chain off." They did not have a search warrant or an arrest warrant, and they did not demand admission into the home or express their purpose. Miller was not arrested until they entered his apartment. Bessie Byrd was arrested, and $34 of the money that Shepherd had been given was found on her person. During a search of the apartment, the remaining $66 was found, part in a hatbox in the closet and part under the covers of a bed.
Trial and appeals.
Byrd, Shepherd, and Miller were charged with conspiracy to commit violations and violations of federal narcotics laws. At first, all three filed a motion to suppress the evidence, arguing that it was seized without probable cause. The trial court denied the motion, and they were convicted of all charges. They then appealed to The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which upheld their conviction:
Decision.
In a 7-2 majority opinion authored by Justice William Brennan, with a concurrence by Justice John M. Harlan, the Court ruled that the arrest and conviction of all three petitioners violated the Fourth Amendment. The Court's reasoning was that the statutory requirements of law enforcement having to notify a suspect of their authority and purpose were not met. Furthermore, Miller's reaction was reasonable, as the officers did not notify him of their purpose and authority. The mere fact that he attempted to shut the door on them did not necessarily mean that he already knew why they were at his house. The officers could not break the door down and arrest Miller because Miller did not receive any notice in the first place, making the arrest unlawful and the evidence the fruits of an illegal search:
Clark's dissent.
Justice Tom C. Clark dissented, which Justice Harold H. Burton joined, expounding that the Court of Appeals had concluded that Miller knew what purpose the agent and the officer were there for, and he was attempting to destroy evidence by slamming the door. He also argued that slamming the door on officers was not a "normal homeowner's reaction" and that the Court ignored the "exigent circumstances" that was presented in the initial encounter. He wrote that the Court of Appeals:


Poenale sanctie

The poenale sanctie ("penal sanction") was a legal penalty in both Suriname and the Dutch East Indies.
Dutch East Indies.
The "poenale sanctie" was a part of the "Koelie Ordonnantie" ('Coolie Ordinance') of 1880 and stipulated that a plantation-owner could punish his coolies in any manner he saw fit, including fines. This made the plantation-owner both policeman and judge. The reasons for punishing a coolie could be many, including laziness, insolence or attempting to flee the plantation. Because of the "poenale sanctie" whipping became commonplace on the plantations of the Dutch East Indies. The overseers thought that without these whippings, the 'dumb and lazy' coolies would never do their jobs.
Female coolies suffered even more. For instance: a 15-year-old Javanese girl was hung from a cross for hours. To prevent her fainting, sambal was smeared on her vagina. The justification for this punishment was that she had refused the amorous advances of her boss.
Around 1900 criticism of the system arose, but the sanction was only finally abolished in 1931.
Suriname.
After the abolition of slavery in Suriname in 1863, indentured servants were recruited primarily in the Dutch East Indies and in British India. These servants were subject to "poenale sanctie" because of their contracts. This meant that in case of breach of contract, the servant would not be subjected to civil law, but to criminal law. A plantation-owner could thus subject his servants to harsh punishments, as long as they were under contract. By ordinance of September 8, 1947, the "poenale sanctie" was officially abolished in Suriname on January 1, 1948.


Treaties of the Holy See

A treaty of the Holy See is called a Concordat. This is a list.


Chief Justice of Hungary

The chief justice (, , ) was the personal legal representative of the King of Hungary, who issued decrees of judicial character on behalf of the monarch authenticated with the royal seal, performed national notarial activities and played an important role in the organisation of lawyers training. Later the chief justice was the head of the Royal Court of Justice (, ) and the Tribunal of the Chief Justice (, ), the highest legal forum of civil cases.
Origins.
The office of "personalis" evolved since the early 15th century within the royal chancellery. In the beginning, the king was represented by the secret chancellor in the judiciary ("judge of personal presence"). The first known chief justice was Janus Pannonius, a Croato-Hungarian humanist poet who returned to Hungary after finishing studies at the University of Padua in 1458, the coronation year of Matthias Corvinus. Pannonius served as chief justice until 1459, when he was elected as the Bishop of Pécs. Until the 1464 reform, the complete list of chief justices is unknown. It is certain that Albert Vetési, Bishop of Veszprém held the office for a short time around 1460.
From the 1370s, during the reign of Louis I, the lord chancellor also had a judicial function. He became "judge of special presence" (). This position was held by Roman Catholic prelates, therefore the judicial function was performed by their deputies. Consequently, a dual judicial system existed in the Kingdom of Hungary until the administrative reform of 1464.
Formation.
Matthias Corvinus (formally "Matthias I"), after restoring the Holy Crown of Hungary for 60,000 ducats, was allowed to retain certain Hungarian counties with the title of king and was crowned legitimately on 29 March 1464. After the second and valid coronation, Matthias began to reorganize the administrative and judicial structure. He merged the two courts ("special" and "personal judicatures") and established the institution of chief justice as a full-fledged judge to the head of the Royal Court. The chancellery was also unified and the new office of "lord- and vice-chancellor" lost all of its judicial functions.
The Tribunal of the Chief Justice also established where the so-called "towns of chief justice" () forwarded those appeals concerning litigations. The tribunal chaired by the chief justice functioned as appellate court for the "towns of treasurer" () too. According to the "Tripartitum" (1514) five settlements were towns of chief justice: Székesfehérvár, Esztergom, Lőcse (Levoča), Kisszeben (Sabinov) and Szakolca (Skalica). The status meant some independence, so was sought after by the towns. The "Quadripartitum" (1551), which never came to force, also mentions the seven mining towns of Upper Hungary as towns of chief justice.
Functions and development.
The Act LXVIII of 1486 listed the chief justice among the "ordinary judges" beside the palatine and the judge royal. The chief justice also served as keeper of the monarch's judicial seal. In contrast, the secret chancellor assumed his role in the arbitration only on special occasions. The ordinary judges were able to make judgements on any matter and also could appoint deputies and masters of judgement. In practice, this meant that the judicial power decoupled itself from the executive branch (the king). The Act XLII of 1492 (during the reign of Vladislaus II) also confirmed these authorities.
During the first decades the position was held by ecclesiastical dignitaries. Thomas Drági was the first secular office-holder between 1486 and 1490. There had been a growing demand to fill the position by secular jurists and professionals on a permanent basis. That finally occurred at the beginning of the 16th century when the Act IV of 1507 decreed that the office must be occupied by a secular person with legal practice. Despite the new law the influential and powerful cardinal Tamás Bakócz chose his prelate relatives for the office. The importance of the office of chief justice was made clear when Buda became the permanent residence of the Tribunal of the Chief Justice. The Act LV of 1514 also emphasized the appointment of secular office-holders. After that the secular and ecclesiastical elite agreed with each other and István Werbőczy, creator of the "Tripartitum" was appointed later in 1516.
After the battle of Mohács (1526) the reigning chief justice Miklós Thuróczy swore allegiance to Ferdinand I. As a result, the other elected king, John Zápolya also appointed a chief justice for his own royal court in the person of Benedek Bekényi.
Charles III divided the Curia Regia into two courts in 1723: the "Tabula Septemviralis" (Court of the seven) and the "Tabula Regia Iudiciaria" (Royal Court of Justice). The latter functioned under the direction of the chief justice, in the case of prevention, of the elder Baron Court. The "Tabula Regia Iudiciaria" was constituted of two prelates, two Barons of the Court, two deputy judge advocates of the Kingdom: the vice Palatine, the deputy judge advocate of the Curia Regia, four protonotars, four assessors of the Kingdom, four assessors of the archdiocese, four adjunctive assessors.
The chief justice also had a political function: he became speaker of the occasionally convened lower house of the Diet of Hungary. During the Habsburg-dominated kingdom a customary law emerged whereby jurists to the office of chief justice were chosen from the lesser nobility, however later sometimes aristocrats were also appointed to that position. The Tribunal of the Chief Justice was one of the positions used for the development, patronage and rise of a new aristocracy which was loyal to the House of Habsburg. For the new "official nobility" the position of chief justice was the springboard to obtain higher positions (mostly judge royal, president of the Hungarian Court Chamber, vice-chancellor).
János Zarka opened and presided over the last feudal Diet of 1848. During the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 the position became vacant. After the defeat of the War of Independence Francis Joseph I applied neo-absolutist governance ("Bach system") and integrated the Kingdom of Hungary to the Habsburg Empire. Due to the fall of the Bach system in 1861, the position of chief justice, among others, was revived again and István Melczer took the office. According to the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 the judicial system had been converted and modernized; the chief justice lost all of its features and the position was officially discontinued.


Christopher Bernevall

Christopher Bernevall, or Barnewall (1370–1446) was an Irish politician and judge of the fifteenth century who held the offices of Vice-Treasurer of Ireland and Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. He was deeply involved in the political controversies of his time, and was a leading opponent of the powerful Anglo-Irish magnate James Butler, 4th Earl of Ormond. His elder son Nicholas also held office as Lord Chief Justice, and his younger son Robert was created the first Baron Trimleston.
Family.
He was born at Crickstown in County Meath, the elder son of Nicholas de Bernevall, whose wife was a Clifford. His younger brother founded the Kingsland branch of the family.
He married Matilda (or Maud) Drake, a member of the influential Drake family of Drakerath, County Meath, who was probably a sister of John Drake, Mayor of Dublin. The most notable of his children were his eldest son Sir Nicholas Barnewall, who like his father was Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, and his younger son Robert, 1st Baron Trimleston.
Career.
He was appointed King's Serjeant in 1422 and held that office until 1434 when he became second justice of the Court of King's Bench (Ireland); he was appointed Lord Chief Justice of Ireland the following year and with one short gap served in that office until his death in October 1446. He was Vice-Treasurer of Ireland in 1430, 1432 and 1435.
Butler–Talbot feud.
Bernevall was regarded as a highly "political" judge and his career reflects the bitter political of the time. Fifteenth-century official Ireland was deeply troubled by the long feud between James Butler, 4th Earl of Ormond and his faction on the one hand, and Richard Talbot, Archbishop of Dublin and his brother John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury on the other. While some judges, notably the Cornwalsh family, which produced two Chief Barons in turn, were supporters of Ormond, Bernevall was a strong supporter of the Talbot faction. He is said to have enjoyed the confidence of the English Crown and was a close associate of Giles Thorndon, the much-harassed Treasurer of Ireland. In 1444 Thorndon fled from Ireland, unable to bear any more dissension. He attempted to appoint Bernevall as his Deputy, but Ormond promptly declared the appointment illegal. Numerous accusations of wrongdoing were made against Bernevall, but no action was taken, either because he enjoyed the confidence of the Crown, or because the Ormond–Talbot feud was at last dying away. Bernevall died two years later, still in office.


Republican Party of Arkansas

The Republican Party of Arkansas (RPA), headquartered at 1201 West 6th Street in downtown Little Rock, is the affiliate of the Republican Party in Arkansas.
The Republican Party of Arkansas was founded on April 2, 1867, by "the leading Union men" of Arkansas. Under Powell Clayton, it played a preeminent role in politics at the height of Reconstruction in the state (1864–1874). The party chairman is Jonelle Fulmer
History.
The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP (Grand Old Party), is the second oldest currently existing political party in the United States after its older rival, the Democratic Party. Both parties exist in all fifty states. Historically, prior to the late 20th century, the Republican Party was much weaker than the Democratic Party in the former states of the old Confederacy, including Arkansas.
The Arkansas party did not hire its first paid executive director until 1970, when businessman Neal Sox Johnson, then of Nashville, Arkansas, assumed the position in the last year of Winthrop Rockefeller's second term as governor of Arkansas.
Johnson held the position until early in 1973, when he left Arkansas to take a position with the former Farmers Home Administration in Washington.
Between 2010 and 2014, similar to what took place in neighboring Oklahoma, Arkansas Republicans won all four U.S. House seats, both U.S. Senate seats, all of the statewide offices, and supermajority control of both chambers of the General Assembly.
Associated groups.
There are six groups and these groups are: Arkansas Diversity Alliances Coalition, African American Coalition of Arkansas, Arkansas African American Trailblazers, Arkansas Federation of College Republicans, Arkansas Federation of Young Republicans, Arkansas Federation of Republican Women, and the Arkansas Federation of Teenage Republicans. The Tusk Club is another arm of the Arkansas Republican Party.
Republican governors.
As of 2015, there have been a total of seven Republican governors.
Current elected officials.
The Arkansas Republican Party controls all of the state's seven statewide offices. Republicans also hold both of the state's U.S. Senate seats and all four of the state's U.S. House seats.
Members of Congress.
U.S. Senate.
Republicans have controlled both of Arkansas's seats in the U.S. Senate since 2014:
U.S. House of Representatives.
Out of the four seats Arkansas is apportioned in the U.S. House of Representatives, all four are held by Republicans:
Statewide offices.
Republicans control all seven of the elected statewide constitutional offices:
List of chairmen.
This is a list of chairmen of the Republican Party of Arkansas:


Legal history of France

The legal history of France is commonly divided into three periods: that of the old French law (), that of the Revolutionary or intermediary law (), and that of the Napoleonic law or "Droit nouveau" ('New law').
Revolutionary law.
"The legislative work of the French Revolution has been qualified as intermediary law since it formed the transition between the old French law and the new, the law covered by the Napoleonic codes." "The private law of the French Revolution is to-day no longer considered an intermediary law. Yet from a positivist point of view, most of the provisions enacted in this area between 1788 to 1799 were of short duration." Feudalism was abolished on the night of 4 August 1789. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was adopted on the 26 August.
Napoleonic law.
Napoleonic law is still considered "the foundation stone of the French legal system."
Aftermath of the First French Empire.
The judicial system of post-Napoleonic France was an intricate system of relations between the government and the police/judicial force. Together they helped to minimize crime while successfully fulfilling the guarantees made in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen written in 1789. Crime in post-Napoleonic France was seen as an act of high treason, which explains the harsh punishment. In Victor Hugo's 1862 novel "Les Miserables", Jean Valjean receives a sentence of five years hard work in the galleys for the small crime of stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's children. This points out the injustice of the system. While providing a deterrent for crime, hardship cases such as Jean Valjean's and Fantine's fall through the cracks of society when they deserved special attention because of the situations that caused the crime.


Basil Banghart

Basil Hugh "The Owl" Banghart Jr. (September 11, 1901– April 5 1982) was an American criminal, burglar and prison escape artist. Although a successful "stickup artist" during the 1920s and early 1930s, he is best remembered for his involvement in the hoax kidnapping of Chicago mobster Jake "The Barber" Factor, a crime for which he and Roger Touhy were eventually proven innocent after nearly 20 years in prison.
Biography.
Early life and criminal career.
Basil Hugh Banghart was born in Berville, Michigan in 1901. He dropped out of college after one year to become a professional car thief, stealing over one hundred cars in the Detroit area before his arrest in 1926. It was around this time that Banghart acquired his criminal nickname "The Owl" because of his abnormally large eyes.
Banghart escaped from Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary months into his sentence. Escaping from a window washing detail, he leapt 25 feet from a window he was washing and over the prison's wall escaping through the marsh on the other side. He got as far as Montana but was recaptured and returned to prison. He made a second escape a year later, but was caught trying to steal a car in Pittsburgh in October 1928.
This time, Banghart was escorted back to prison by US Marshals. He was taken to a federal building and, left alone in an office for a few minutes, Banghart used a phone to call local police claiming he was a federal agent who had been assaulted and overpowered by his prisoner, Basil Banghart. He continued claiming that "Banghart" had escaped after handcuffing him and described the US Marshal that was escorting him noting that he was "a dangerous, armed felon and a police impostor". When police arrived moments later, they took the escort into custody while Banghart escaped in the confusion.
Banghart was arrested once more in February 1930, was returned to Leavenworth, but quickly escaped again. He was arrested in Detroit for armed robbery in January 1932 and held in the South Bend Indiana jail but escaped by throwing pepper in a guard's face then using a machine gun to shoot his way out.
Banghart and the Roger Touhy Gang.
Banghart headed south and eventually made his way to Chicago where he joined up with Roger Touhy's organization. Touhy, a veteran bootlegger from the days of Prohibition, was then in the midst of a fierce rivalry with Frank Nitti over labor racketeering. Banghart became a major asset to Touhy during this time, and no doubt an active participant in Touhy's war with the Chicago Outfit, however there is only one recorded incident in which Banghart was specifically involved.
On January 31, 1933, Jimmy O'Brien was killed by Nitti's gunmen in front of the Garage Nightclub. O'Brien was one of Touhy's union men and one of the latest victims of the Touhy-Nitti feud. A week later, a man identified as Banghart returned to the nightclub where he stepped out of a sedan and tossed a bomb through the front doors of the club. No one was injured but the club itself was heavily damaged.
Involvement with the Factor kidnapping.
When the Chicago Outfit staged the kidnapping of one of their own members, Jake "The Barber" Factor, in July 1933, it was expected to postpone his extradition to stand trial for fraud in Great Britain as well as rid themselves of rival bootlegger Roger Touhy on whom the kidnapping would be blamed.
The members of the British consulate refused to believe the story and won a judgment for Factor's extradition from the U.S. Supreme Court. In desperation, Factor and the Chicago mob sought to make the kidnapping more legitimate by arranging a pickup with the supposed kidnappers. Banghart and his partner Charles "Ice Wagon" Connors were brought into the plan at this point. Hired to be the "bagmen", they were told all they needed was to pick up the money, make it "look real", and they could keep the ransom money.
On August 15, the two showed up at the scheduled drop on Manheim Road just outside the Chicago city limits. As soon as they arrived, they found 300 Chicago police officers and FBI agents waiting for them. To make matters worse, inside the ransom package was only $500. In spite of the obvious double-cross, Banghart and Connors surprised everyone by escaping after a wild shootout.
Capture, trial and imprisonment.
Despite being set up, Banghart and Connors did not seek revenge against the Chicago Outfit and instead went on the run. On November 15, 1933, they teamed with Ike Costner and Ludwig "Dutch" Schmidt to hijack a U.S. mail truck of $105,000 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Banghart and Costner were eventually captured by the time the second trial for Factor's kidnapping was held on February 13, 1934. Facing long prison sentences for the Charlotte mail truck robbery, both men agreed to testify for the prosecution. Although Costner had not been involved in the ransom pickup, when Connors was found murdered on March 14, he took Connors' place and falsely stated that he and Banghart had been hired for the Factor kidnapping by Roger Touhy. When Banghart took the stand, however, he denied these claims and attempted to explain that the kidnapping was staged. Banghart's testimony was largely ignored and he along with Touhy and two others were convicted and received 99-year sentences.
Escape with Touhy.
After years of unsuccessful appeals, Banghart and Touhy escaped Joliet with Edward Derlack, Martlick Nelson, William Stewart, St. Clair McInerney and James O'Connor on October 9, 1942. The FBI immediately joined the manhunt justifying its involvement charging that the convicts had violated the federal draft law by not informing Selective Service of their change of address. Soon after their escape, Banghart and Touhy were suspected of taking part in a robbery at Melrose Park, Illinois on December 19 which netted $20,000 although no charges were brought against them. McInerney and O'Connor were killed in a gun battle with federal agents less than two weeks after their escape and the rest were captured at a nearby address on December 29, 1942. J. Edgar Hoover observed the raid and took part in what would be his last "personal arrest".
Release and later years.
The convicts were given even longer jail sentences for their escape, and on January 2, 1943, Banghart was returned to Stateville where he was placed in solitary confinement. He was then transferred, with an escort of 18 federal marshals, to Alcatraz. He spent the rest of his time in the prison kitchen working with former public enemy Alvin Karpis in the bakery. Jokingly referred to by inmates as the "Karpis Kitchen Crew", Banghart and Karpis allegedly learned to produce wine and other alcoholic beverages from cherry pie juices and other material in the kitchen. "The challenge was to avoid becoming an alcoholic" Karpis later wrote in his memoirs.
In 1954, a federal judge declared the Factor kidnapping a fraud and that Banghart and Touhy had most likely been wrongly convicted involving the Chicago Outfit and corrupt Chicago officials. Banghart was transferred back to Stateville in 1959 and eventually his kidnapping conviction was overturned and the mail robbery charges were dropped for time served. He was released the following year where, at age 60, he was reunited with his longtime girlfriend Mae Blacock. He'd also received a small inheritance from his aunt 15 years before. Banghart retired to a small island in Puget Sound.


Walter Kriege

Walter Kriege (15 March 1891 – 1 December 1952) was German jurist who also had a political role in the 1940s.
Life.
Walter Adolf Florens Hermann Kriege was born in Paraguay in 1891. His father, Johannes Kriege (1859-1937), was a German diplomat who in the early 1890s worked as the German Consul in Asunción.
After taking part in the First World War, Kriege completed his studies in jurisprudence at Berlin, where he obtained his doctorate. Between 1921 and 1923, he worked at the Reichsbank, the German Central Bank. Between 1923 and 1944, he worked in the Prussian Justice Ministry and later transferred to the national State Justice Ministry. In April 1940, he was appointed Ministerial Director in the Justice Ministry, a post that he retained until his arrest in July 1944. It subsequently emerged that a year after his appointment, on 23/24 April 1941, Kriege was one of several high-profile government lawyers called to a special meeting at Hermann Göring's in Berlin at which the participants were informed about the Nazi Germany's new and subsequently-controversial Action T4 policy of enforced euthanasia. Between 1939 and 1944, Kriege also served as the president of the Senior Maritime Trophies Court ("Oberprisenhof").
He was nominated a member Carl Friedrich Goerdeler'splanned as Secretary of State at the Justice Ministry or, according to another source, as Justice Minister. However, the planned government never came to power because the 20 July plot failed to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Germany's incumbent chancellor. Instead, Kriege was arrested, but unlike many others who were then arrested, he was released a few months later, in November 1944.
The Second World War ended in May 1945 and what remained of Germany was divided into four occupation zones, each of which administered by one of the four principal victorious Allied poweres. In May 1949, three of the four occupation zones were refounded as West Germany. Between 1946 and 1949, Kriege worked as deputy president of the "German Finance Council", in the US occupation zone at Stuttgart. He also held the directorship of the "Finance Administration Office" ("Verwaltung für Finanzen"), which in 1949 became the West German Finance Ministry. The new country's chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, was keen to appoint Kriege as his Administrative Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
The post was particularly ambiguous because West Germany has been established under terms established by the country's sponsors in the so-called Occupation statute of April 1949, which greatly qualified the new country's autonomy and expressly excluded foreign policy from the Adenauer government's areas of responsibility. In the event, neither Kriege nor , to whom the post was offered, accepted it. For the early years of his chancellorship, Adenauer ran his Foreign Ministry himself.
Kriege himself took a bank directorship, probably before he had been formally offered the foreign ministry post, as president of the ("Landeszentralbank") of North Rhine-Westphalia, a post that he retained until he died just over two years later.
Kriege was the nephew of the architect Richard Saran, the grandson of Bremen Mayor John Daniel Meier and the cousin of the journalist Mary Saran. He was also a relative of the early socialist Hermann Kriege.


Anatol Petrencu

Anatol Petrencu (born May 22, 1954, Căuşeni) is a politician, historian and scientist from the Republic of Moldova. In 1990-1992 he was the dean of the Faculty of History of the State University of Moldova, and between 1998 and 2006 he was president of the Association of Historians of Moldova. Between 2006 and 2010 he was the president of the European Action Movement party. Since October 2010 he has been the director of the Institute of Social History "ProMemoria".<ref name="Promemoria.md/_2020-04-02"></ref> Vice President of the Liberal Party.<ref name="Infotag.md/presa/599174/_2020-04-02"></ref>
Biography.
Anatol Petrencu, the PhD in historical sciences, university professor, was born on May 22, 1954, in Căuşeni. He carried out his compulsory military service in the Soviet army (1972–1974). He graduated from Moldova State University in 1980 and between 1982 and 1985 he studied at Moscow State Institute of International Relations. He has been working for Moldova State University since 1985. He did doctoral studies at the Institute of International Economic and Political Research of the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Federation. In 1986 he passed his Masters' thesis with the theme "Romanian-Italian relations in the 70s - the first half of the 80s", and in 1998 he became a PhD in historical sciences with the work "Romania's Policy on Bessarabia, 1940-1944". In 1990-1992 he was the dean of the Faculty of History of the MSU, and between 1998 -2006 he was president of the Association of Historians of Moldova. Between 2006 and 2010 he was the president of the European Action Movement (). Anatol Petrencu is a member of the Commission for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Moldova. Since October 2010 he has been the director of the Institute of Social History "ProMemoria".
In March 2011 the European Action Movement party merged with the Liberal Party.
References.
[[Category:1954 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Moldova State University alumni]]
[[Category:Moldovan historians]]
[[Category:Members of the Commission for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Moldova]]
[[Category:Moscow State Institute of International Relations alumni]]
[[Category:Save Bessarabia Union politicians]]


Wilhelm Frimann Koren Christie

Wilhelm Frimann Koren Christie (7 December 1778 – 10 October 1849) was a Norwegian attorney. He was a member of the National Assembly at Eidsvoll in 1814 and served as the Norwegian Constituent Assembly secretary.
Background.
Born in Kristiansund, Møre og Romsdal, Wilhelm F. K. Christie spent several childhood years in Bergen. He was the son of postmaster Johan Koren Christie (1745–1823) and Anne Thue Brodtkorb (1753–1834). His family can be traced back to Andrew Davidson Christie (ca. 1620-1694), born in Montrose, Scotland, who became a citizen of Bergen in 1654. At 10 years old, he was sent to attend Bergen Cathedral School. At 16 years old, he was a student at the University of Copenhagen. In 1799, he became candidat juridicum.
Career.
Wilhelm F. K. Christie was executive officer ("kansellisekretær") and manager of a government office in Copenhagen. In 1809, at 30 years old, he became a judge ("sorenskriver") in Søndre Bergenhus county. From 1815 to 1825, he was County Governor of Søndre Bergenhus amt and County Governor of Bergenhus stiftamt.
In 1814, he was a representative for Bergen at the Norwegian Constituent Assembly. He was chosen as the secretary during the whole period. Hence he did not play a very important role in the debates. Then he participated with sending a message to the United Kingdom from Christian Frederik in order to win assistance for Norway's independence. However, this message was never answered. In October, he became the president of the parliament and made an important contribution to the process of discussion of the union with Sweden. He stayed a representative in the Parliament of Norway ("Stortinget") until 1825.
Later years.
From 1828 until his death, he was a customs inspector in Bergen. He was also a member of Bergen city council from 1837 to 1841, and participated with the founding of Bergen Savings Bank, of which he was chairman for several years.
Legacy.
Christie's private archive in the National Archives contains six packages of correspondence and notes. His statue now stands in front of the Bergen Museum, which he founded in 1825 and where he worked for more than 20 years. A statue of him by Norwegian sculptor Kristian Blystad was erected in 1989 in front of the Stortinget on the occasion of the Constitution's 175-year anniversary.


Ewiger Landfriede

The Ewiger Landfriede ("everlasting "Landfriede"", variously translated as "Perpetual Peace", "Eternal Peace", "Perpetual Public Peace") of 1495, passed by Maximilian I, German king and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, was the definitive and everlasting ban on the medieval right of vendetta ("Fehderecht"). In fact, despite being officially outlawed, feuds continued in the territory of the empire until well into the 16th century.
The "Ewiger Landfriede" graduated from the development of the peace movement ("Landfriedensbewegung"), which, after initial attempts in the 12th century, had its first significant success in the Treaty of Mainz in 1235. It was aimed primarily at the lesser nobles who had not kept pace with the process of development of the princely territories. Their propensity to feuding ("Fehdefreudigkeit") increasingly went against the intent of the imperial princes and imperial cities to pacify and consolidate their territories.
Claims were henceforth no longer to be decided in battle, but confirmed through legal process. The imperial act was passed on 7 August 1495 at the Diet of Worms. In theory, at least, the use of violence to resolve disputes was replaced by settlements in the courts of the empire and its territories, even if the establishment of this principle took several further generations. In a modern sense, the "Ewiger Landfriede" formally gave the monopoly on violence to the state or the public sector.
The formulation of the "Ewiger Landfriede" conformed with parallel developments in other European countries at that time, where the monopoly of the state in the use of force was also established, because internal conflicts were to be resolved by legal process. This was, of course, accompanied by the concentration of power in the ruling monarch. In these countries, the process of nation-building was completed to such an extent that they were able to establish clear external borders.
In addition to establishing the monopoly of the use of force by the state, the "Ewiger Landfriede" is important in other respects as well. It was universal and applicable everywhere, and violations were to be strictly punished wherever they occurred. There had been ad hoc or temporary restrictions on the right of vendetta even in medieval times. For example, conflicts were suspended or banned during the Crusades during the period of absence of the emperor from the Reich. Now, however, in place of princely mediation and decision making in individual cases, there was a mandatory rule of law for everyone, a universal law.
The enforcement of the act required a functioning judiciary in the kingdom. To preserve the "Ewiger Landfriede", the Imperial Chamber Court ("Reichskammergericht") in Frankfurt was created as the supreme legal authority; it was later moved to Speyer and, later, Wetzlar. In 1500, the newly created imperial circles ("Reichskreise") were made responsible for the enforcement of the "Ewiger Landfriede" in the individual regions. The maintenance of peace in the empire was no longer the sole prerogative of the king, because the Imperial Chamber Court and the imperial circles were corporate bodies or formed from the imperial estates ("Reichsstände").
The preservation of peace ("Landfrieden") is still an important part of German law. Breaches of the peace are punishable under the Strafgesetzbuch (§ 125 StGB bzw. § 274 Ö-StGB, Art. 260 CH-StGB). The state acknowledges the right of individuals to ensure their own rights by force only in very limited circumstances (e.g., in self-defence). The monopoly of the state over the use of force has its root in the medieval state peace movement which prevailed in the 15th century.


Alfred Haag

Alfred Haag (15 December 1904, Schwäbisch Gmünd, Württemberg – 8 August 1982) was a member of the Youth movement of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in the small Württemberg town of Schwäbisch Gmünd in the 1920s, he married another communist; Lina Haag in 1927. He was a volunteer editor for the Sueddeutsche Zeitung workers in Stuttgart, later he was elected a member of the regional parliament for the KPD until Hitler's rise to power in 1933. Both Alfred and Lina were soon arrested, and both spent many years in prisons and concentration camps.
Alfred was first in the Upper Kuhberg Concentration Camp near Ulm until it was dissolved in 1935, then at the Dachau concentration camp until 1939, when he was transferred to the Mauthausen concentration camp. Lina was released in 1939, and having been reunited with their daughter, she moved to Berlin and obtained work. She visited the HQ of the SS almost daily to petition for her husband's release until 1940, when she finally, and incredibly, obtained permission for an audience with Heinrich Himmler and he secured Alfred's release from Mauthausen. He had survived physical torture whilst detained there and at Dachau.
Alfred was soon afterwards drafted into the Army and sent to the Eastern Front, and Lina and their daughter were bombed out of their home in Berlin. Lina was transferred to work in a hospital in Garmisch Whilst there she wrote a memoir of her experiences in the form of an extended letter to Alfred, not knowing if she would see him again. It was eventually published in 1947 as 'A Handful of Dust' or 'How Long the Night' in English.
Alfred was taken prisoner by the Red Army and eventually released in 1948, when they were reunited once again and lived together in Munich until Alfred's death in 1982. Alfred worked until his death as advocate for the victims of the camps in the Union of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime (VVN-BdA). For many years he was its Bavarian regional chairman. In 2007, Lina was given the Dachau Award for Courage. She lived in Munich until her death in 2012.