WolfBlock

WolfBlock LLP (formerly Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen) was a large U.S. law firm and lobbying group based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The "National Law Journal" ranked WolfBlock the 149th-largest firm in the United States, and the 10th-largest in Philadelphia, by number of attorneys. The firm was known for being one of the oldest law firms in Philadelphia.
History.
WolfBlock was founded in 1903 by Horace Stern and Morris Wolf. Stern would go on to work for the United States Department of War, and would go on to serve as Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. One of the firm's first major clients was the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company, one of the predecessors of SEPTA. The firm gradually expanded, and after World War II, acquired several smaller firms, becoming a sizable regional firm. Bernard Wolfman, later Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, was the managing partner of the firm from 1961 to 1963.
In 2002, the firm established a lobbying subsidiary, WolfBlock Government Relations L.P., in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The subsidiary was expanded into Washington D.C. the following year.
Collapse.
Failed merger attempt.
WolfBlock's management had planned a merger with the 500+ lawyer Miami, Florida-based law firm of Akerman Senterfitt, which would have created a single 800-lawyer firm. But on August 7, 2008, the two firms released a joint statement explaining that the merger had been put on hold due to "a client conflict that cannot be discussed publicly".
Dissolution.
On March 23, 2009, the firm's partners voted for an orderly unwinding and dissolution of the firm, due in part to difficulties the firm was having in continuing its line of credit with Wachovia. In a press release, the firm announced:
WolfBlock will remain in the practice of law for several months to protect the interests of its clients, employees and creditors. The decision to unwind was reached in view of a confluence of unfavorable factors: the economic recession, especially in the firm's core real estate practice; the constriction of credit occasioned by the financial crisis of 2007–2008; and the intended and anticipated departure of significant partners and practices.
Practice areas.
In addition to its lobbying practice, the firm had practice groups in corporate & securities law, health law, labor and employment, employee benefits, family law, real estate & land use, environmental law, structured finance, bankruptcy and creditors' rights, tax law, estate planning, energy law, intellectual property, and construction law.


Continental Bank Leasing Corp v Canada

Continental Bank Leasing Corp. v Canada, [1998] 2 SCR 298 is a partnership law and tax law decision of the Supreme Court of Canada where the Court validated a partnership arrangement which ran contrary to the Bank Act. A separate hearing, "Continental Bank of Canada v Canada" [1998] 2 SCR 358, dealt with the related transactions that followed the creation of the partnership.
Background.
Continental Bank, a banking corporation, decided to wrap up its operations in December 1986 by selling its assets and those of its subsidiaries. The buyer, Central Leasing Corp, agreed to purchase most of the leases in one of Continental Bank's fully owned subsidiaries, Continental Bank Leasing Co. Because the assets were depreciable, and Leasing Co would have to pay recaptured Capital Cost Allowance (CCA) on the leases upon selling them, the buyer proposed a partnership arrangement wherein Leasing Co could retain its deductible CCA.
In the series of transactions, which occurred over a period of five days during the Christmas holidays, Leasing Co entered into a partnership with some of the buyer's subsidiaries. Leasing Co then transferred the leases to the partnership, using a rollover under section 97(2) of Canada's "Income Tax Act", in exchange for a 99% interest in the partnership. Then, Leasing Co transferred its share in the partnership to its parent corporation, Continental Bank, in a tax-free transfer under section 88(1) of the "Income Tax Act". At this point, the buyer's subsidiaries held a 1% share, and Continental Bank a 99% share, in a partnership which owned the leases. Continental Bank then sold its share in the partnership to the buyer. As a result, Leasing Co was able to avoid paying its recovered CCA, and the buyer now effectively owned the leases with unchanged tax attributes.
Analysis.
Definition of "Partnership".
Justice Bastarache outlines the details of the transactions and discusses the elements of the definition of a "partnership" in section 2 of the Partnership Act. Bastarache J ultimately dissents on the later issue of Continental Bank's contravention of the Banking Act, but the court unanimously agrees that the initial partnership between Continental Bank Leasing Co and the subsidiaries of Central Leasing Co was valid.
In determining that the partnership was valid, the court examines the three essential elements of partnerships in Canada: a partnership is a business, it is carried on in common, and it is carried on with a view to profit. On the first, Bastarache J passes the partnership because it is a trade, occupation, or profession as per section 1(1)(a) of the "Partnership Act". The partnership is also deemed to carry on business in common because, as long as management and duties are outlined in the partnership agreement, there are no requirements about the length of a partnership relationship, or that the partnership need expand its business in that time. That is, it sufficed that the partnership carried on a nominal level of business over the Christmas holidays. Last, the court concluded that the pursuit of profit need only be an ancillary purpose to the creation of the partnership.
Dissolution of Partnership for Illegality.
The second major issue for the court was the validity of the partnership in light of section 174 of the "Banking Act", which prohibits banks from entering into partnership relationships. Because section 34 of the "Partnership Act" invalidates partnerships where partners are carrying on business illegally, the Minister of National Revenue argued that neither Continental Bank nor its subsidiary could be a partner. On this issue, the majority decision (written by McLachlin CJ) and the dissent (Bastarache J) differed. The majority concluded that this did not affect the validity of the partnership because Continental Bank Leasing was a distinct entity from the bank, and the bank was only an investor in the partnership without directly participating.
Dissent.
Bastarache J differs on the issue of the validity of the partnership under section 34 of the "Partnership Act". Because Continental Bank Leasing Co had received a tax benefit by violating a provision of the Banking Act, Bastarche J determined that the partnership was invalid for reasons of public policy.


Arthur Hoffmann (resistance fighter)

Arthur Hoffmann (29 September 1900 in Neumannswaldau, Silesia – 12 January 1945, executed in Dresden) was a German resistance fighter against the Nazi régime in World War II.
Life.
Arthur Hoffmann's beginnings were very humble. He was from a tiny hamlet in Silesia which contained only six houses. His father was a bricklayer and his mother ran a small agricultural enterprise. An hour-long walk took Hoffmann to a second-rate rural school when he was a boy, where the teacher's favour could be bought with gifts of sausages, something well beyond the Hoffmann family's means. After finishing the eighth year of school, Hoffmann was apprenticed as a carpenter. In 1917, he joined the "Deutscher Holzarbeiterverband" ("German Woodworkers' Union").
In February 1917, during World War I, Hoffmann was called into the "29er Pionieren" in Posen (now Poznań, Poland), where his comrades in arms saw fit to elect him to the Soldiers' Council. In 1919, he met his future wife, Dora Hörig while she was visiting a cousin in Silesia. Shortly thereafter, however, Hoffmann went travelling. He wended his way through Germany, finally arriving at Delitzsch, where Weimar Republic political events were brought home to him very clearly. He actively took part in defending the results of the November Revolution in Germany, and for this, he was given two years and ten months in prison for what the court in Torgau deemed to be a breach of the peace. He was, however, freed after one year and nine months under an amnesty.
Hoffmann finally wed Dora on 19 May 1923. They would have a daughter and three sons.
Political activities.
Arthur Hoffmann joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1922, and the "Rotfrontkämpferbund" (RFB) in 1926; from 1927, he was a member of the West Saxony RFB's district leadership. In 1929, after the RFB was banned, Hoffmann spent three weeks in custody for organizing demonstrations thanks to then Interior Minister Carl Severing. In the same year, however, he became a representative in the Leipzig city parliament. In 1931, after trying to buy some weapons, he was sentenced to five years in prison. He was released the next year, however – again, under an amnesty.
Resistance activities.
After the Nazis seized power in 1933 and his flat was stormed by police and SA troops meaning to arrest him – he managed to get away – Hoffmann was sent by the KPD as an organizer of antifascist resistance into the underground in Chemnitz, but was nevertheless arrested in November. In 1934, he was sentenced to three years in Waldheim Labour Prison ("Zuchthaus") for "spreading a high-treasonous undertaking". In 1937, his time over, he was then taken into "protective custody", but released on 20 December for good behaviour after having spent a few months in Sachsenburg, and later Buchenwald concentration camp, after the former was shut down. He had to put in writing that he would no longer take up any political activities.
From 1938 to 1944, Hoffmann belonged to the Organizers of Antifascist Resistance in Leipzig, a group about Georg Schumann, a part of the so-called Schumann-Engert-Kresse group. He worked zealously in various armament plants; his political goal was to disrupt and spoil production. From 1943 on, he also worked together with the National Committee Free Germany ("Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschland"; NKFD).
Arrest, trial, and death.
In 1944, Hoffmann was once again arrested, along with his family on 19 July. The proceedings against him before the Second Senate of the "Volksgerichtshof" on 22 and 23 November ended with a conviction for undermining the fighting forces ("Wehrkraftzersetzung"), conspiracy to commit high treason, and furthering the enemy's cause ("Feindbegünstigung"), along with the attendant death sentence. Alfred Frank, Karl Jungbluth, Georg Schwarz and William Zipperer were tried along with Hoffmann. On 12 January 1945, the sentence was carried out in the execution yard at Münchner Platz in Leipzig.
Honours.
Since 1 August 1945, a main street in Leipzig leading from "Bayrischer Platz" to Connewitz has borne the name "Arthur-Hoffmann-Straße" (its former name is "Bayrische Straße"). Arthur Hoffmann and his family lived there.
Until 1992, the Third Polytechnic Secondary School ("3. Polytechnische Oberschule") in Leipzig (Bernhard-Göring-Straße 107) bore the name "Arthur-Hoffmann-Oberschule".


History of the New York City Police Department

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) originates in the Government of New York City attempts to control rising crime in early to mid 19th century New York City. This increased crime was due to an increased population, caused primarily by poor Irish immigrants beginning in the 1820s. The City's reforms created a full-time professional police force modeled upon London's Metropolitan Police, itself only formed in 1829. Established in 1845, the Municipal Police replaced the inadequate night watch system which had been in place since the 17th century, when the city was founded by the Dutch as New Amsterdam.
In 1857, the Municipal Police were tumultuously replaced by the Metropolitan Police, which consolidated other local police departments.
Late 19th and early 20th century trends included professionalization and struggles against corruption.
19th century.
Prior to the establishment of the NYPD, New York City's population of about 320,000 was served by a force consisting of 1 night watch, 100 city marshals, 31 constables, and 51 municipal police officers. On May 7, 1844, the New York State passed the Municipal Police Act, a law which authorized creation of a police force and abolished the night watch system. At the request of the New York City Common Council, Peter Cooper drew up a proposal to create a police force of 1,200 officers. John Watts de Peyster was an early advocate of implementing military style discipline and organization to the force.
However, because of a lengthy dispute between the Common Council and the Mayor of New York City regarding who would appoint the officers, the law was not put into effect until the following year. Under Mayor William Havemeyer, the city finally repealed their watch system and adopted the Municipal Police Act as an ordinance on May 23, 1845, creating the New York Police Department in fact rather than merely in legislative theory.
For the purposes of policing, the city was divided into three districts, with courts, magistrates, and clerks, and station houses. The NYPD was closely modeled after the Metropolitan Police Service in London, England which used a military-like organizational structure, with rank and order. A navy blue uniform was introduced after long debate in 1853.
In 1857, Republican Party reformers in the New York State capital of Albany created a new Metropolitan police force and abolished the Municipal police, as part of their effort to rein in the Democratic Party-controlled New York City government. The Metropolitan Police Bill consolidated the police in New York, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Westchester County (which then included The Bronx), under a Governor of New York-appointed board of commissioners.
Unwilling to be abolished, Mayor Fernando Wood and the Municipals resisted for several months, during which time the city effectively had two police forces, the State-controlled Metropolitans, and the Municipals. The Metropolitans included 300 policemen and 7 captains who left the Municipal police but was primarily made up of raw recruits with little or no training. The Municipals were controlled directly by Wood and including 800 policemen and 15 captains who stayed. The division between the forces was ethnically determined, with immigrants largely staying with the Municipals, and those of Anglo-Dutch heritage going to the Metropolitans.
Chaos ensued. Criminals had a high old time. Arrested by one force, they were rescued by the other. Rival cops tussled over possession of station houses. The opera buffa climax came in mid-June when [a] Metropolitan police captain ... attempted to deliver a warrant for the mayor's arrest, only to be tossed out by a group of Municipals. Armed with a second warrant, a much larger force of Metropolitans marched against City Hall. Awaiting them were a massed body of Municipals, supplemented by a large crowd ... Together, the mayor's supporters began clubbing and punching the outnumbered Metropolitans away from the seat of government. ...The Metropolitans gained the day after the [State-controlled] Seventh Regiment came to its rescue, and the warrant was served on Wood. This setback for the mayor was followed by another: on July 2 the Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the state law. Wood knuckled under and disbanded the Municipals late in the afternoon of July 3, leaving the Metropolitans in possession of the field.
Unfortunately, the untested Metropolitans failed to prevent rioting in the city the next day, Independence Day (July 4), and had to be rescued by the Bowery Boys, a nativist gang, when the Irish-immigrant gang the Dead Rabbits attacked the "Mets". Barricades were erected and the battle went on for hours, the worst rioting in the city since 1849. The next Sunday, peace was maintained by the State Militia, but a week later, on July 12, German-immigrants in Little Germany rioted when the Metropolitans attempted to enforce the new reform liquor laws and close down saloons. A blacksmith was killed in the skirmish, and the next day, ten thousand marched up Broadway with a banner proclaiming "Opfer der Metropolitan-Polizei" ("Victim of the Metropolitan Police").
Throughout the years, the NYPD has been involved with a number of riots in New York City. In July 1863, the New York State Militias were aiding Union Army troops in Pennsylvania, when the 1863 New York Draft Riots broke out. Their absence left it to the police — who were then outnumbered — to quell the riots. The Tompkins Square Riot occurred on January 13, 1874 when police crushed a demonstration involving thousands of unemployed in Tompkins Square Park.
Newspapers, including "The New York Times", covered numerous cases of police brutality during the latter part of the 19th century. Cases often involved officers using clubs to beat suspects and persons who were drunk or rowdy, posed a challenge to officers' authority, or refused to move along down the street. Most cases of police brutality occurred in poor immigrant neighborhoods, including Five Points, the Lower East Side, and Tenderloin.
Beginning in the 1870s, politics and corruption of Tammany Hall, a political machine supported by Irish immigrants infiltrated the NYPD, which was used as political tool, with positions awarded by politicians to loyalists. Many officers and leaders in the police department took bribes from local businesses, overlooking things like illegal liquor sales. Police also served political purposes such as manning polling places, where they would turn a blind eye to ballot box stuffing and other acts of fraud.
The Lexow Committee was established in 1894 to investigate corruption in the police department. The committee made reform recommendations, including the suggestion that the police department adopt a civil service system. Corruption investigations have been a regular feature of the NYPD, including the Knapp Commission of the 1970s, and the Mollen Commission of the 1990s.
In 1895, Theodore Roosevelt became President of the NYPD Police Commission. Under his leadership, many reforms were instituted in the NYPD.
On 1 January 1898, the city expanded to include Brooklyn. The department absorbed eighteen existing police departments, requiring more modern organization and communication as it now protected 320 square miles and over three million residents.
20th century.
Around the turn of the century, the NYPD began to professionalize under leadership of then President of the Police Commission, Theodore Roosevelt. With innovations in science and technology, the police force were able to establish new units, such as the Bomb Squad in 1905, Motorcycle Squad in 1911, Automobile Squad in 1919, Emergency Service Unit in 1926, Aviation Unit in 1929 as well as the Radio Motor Patrol (RMP) in 1932. The department was also among the earliest to implement fingerprinting techniques and mug shots. In 1919, the department adopted its own flag.
In 1911, the department hired Samuel (Jesse) Battle as its first black officer. He went on to become the first black sergeant and lieutenant and retired after a thirty-year career.
In the 1910s, the NYPD began to deploy female matrons, who had entered precincts at the close of the previous century, to conduct undercover investigations. Their duties included investigating irregular medical practitioners, confidence tricksters, fortune tellers, and abortionists. In October 1916, Margaret Whitehurst assigned to detective work in Brooklyn led an undercover investigation of Margaret Sanger's Brownsville birth control clinic. Some ambitious matrons also conducted plainclothes surveillance of public spaces, such as dance halls and bars. Those formally appointed as policewomen and patrolwomen during and after the First World War continued and expanded upon these policing tasks. Notably, policewomen conducted the 1926 raid of the gay and lesbian tearoom, Eve's Hangout, in Greenwich Village and arrested its proprietor Eve Adams.
In 1896 Commissioner Roosevelt authorized the purchase of a standard issued revolver for the NYPD. It was the Colt New Police Revolver in .32 Long Colt caliber. He also instituted required firearms training including pistol practice and qualification for officers. In 1907 the Colt Police Positive revolver in .38 caliber was adopted by the department. In May 1926 the NYPD adopted the .38 Special cartridge as the standard issue ammunition for the department and started issuing its officers the Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolver and the Colt Official Police revolver. In 1994 the NYPD replaced the revolver as its main service weapon and adopted the 9mm semiautomatic pistol as its standard issued sidearm, replacing the .38 Special revolver. NYPD officers who were "on the job" on or prior to 1994 could continue to carry their revolvers if they wished. The .38 Special can still be found as a backup or off duty weapon, particularly with long serving personnel. Also, the uniforms of NYPD patrollers were changed in 1995 back from the two-tone sky blue shirt and navy blue pants introduced in 1972 to one-tone Navy blue shirts and pants.
In 1970, the Knapp Commission, created by Mayor John V. Lindsay to investigate systemic corruption in the NYPD, found evidence of widespread corruption and made numerous recommendations to address it.
The economic downturn of the 1970s led to some extremely difficult times for the city. The Bronx, in particular, was plagued by arson, and an atmosphere of lawlessness permeated the city. Frank Serpico wrote about corruption he encountered in his time as a police officer in this era in a book, which was later turned into a movie and television series. In addition, the city's financial crisis led to a hiring freeze on all city departments, including the NYPD, from 1976 to 1980.
This was followed by the crack cocaine epidemic of the late 1980s and early 1990s, which was one factor in the city's homicide rate soaring to an all-time high. By 1990, New York, a city with 7.3 million people at the time, set a record of 2,262 murders, a record that has yet to be broken by any U.S. city. Petty thefts associated with drug addiction were also increasingly common.
In 1992, Mayor David Dinkins appointed the Mollen Commission, chaired by Milton Mollen, to investigate corruption in the department. The commission found that "Today's corruption is not the corruption of Knapp Commission days. Corruption then was largely a corruption of accommodation, of criminals and police officers giving and taking bribes, buying and selling protection. Corruption was, in its essence, consensual. Today's corruption is characterized by brutality, theft, abuse of authority and active police criminality."
That same year, Dinkins created an independent Civilian Complaint Review Board. In response to this, NYPD officers violently protested, and rioted. They blocked traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge, demonstrated at City Hall and shouted racial epithets. The protests were sponsored by the NYPD union. Approximately 4000 NYPD officers took part in the violent protests. Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly sanctioned 42 of them.
In the mid-1990s, under Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the NYPD made use of the CompStat program under Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, as well as implemented broken windows policing. While CompStat was a concept that is generally attributed to Deputy Police Commissioner Jack Maple when he was a police lieutenant serving in the New York City Transit Police which came to the attention of then NYC Transit Authority Police Chief Bratton, in fact it was first implemented by Captain Mario Selvagi in Far Rockaway's 101 precinct. Since Selvagi was unable to secure the cooperation of the department's MIS department, he used pin maps. Selvagi went on to become a "superchief", but was forced out by Bill Bratton. In 1995, with Bratton as the former NYC Transit Police Chief, now as Police Commissioner, the New York City Transit Police and the New York City Housing Authority Police Department are merged in with the NYPD. The enforcement and traffic control elements of the City's Department of Transportation were merged into the NYPD in 1996. In 1998 the NYC Board of Education's school safety agents were merged into the newly formed New York City Police Department School Safety Division, to improve safety in NYC public schools.
21st century.
During the 2001 September 11 attacks, 23 NYPD officers were killed when the World Trade Center collapsed due to terrorist attacks. More lives were lost that year than in any other year in the department's history. The NYPD Counter-Terrorism Bureau was founded in 2002 as a result of the tragedy and the threats to attack the city that followed.
On June 4, 2014, the NYPD made the largest gang bust in New York history, arresting 103 individuals of gangs at the Manhattanville Houses and Grant Houses with extensive help from the Manhattan District Attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr. 95 of the 103 people arrested charged took plea deals. Since the raid, shootings have declined 34 percent but neighborhood residents and gang policing experts feel that the sweep didn't reduce gang crime or gang affiliation and anticipate more violence, citing historic tensions between the developments and institutionalized racism as motivations behind the bust.
On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner was killed by NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo through illegal use of a chokehold. The medical examiner later ruled Garner's death a homicide. The decision by the Richmond County Grand Jury to not indict Pantaleo sparked nationwide Black Lives Matter protests and led to the arrest of at least 300 protesters over two days in New York City. On August 19, 2019, then-NYPD police chief James O'Neill terminated Pantaleo's employment with the New York Police Department following a lengthy disciplinary hearing. In June 2020, the statewide Eric Garner Anti-Chokehold Act, which made the use of "a chokehold or similar restraint" a class C felony punishable with up to 15 years in prison, was enacted.
In 2014, two highly publicized attacks were committed against the NYPD. In the first, on October 23, two NYPD officers were injured, one critically, in a hatchet attack, but both officers survived their injuries. In the second, in December, two NYPD officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, were shot to death in an ambush in Brooklyn. In both cases, the perpetrators later died – in the hatchet attack, the suspect was killed by police, while in the gunfire attack, the suspect killed himself in the subway while being pursued by police.
In response to the shooting of Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, the NYPD responded with a city-wide slowdown of policing in December. While the arrest rate for major crimes remained constant, the arrest rates for non-violent crimes and narcotics crimes dropped during the slowdown. The slowdown stopped in mid-January of 2015.
In 2015 the Strategic Response Group was formed.
On June 20, 2016, three officers were arrested as part of a federal corruption investigation.
In 2021, the NYPD ended the department's longstanding law enforcement of previous Marijuana crimes other than driving under the influence.
Women in the New York City Police Department.
In 1845, the New York City Police Department hired its first female jail matrons. Women's reform groups including the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and Women's Prison Association of New York campaigned to introduce women to police precincts in the hopes of improving the treatment of women detained there. Legislation was enacted to appoint female police matrons in 1888, and the first four were hired in 1891. Matrons were responsible for the care of the station house and the women and children held there. They tended to be working-class women and many were widows with a family connection to policing. In 1895, the first woman to work at Police Headquarters, Minnie Gertrude Kelly, was appointed Secretary to the Police Board. In the 1900s and 1910s, some matrons were assigned to detective squads to conduct investigative work. Although they often officially retained the "matron" rank and salary, contemporary newspapers and court records frequently referred to them as "policewomen", "police officers", and "detectives". In 1912, Isabella Goodwin officially earned the title of first grade detective, the first woman in the U.S. to hold that rank.
In 1918, the first female Deputy Commissioner, Ellen O'Grady, was appointed, and in August of that year the first group of policewomen in the NYPD were appointed (there were six).. In 1919, the NYPD recruited Cora Parchment, the first African American woman in the NYPD and shortly after appointed Lawon Bruce, the second Black woman in the department. In 1921, the Women's Police Precinct was formed with 20 patrolwomen assigned; Mary Hamilton was assigned as director, however it closed shortly after in 1923.
November 13, 1923, Governor Walker appointed Sylvia Daly Connell, a widow with two children, the first woman Deputy Sheriff in New York State. She was assigned to Richmond County.
In 1924, the New York Police Department's Women Bureau was created. In 1926 Mary A. Sullivan was appointed to head the bureau, she would hold this position for twenty years.
In 1934, female officers began to have pistol practice with male officers. In 1938, the first civil service exam for the title "Policewoman" was given. About 5,000 women took the exam, with 300 passing it. In 1942, there began a requirement of a college degree for female officers. In 1958, women and men began to train together at the Police Academy. In 1961, Felicia Shpritzer of the NYPD sued to allow women the right to take the sergeant's exam. As a result of this lawsuit, 126 policewomen took the sergeant's exam for the first time in 1964. Shpritzer and another policewoman, Gertrude Schimmel, became the first female sergeants and after suing again, the duo became the first female lieutenants in 1967. Schimmel went on to become the first female police captain in 1971 and the first female deputy inspector in 1972.
In 1970, the first woman was allowed to take the test for Police Administrative Aides, and the first women were hired from the Police Administrative List. Also in that year, Police Commissioner Murphy assigned the first group of women to patrol. In 1973, the Bureau of Policewomen was abolished, and the first gender-neutral civil service exam for police officers was held. Also in that year, "Policewomen" and "Patrolmen" were officially renamed "Police Officers".
In 1974, Gertrude Schimmel was appointed as the first female Inspector. In 1976, Captain Vittoria Renzullo was appointed as the first Precinct Commander. In 1977, the first women were assigned to the Homicide Unit (there were nine of them). In 1978, Gertrude Schimmel was appointed as the first female Deputy Chief. Also in that year, the Department entered into an agreement to increase the number of female detectives.
In 1981, Suzanne Medicis became the first woman to receive the Combat Cross, and Sharon Fields and Tanya Braithwaite became the first women to receive the NYPD's Medal of Honor. In 1984, Irma Lozada became the first female police officer killed in the line of duty. Also in 1984, Mary Bembry became the first woman shot in the line of duty.
In 1985, the first Women in Policing Conference was held. In 1987, Paula Berlinerman and Joan Clark were appointed as the first civilian women Civil Service Managers. In 1988, Mary Lowery became the first female police officer assigned to the Aviation Unit.
In 1991, for the first time, the majority of the deputy commissioners were female. In 1992, Deputy Inspector Kathy Ryan was appointed as the first female Commanding Officer of the Mounted Unit. In 1994, Joyce A. Stephen became the first African-American female captain, and an Action Plan on Women's Concerns was prepared and submitted to the Police Commissioner. In 1995, Gertrude LaForgia was appointed as the first female Assistant Chief Borough Commander.


John Plunket (judge)

Sir John Plunket (c.1497–1582) was an Irish politician and judge of the Tudor era who held the office of Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. He was also a member of the Privy Council of Ireland and was regarded by three successive English monarchs as a valued servant of the Crown. He was noted for his integrity, but was criticised for remaining in office when old age and illness had made him clearly unfit for it. He was
also notable as the fifth of the six husbands of Jenet Sarsfield.
Background and early career.
He was the second son of Christopher Plunket of Dunsoghly Castle, Finglas, and his wife Catherine Bermingham. His grandfathers, Thomas Plunket and Philip Bermingham, had presided respectively over the Court of Common Pleas and the Court of King's Bench. His precise date of birth is unknown but Elrington Ball believed that he was at least 85 when he died. He joined the Inner Temple and was Master of Revels there in 1518. He entered the service of Richard Delahide, Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas, who had married his sister Jenet; Delahide arranged for him to be appointed a clerk in the Common Pleas. He inherited Dunsoghly sometime
before 1547.
 Dunsoghly Castle, Plunket's family home
Political career.
In the reign of King Edward VI he was described as the right-hand man of the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir Edward Bellingham, whom he served as Comptroller of the Household; his job included such mundane tasks as providing beds and beer for the Deputy's entourage. He is also said to have enjoyed the confidence of the Lord Protector, the Duke of Somerset.
Under Mary I he became a member of the Privy Council and sat on several legal commissions; he is said to have enjoyed the Queen's personal goodwill. Mary's regard for Plunket was shared by Elizabeth I who as soon as she succeeded her sister as Queen appointed him her Lord Chief Justice.
Lord Chief Justice.
He remained a member of the Privy Council to the end of his life, and until his last years, when his health failed, was one of its most diligent members. In 1562 he went to England to report to the Queen on Irish affairs. In 1565, after the long-standing feud between Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormond and Gerald Fitzgerald, 15th Earl of Desmond had erupted into the conflict known as the Battle of Affane, Plunket was entrusted, together with the Lord Justice of Ireland, Sir Nicholas Arnold, with holding an inquiry into the causes of the dispute, and in 1567 he oversaw the confiscation of certain of the Desmond properties. He was knighted the same year.
During the "cess" controversy, where almost all of the landowners of the Pale objected to the taxation reforms proposed by the Lord Deputy, Sir Henry Sidney, Plunket was almost alone in supporting Sidney, and earned his gratitude as a result (although Sidney privately admitted that he was concerned about Plunket's fitness for office, in view of his age and failing health). Successive administrations praised Plunket's diligence and incorruptibility. However, from about 1577 complaints were increasingly made about his unfitness for office due to his great age and ill health: he was called "an old man, and evil able to attend his place with diligence". As a judge he was less well regarded than as an administrator: he was accused of seriously neglecting his official duties, and of treating the Chief Justiceship as a sinecure.
Last years and death.
He remained in office until his death, by which time he was well into his 80s, and said to be infirm and blind. Although his third marriage to the much-married Jenet Sarsfield (who had already buried four husbands, and would marry one more time) seems to have been happy enough, he was troubled by a long lawsuit between Jenet and her stepson Edward Cusack. Not surprisingly he took his wife's side in the dispute and was accused by Edward of corruption as a result, to which charge he indignantly replied that he had served the Queen uprightly since the beginning of her reign and had never in his life written anything but the truth.
After a long decline in health, he died in 1582. In his will he noted that the money which Jenet had brought him left him "none the richer"; however he lists among his valuables an impressive collection of silver. He was noted for charitable works: he built two chapels, and a room over a local mineral spring. One of the chapels contains a carving on which the initials of John and Jenet are visible. Although he was outwardly a member of the Church of Ireland, (his sister, Margaret, married John Garvey, Archbishop of Armagh), he is said to have practised the Roman Catholic faith in private.
Family.
Plunket married firstly Elizabeth Preston; secondly Catherine, sister of Sir Thomas Luttrell; and thirdly Jenet Sarsfield. All his children were from his marriage to Catherine Luttrell. They were:
James predeceased him and Dunsoghly passed to his grandson Sir Christopher Plunket.
Character.
Plunket was a popular and respected figure, known as "good Sir John Plunket", and he seems to have had remarkably few enemies. Despite the attack on his probity by Edward Cusack he was much praised for his integrity. Only in his last years was he criticised for clinging to office when he was clearly unfit for it, and of seriouly neglecting his official duties. A certain arrogance about his family's lineage was considered to be one of his few faults.


Sanitation Syndrome

Sanitation Syndrome is a way of describing a trend in segregationist thought in South Africa. The theory of sanitation syndrome was first advanced by Maynard Swanson in his frequently-cited 1977 paper, "The Sanitation Syndrome: Bubonic Plague and Urban Native Policy in the Cape Colony, 1900-1909." In his paper, Swanson argued that in pre-union South Africa, public officials became influenced by an imagery of infectious disease as a societal metaphor, and that this mirrored and influenced developments in segregation. He also asserted that his theory may be applicable to situations outside of his study, and it has since been applied to numerous other instances of segregation.
Background.
English administrators of South African cities had long expressed their racially tinged concerns about the cleanliness of majority nonwhite neighborhoods. In the year 1900, the bubonic plague arrived in several South African port cities, prompting drastic, racially-motivated responses from administrators. For example, the Plague Administration of Cape Town relocated over six thousand Black and Coloured South Africans from their homes within the city into hastily-constructed shelters near a "sewage farm" in 1901. During that time, there were slightly more cases of bubonic plague among whites than black Africans in Cape Town. The effect of this separation, as well as similar policies across major South African cities, was the highly-segregated urban landscape of South African cities in the twentieth century.
Swanson's Theory.
Swanson argued that white South Africans associated the bubonic plague with black Africans because of sanitation syndrome. "Sanitizing" a neighborhood did not mean improving hygiene, living conditions, and access to medical care. Instead, it meant removing non-white residents from the neighborhood altogether. As a result, administrators were able to fully segregate entire cities. The theory of sanitation syndrome implicated urban whites in creating segregated cities in South Africa, as many of the people causing and complicit with the forced relocations were members of the urban middle and upper classes. It argued that scientific language could be used to justify socially-motivated policies, despite scientific evidence indicating that those policies would not be effective, and how scientific investigation could be directed along political and social goals. This theory has been applied numerous times, such as in Patterson and Packard's "White Plague, Black Labor" and B. Freund's "The African City: A History". The paper has been cited 589 times, according to Google Scholar.
Criticisms.
Historians such as Marc Epprecht have criticized the theory of sanitation syndrome as veering towards oversimplification. Specifically, Epprecht criticized how Swanson fails to examine Africans' attitudes towards, and possible participation in, sanitation syndrome. Despite this, authors continue to see "sanitation syndrome" as a useful and accurate way of thinking about segregation.
References.
Swanson, M. (1977). The Sanitation Syndrome: Bubonic Plague and Urban Native Policy in the Cape Colony, 1900-1909. "The Journal of African History," "18"(3), 387-410. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/180639


Statutes of Casimir the Great

Statutes of Casimir the Great or Piotrków-Wiślica Statutes () - a collection of laws issued by Casimir III the Great, the king of Poland, in the years 1346-1362 during congresses in Piotrków and Wiślica. It was the first and the only significant codification of laws during the times of the Piast dynasty.
Background.
In the middle of the 12th century, following the ill-thought testament of Bolesław III Krzywousty, his sons begun the process of fragmentation of Poland. It would take Polish rulers over two centuries to unite most of the lands that Bolesław controlled under one ruler. This was achieved in the 14th century by Władysław I Łokietek. Władysław's son, Casimir III the Great, earned his singular reputation not through military exploits but through his acumen as a builder, administrator and diplomat. One of his project included an attempt to unify and codify law in the lands he controlled, in the attempt to build stronger ties between different provinces, and to tie them more tightly to the central government.
In the end, due to opposition from various factions, which saw the codification and unification of the legal system in the Kingdom of Poland as weakening their position, Casimir was not able to fully accomplish his task. He was nonetheless able to do so in two major provinces of Poland. The Piotrków statute regulated the law in Greater Poland (Wielkopolska), and the Wiślica statute in Lesser Poland (Małopolska).
The date specific statutes were passed is not certain; it is accepted that most work was done in the years 1346-1362, that it took multiple congresses (wiec), and that both statutes were finished by 1362. Further, historians now agree that the Statutes were partially written after the death of Casimir, and later the entire work was incorrectly attributed to him.
Statutes.
About 2/3 of the Statutes concerned the criminal law; the rest, private (civil) law.
Characteristically, most statutes contain not only the law, but explanation (justification) for why it exists.
The Statutes were written in Latin. In the early 15th century they were translated into Polish and later, into Ruthenian. In the late 15th century they were printed.
Importance.
The statutes for the first time in Poland codified the existing legal customs. They would form the basis of the Polish law in centuries to come, and would be expanded by codification of other customs, precedents and passing of other legal acts. They also succeeded in uniting the country.


List of lower court decisions by Lord Sankey

This is a list of the lower court decisions of Lord Sankey.


Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea

The Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea (Japanese: ; Korean: , , Hanil Gibon Joyak) was signed on June 22, 1965. It established basic diplomatic relations between Japan and South Korea.
Background.
As Korea was not a signatory state of the Treaty of San Francisco, it was not entitled to the benefits of Article 14, which stipulated the reparations by Japan. However, by the provisions of Article 21 of that treaty, Korea was entitled to be an authority applied to Article 4, which stated the arrangement of property and claims.
The Treaty was the fruit of the "Korea–Japan Talks," a series of bilateral talks held between South Korea and Japan from October 1951 to June 1965 to normalize diplomatic relations. Over that period of 14 years, a total of seven talks were held.
In his 1974 Nobel Peace Prize lecture, Eisaku Satō explicitly mentioned the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and South Korea. He described "the guiding spirit of equality and mutual advantage and the realistic approach of seeking to establish friendship with close neighbors" as significant aspects of the extended negotiations which produced the bilateral agreement.
In October 2018, the Supreme Court of Korea issued a ruling which ordered Japanese private companies to compensate workers from the Korean peninsula who were called up to work for those companies during the Pacific War.  This ruling, along with one made about Japan's position in relation to Korean comfort woman in January 2021, was called a breach of the 1965 agreement's dispute resolution mechanism by critics.
Terms.
The treaty established "normal" diplomatic relations between the East Asian neighbors. The original documents of this agreement are kept respectively by Japan and Korea. The treaty is drafted using English, Japanese, and Korean, each of which is considered authentic. In case of a "divergence of interpretation," the English-language version is deemed to be authoritative and prevailing.
The 1965 Treaty also declared:
It is confirmed that all treaties or agreements concluded between the Empire of Japan and the Empire of Korea on or before August 22, 1910 are already null and void.
Settlements.
With the Treaty, the agreements between Japan and Korea concerning the settlement of problems in regard to property and claims and economic cooperation was also signed. Japan provided South Korea with $300 million grant in economic aid and $200 million in loans together with $300 million in loans for private trust, a total of $800 million as "economic cooperation". The official policy of Japanese governments has been that, in regard to war-time property issues and individual claims for compensation, such issues were settled completely and finally by this agreement.
The 1965 Treaty Article II:
1 The High Contracting Parties confirm that the problems concerning property, rights, and interests of the two High Contracting Parties and their peoples (including juridical persons) and the claims between the High Contracting Parties and between their peoples, including those stipulated in Article IV(a) of the Peace Treaty with Japan signed at the city of San Francisco on September 8, 1951, have been settled completely and finally.
Use of loans and grants.
The loans and grants provided to South Korea were used for the following projects. Pohang Iron and Steel Company used $88.68 million loan and $30.8 million grant, a total of $119.48 million, 23.9% of $500 million loans and grants.
Compensation.
There has been a constant call from the Korean public (and to some extent, Japanese with left or liberal political leaning) that Japan should compensate Korean individuals who suffered from Japanese colonial rule. The Japanese government has refused to do so, arguing that it settled issues on a government-to-government basis under the 1965 agreement. The Korean government has argued that the 1965 agreement was not intended to settle individual claims against Japan for war crime or crimes against humanity as shown by documents presented during the negotiations specifically excluding claims for personal injuries incurred by Japan's violations of international laws. The U.N. Commission on Human Rights has advocated the Korean government's perspective by defining that the comfort women issue is a matter of human rights; the 1965 treaty only regulated property claims and not personal damages.
In January 2005, the Korean government disclosed 1,200 pages of diplomatic documents that recorded the proceeding of the treaty. The documents, kept secret for 40 years, recorded that the Japanese government actually proposed to the Korean government to directly compensate individual victims but it was the Korean government which insisted that it would handle individual compensation to its citizens and then received the whole amount of grants on behalf of the victims.
The Korean government demanded a total of 364 million dollars in compensation for the 1.03 million Koreans conscripted into the workforce and the military during the colonial period, at a rate of 200 dollars per survivor, 1,650 dollars per death and 2,000 dollars per injured person.
South Korea agreed to demand no further compensation, either at the government or individual level, after receiving $800 million in grants and soft loans from Japan as compensation for its 1910–45 colonial rule in the treaty.
Most of the funds from grants and loan were used for economic development, particularly on establishing social infrastructures, founding POSCO, building Gyeongbu Expressway and the Soyang Dam with the technology transfer from Japanese companies. Records also show 300,000 won per death was used to compensate victims of forced labor between 1975 and 1977.


Hakim Ali Zardari

 Hakim Ali Zardari (1930 – 24 May 2011), ) was a Pakistani politician who served as a member of National Assembly of Pakistan from 1972 to 1977 and again from 1988 to 1990 and then again from 1993 to 1996.
He had been involved in Pakistani politics since the 1960s and had served as a federal minister twice.
Early life.
He was born in 1930 in the village of Fatohal Zardari to Mohammad Hassan Zardari. His father's family were from the Zardari tribe of Baluchistan and was recruited by the British to be zamindars in Sindh. His mother was originally from Iraq. He received his initial education from mosque school and completed his matriculation from DC High School in Nawabshah.
Political career.
Zardari started his political career in 1965 when he was elected member of the Nawabshah District Council and later was elected as the Mayor of District Nawabshah. He supported Fatima Jinnah in the 1965 presidential elections against Ayub Khan.
In 1970, he joined the Pakistan Peoples Party as a founding member. He also got elected head of the Zardari tribe in 1970.
He was elected to the National Assembly of Pakistan in 1970, 1988, and 1993.
He was imprisoned during the tenures of Nawaz Sharif and Pervaiz Musharraf and was implicated with his son for the murder of Federal Secretary Alam Baloch.
Business career and wealth.
He built cinema houses in Hyderabad and Karachi and worked as a film distributor. He also produced a Sindhi film, "Soorat".
He had a house in Normandy, France which he was accused of buying for 724 million dollars. The National Accountability Bureau filed a reference against him for having assets beyond source of income and was sentenced for five years of rigorous imprisonment, a fine of 18.5 million rupees and disqualified him from holding any elected office for 10 years. On health ground his house was declared as sub-jail.
On 24 January 2007, Sindh High Court overturned his conviction made by the accountability bureau.
He was also convicted in similar case in Lahore for making shady transactions with various organisations for establishing a tourist village at Rawalpindi National Park through Zardari Group. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail and asked to pay a fine of 20 million rupees but this was also overturned by Lahore High Court in 2002.
Personal life.
He married twice and had four children; Asif Ali Zardari, Fouzia Zardari, Azra Peechoho and Faryal Talpur. He also had an adopted son Owais Muzaffar Tappi.
Death.
Hakim Ali Zardari was admitted to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) in March following multiple organ failure. He died in the hospital on 24 May 2011 at age 81.


Walter Markov

Walter Karl Hugo Markov (born Mulec; 5 October 1909 – 3 July 1993) was a German historian. Shortly after he received his doctorate, a promising academic career was interrupted in 1934 when he joined the (by this time illegal) Communist Party and briefly became a resistance activist. In 1935 he was sentenced to twelve years in prison, but ten years later in April 1945, as the Hitler regime collapsed, he was one of a number of long-term inmates from the Siegburg jail at who organised their own "self-release", with the help of two pistols that he had been able to purchase, already loaded, on the prison black market.
After the war, according to more than one source he became one of very few historians from the German Democratic Republic who built a reputation for serious historical scholarship beyond the confines of the East German academic establishment.
Biography.
Provenance and an itinerant childhood.
Markov was born into a Protestant family in Graz, an industrial and administrative city along the mainline between Vienna and Trieste, in the heart of what was still at that time the Austro-Hungarian empire. The family was Austrian, albeit with ancestral origins in several different parts of the empire. Franz Mulec (1881–1974), his father, was a sales representative working for the . Franz Mulac came from a Slovenian farming family that had been present in Lower Styria since at least as far back as the eighteenth century. Walter's mother, born Minna Auguste Isabella Schellbach (1889-), is described in sources as a languages teacher. She came from Vienna and was the daughter of a businessman who worked in the printing sector. As a result of her family background she would always regard herself as a true "German German" ("Reichsdeutsche"). One year after Walter's birth the family moved on to Laibach (as Ljubljana was known at that time) in connection with Franz Mulec's work, where they remained till 1915. For the rest of the war they returned to Graz where Markov attended a "protestant private school". In 1919 they went back to Laibach. Over the next few years he attended school successively in Laibach, Kranj and Belgrade. In 1925, while still at school in Laibach, he involved himself in politics, campaigning with a group of friends for the "Liberal Social Democrats" (SDS). By 1927, when he passed his school final exams (Abitur), he was fluent in several different languages and attending school in Sušak (Rijeka).
University.
Later that year he enrolled at the University of Leipzig to study History. He received financial support from the Austrian branch of the evangelical Gustav Adolf Association and therefore added Theology to his studies, taking care to ensure that, as far as his sponsors were concerned, his principal focus was not on History but on Theology. Markov's autobiography dwells at length on his student years, which were happy and rewarding. He writes of a cycling tour undertaken in the Rhineland during the 1928 summer vacation: the tour was not without disappointments. He complains about the heavy traffic on the roads beside the river, which was unusually heavy due to the Olympic Games being held in Amsterdam: just outside Bonn he was involved in a collision with a motorcyclist: he did not like the very acidic wine people drank in that little city: in Cologne the cathedral was simply too large for a decent photograph: Düsseldorf was worth checking out: but Duisburg and the large heavily industrialised region behind was the "ugliest piece of all Germany". After his Rhineland cycling tour Markov began to find life in Leipzig unattractive: "So unlike the Rhine ... off to the liberal German Rhineland!". Less than a year after that cycle tour, in March 1929 he took the train to Cologne. His sponsors at the Gustav Adolf Association had accepted that his talents and preferences led him towards History rather than Theology, and recommended Cologne University (or, failing that, Bonn) even though in Catholic Cologne an evangelical Theology faculty did not even exist. Following his transfer to Cologne he was assigned lodgings at a parsonage in , more than 50 km (nearly an hour by train) from the city centre. He was to combine his university studies with work as a home tutor. Roggendorf was on the edge of Zone A (the demilitarised zone), while Cologne was still in Zone B, occupied by French forces since the end of war. However, for the history student there were no difficulties encountered in crossing between the two zones. Nevertheless, the distance was too great for daily university attendance, and he missed many lectures. A particular influence during his time at Cologne was the left-wing economic historian who did not shy away from a positive assessment of Soviet economic performance since the October revolution. He was also impressed by , a specialist on the history of Silesia, who delighted Markov with his trenchantly critical evaluation of the iconic Prussian king, Frederick the Great.
Markov's was able to indulge his enthusiasm for travel with several lengthy cycle trips into the Belgian countryside. However, at the end of 1930 the Roggendorf parson died and his widow gave up on her duties as a landlady. Markov's immediate reaction to the loss of his lodgings was to return to Leipzig, but he subsequently transferred to Berlin University. Berlin was the fulcrum of the polarised politics and gridlocked parliamentary process that would lead, two years later, to the cancellation of democracy in Germany. It is not clear that in Berlin he was particularly diligent in attending lectures. As a student of political history Markov nevertheless enjoyed a ringside seat for the accelerating collapse of what Adolf Hitler had scornfully derided at a party rally in 1929 as the "Republic of Weimar". Markov also managed several more trips, including visits home to his parents in Austria. His own political sympathies lay not with the National Socialists, nor with the shrinking band of political moderates, but with the Communists. For the summer term of 1933 he moved on yet again, this time to the University of Hamburg, intending to study for a doctorate with Richard G. Salomon, an expert on eastern European medieval history. Unfortunately the Hitler government had taken power in January. They lost no time in translating the ugly antisemitic rhetoric of their opposition campaigning into a pillar of government strategy. Salomon was Jewish which made his professorial position untenable. (He would be formally removed from his academic post in March 1934.) Markov's plans needed to be rethought. It was Salomon who recommended that Markov should now move to the University of Bonn and complete his doctoral work under the supervision of the "brilliant" ("in allen Farben ... schillernden") historian Fritz Kern, who had long since moved beyond the confines of his earlier speciality as a medievalist. Markov now took the train (with his bicycle) to Bonn in October 1933, spending his first night there in a youth hostel. He was filled with confidence that Kern was "the director of the only Institute for Universal History in Germany", he had found his doctoral supervisor of choice. Admiration was evidently mutual.
On 3 January 1934 Fritz Kern invited Markov to dinner. Over a glass of wine, the famous historian urged his latest protégé to produce a dissertation and obtain his doctorate without further delay. He suggested the longstanding Serbian prime minister Nikola Pašić as a suitable subject. Just four weeks later, on 1 February 1934, Walter Markov submitted his dissertation entitled "Serbien zwischen Österreich und Russland, 1897-1908". The doctorate, awarded on 28 February 1928, was accompanied by a Summa cum Laude commendation. Kern himself arranged for the dissertation to be published the next year.
Resistance.
It was also in 1934 that Walter Markov, now employed as a research assistant at the University of Bonn joined the Communist Party. In the aftermath of the Reichstag Fire the government had made the party illegal in March of the previous year. Thanks to his experiences at Hamburg, Markov by now had a pronounced political agenda, and was telling friends that he regretted not having joined the party earlier, while he was still studying in Hamburg. An important friend, in political terms, was Hannes Schmidt who had transferred from Hamburg to Bonn the term before Markov made that move. Schmidt already had contacts with the illegal Communist Party while he was still in Hamburg. The two had met in 's lectures. In the dangerous atmosphere of the times they initially dealt with one another cautiously, but once satisfied that they really were both on the same side they formed the nucleus of what became a five-man party resistance cell. They were joined by Günter Meschke, a former mathematics student who had arrived in Bonn in April 1934 hoping to be able to obtain a doctorate in history. Markov and Meschke had got to know one another when they had lived in the same student hostel in during 1931/32. The fourth member of the group was Arthur Toynbee (1910-1975), eldest son to the celebrated English philosopher-historian. whom Markov would later describe as a "highly gifted, good looking, but melancholy Englander who thought that communism was a 'great idea'," but one which could not be pushed through in England. The fifth man was a theology graduate called Hans Schadow. In the new Germany Schadow was doomed to be something of an outsider and therefore a government opponent: his family came from Niedamowo (near Danzig), and he had been unable to demonstrate to the authorities that all four of his grandparents came from good German stock. He had therefore never been issued with an Aryan certificate ("Ariernachweis"). (Markov nevertheless suspected that Schadow's communist commitment might be less than whole-hearted.)
In May 1934 these five men set up a "University Communist Party Group" ("Gruppe Universität der KPD"), commandeering for their purposes a presumably little-used room in a tower assigned to the university's . They agreed to a monthly subscription of two marks each, in order to build up a "fighting fund". Markov, who had a university post, managed to have their meetings in the room in the tower listed as a Russian course, and the university, therefore, provided a five hundred mark payment to cover the summer term. It was both a strength and a weakness of the cellular structure of communist resistance groups that the Markov group had no contact at all with the persecuted communist party officers of the Bonn subdistrict ("Unterbezirk Bonn"), nor with the banned Communist student group ("Kostufra"). An idea attributed to Arthur Toynbee was that they could at least take steps to enlighten English-language tourists visiting the country about the true nature of the National Socialist regime. Appropriate leaflets were drafted. One source for the texts was leaflets that the ever travel-hungry Markov had picked up in Luxembourg in March 1934, when he had taken a bus to the Grand Duchy in connection with a "World Cup Qualifying Match" involving the Germany national football team. They gathered more material when Markov, Meschke, Toynbee and Schadow took a cycling trip to the Saarland which had been under French military occupation since 1919 and was therefore, for most purposes, beyond the reach of the German security services. In Saarbrücken they were able to speak with exiled members of the party leadership, but they were not (at this stage) provided with the contact addresses that they had been hoping for. While they were in the Saarland Markov took the precaution of opening a bank account with a French bank which he thought might be of use in the future.
Back in Bonn, the group discussed further moves. There was discussion of a possible assassination in front of the Alexander Koenig Museum in connection with an expected visit to the city by Hermann Göring, which might be used to attract further recruits to the cause. Eventually, they managed to establish a link with the underground Communist Party. This came about through Hannes Schmidt who by now was engaged to a woman classified by the authorities as a half-Jew. As a drummer and jazz fan, Schmidt had acquired some "street credibility" in local "Bohemian" circles. Schmidt was able to make contact with a pharmacist called Charlie Fromme (1908-1958) and a bookshop owner called Karl Limbach (1911–1972) in October 1934, which turned out to be the long-awaited contact with the party leadership for the local subregion ("Unterbezirksleitung"). It turned out that by this time Walter Markov was also under surveillance by the security services. Markov's doctorate in February 1934 had been followed by a graduation ceremony in July 1934 at which discussion had turned to Wilhelm Pieck, already a leading figure in the hierarchy of the German Communist Party. Someone present had thought it worthwhile to report details of the conversation, in which Markov had participated, to the authorities. Nevertheless, Markov was not arrested during 1934 and the group remained unmolested by the authorities, suggesting that at this stage they still were not minded to take the Markov group very seriously.
During the winter term of 1934/35 contacts between Markov's group and the underground subregional party team grew closer. Markov, whose middle names were "Karl" and "Hugo" took to using the initials "CH" to sign his articles in the resistance newspaper "Sozialistische Republik" for which he had himself chosen the title and which for the time being was filled almost exclusively with his own contributions. By now his home was under surveillance and mail was being intercepted. This was done so openly that Markov later speculated that it was not the government directed Gestapo who were responsible, but good local Catholics from the Bonn city police department trying to warn him of the danger in which he was placing himself. Sources indicate that in the end the Markov group were betrayed by people believed to be fellow communists who were involved in carrying illicit party mail. Hans Schadow was arrested on the evening of 8 February 1935: Markov the next day.
Arrest.
Markov's arrest took place in the office of the Theologian-Orientalist and department director Paul Kahle (who himself would escapee to England in 1939). Markov at this stage still held a Yugoslav passport, and might easily have been able to escape, but that was not how matters turned out. He was taken initially to the police station in Bonn's City Hall Square, and then successively to prisons in Bonn, Essen and Berlin. Charged with high treason, it was in Berlin that on 4 May 1936 he faced trial with his group in the special People's Court. Meschke was sentenced to a six-month jail term and Schadow to twelve months. Possibly because he was identified as the leader of the group, Markov was sentenced to twelve years. Anthony's famous father, Arnold Toynbee, made the journey to Berlin in order to intercede personally with a government minister, Hanns Kerrl. In the case of Walter Markov, however, any impact resulting from Toynbee's intervention was outweighed by Markov's attitude in court: he showed no contrition and held resolutely to his principles.
Prison.
Markov spent the rest of the Hitler years in the prison at Siegburg (near Cologne). Most of the sentence – according to one source eight years of it – was spent in solitary confinement. He later described the work he was given as "tiresome, but not difficult" ("lästig [aber] nicht schwer"): plucking hemp, sorting tinfoil ([possibly for flak production, knitting army socks with a machine or embroidering raffia bags. He remained loyal to Stalin and rejected privileges (such as a razor). He refused to submit voluntarily to medical or dental care. He welcomed the chance to network with other prisoners, and not just the communists. One of his friends on the inside was . After the war they went their separate ways, and when Markov next met Jovy, in 1980 at an international historians' congress in Rumania, Jovy was serving as the West German ambassador to Bucharest.
During 1944 the long stretches of solitary confinement came to an end, and Markov found himself sharing two or three-person cells. Interventions by his mother and from his old university supervisor and mentor, brought some improvement in his conditions including, in 1944, a transfer from the "tailoring hall" – where the lice on soldiers' clothing sent in for repair constituted a constant health threat – to the prison library. He was also given an off-site assignment to work at a section of Bonn University (approximately ten kilometers / six miles away) that had been destroyed by aerial bombing, to rescue (part of) 's library from the rubble. Fritz Kern was by now turning out to be a valuable friend in time of trouble. Some months later he handed over 2,000 Marks with which Markov would be able to purchase two loaded pistols on the black market that was operating inside the prison. In the face of many setbacks, including a serious Typhus outbreak, the transfer of fellow inmates on whose support he had been counting, the retaliatory shooting dead of three fellow inmates from Luxembourg following an attack and intense overcrowding, Markov championed the idea of an armed uprising among the inmates against the prison staff. As matters turned out, it was only a matter of a few days before American troops appeared on the outskirts of Siegburg that Walter Markov and some companions succeeded in overpowering the prison guards and managers. When the Americans arrived they installed Markov and a selected team of political prisoners to run the prison in place of the overpowered former guards. The priority, for the Americans, was to keep the inmates inside the prison, because they were fearful that once released the infected inmates would unleash an indiscriminate Typhus epidemic on the civilian population and occupying forces alike in Bonn and the surrounding area. In the event Markov's career as a prison governor proved brief, however, since the other inmates rejected the idea of being managed by a self-proclaimed communist and took steps to "disempower" him.
After the war: British occupation zone.
In the end Markov, too, contracted Typhus. He was taken into various hospitals and facilities outside Siegburg, but in June 1945 was able to return to Bonn, the city where he had been building his academic career more than ten years ago before he was arrested.He found a centrally located room which he was able to rent as a sub-tenant. He was unable to return to a permanent post at the university, however. The university rector was now Heinrich Konen who was unwilling to back an application from an avowed antifascist who was even now devoting his energies to rebuilding the (no longer illegal) Communist Party. Markov became, in addition, an active backer of the Soviet-inspired (and, it would become increasingly apparent, Soviet influenced) Free German Youth organisation, as well as of the "Allgemeiner Studierendenausschuss" ("General Students' Committee") and the "Kulturbund" ("Cultural Association") which was also widely assumed to be taking direction from fraternal comrades over in the Soviet occupation zone. In 1946 Walter Markov joined the newly formed Socialist Unity Party ("Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands" / SED) which had been created through a contentious political merger between the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party. The idea was to prevent any future resurgence of right wing populism by creating in Germany a single united party of the political left. In the event, whatever plans may originally have existed for the political merger to be implemented across the four occupation zones, it was never implemented outside the Soviet occupation zone. In the three western zones the SED was viewed with suspicion, as a thinly disguised tool of Soviet expansionist aspirations. Although Markov may still, in 1946, have been undecided about his future career trajectory, he will have been aware that his SED membership closed off many career options in the universities sector of the three occupation zones that would be and relaunched, in 1949, as the German Federal Republic (West Germany).
After the war: Soviet occupation zone.
With the question of where to build his future still unresolved, Markov considered moving back to Slovenia – by now part of Yugoslavia – or Graz (still in Austria) in order to be near his parents and wider family. He rejected the idea partly because he believed his family had been insufficiently resolute in opposing the National Socialists during the German occupation. He did, during 1946, make several trips to Berlin. During one of these, he attended an historians' conference at the Hotel Adlon in the eastern half of the city (and therefore in the Soviet zone). At the conference he was able to make himself noticed by giving a reply to the speech of welcome given by Anton Ackermann, a leading member of the team engaged since 1945 in implementing a well planned nation-building exercise under the supervision of the military administration and the leadership of Walter Ulbricht. Shortly after the conference Markov received two job offers: one came from the University of Greifswald in the extreme northeast of the Soviet zone and the other came from the University of Leipzig in Saxony. He chose Leipzig, he later explained, because the university rector that year was the distinguished philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer. It was still 1946 when he relocated from the Rhineland to Leipzig on the banks of the Pleiße. As a Marxist historian he had seen no future for himself in the western part of Germany. There are also indications that he was troubled by political developments in the western zones. Many years later he said that his decision might have been different if he had been able to foresee, in 1946, the 1968 developments in the West German universities.
Irene.
It was in Leipzig that Walter Markov teamed up with Irene Bönninger. Originally from Mönchengladbach, she is the sister of one of Markov's comrades from his time in Bonn. She had moved to Leipzig to study. One source identifies her as a librarian. The two of them married in 1947. That was followed by the births of the couple's five children between 1948 and 1957.
Professor in the Soviet occupation zone.
In his new role as a Leipzig university professor, Markov retained elements of his old "critical spirit". During 1947/48 he joined up with a teacher from Fulda called Martin Hellweg to represent the Communist Party and the SED in the deliberations of the , a coming together of approximately forty intellectuals from the four occupation zones. The goal was to chart a future for Germany. There was talk of "a third way" and of a "synthesis between east and west". There was an underlying assumption that military occupation would not last forever, and that when it came to an end there should be a realistic set of plans in place for a strong Germany, united in a spirit of rejection against any possible revival of National Socialism. There is no indication that Markov's participation was mandated or endorsed by the political authorities in the Soviet occupation zone: they already had their own plans.
Also in 1947 Markov received his habilitation (higher academic qualification), not from the University of Leipzig but from the University of Halle, 50 km / 30 miles to the north-west, where he briefly took a teaching professorship from April till November 1947. The topic of his dissertation was the "basics of Balkan diplomacy" and the various relationships and interdependencies between the Balkan states. Many years later, in 1999, the dissertation was published as a book by the university press.
In 1949 he returned to Leipzig, now with a full professorship and a teaching chair in modern history ("Allgemeine Geschichte der Neuzeit"). He now lived and worked at Leipzig till his retirement in 1974. He served between 1949 and 1968 as director of the which since its establishment by Karl Lamprecht in 1909 had established a rich tradition of scholarly achievement. From 1951 he was also director of the Institute for General History ("Institut für Allgemeine Geschichte"); and between 1951 and 1958 he served as Director of the Institute for the History of the Soviet Peoples ("...für die Geschichte der Völker der UdSSR ") - later renamed as the Institute for the History of the European Popular Democracies ("...für die Geschichte der europäischen Volksdemokratien").
Career swerve.
A career-threatening development came in 1951, at which point Markov had still done little to modify his reputation as an "unorthodox" thinker. An increasingly nervous party leadership suddenly accused him of "Titoism" and "Objectivism" in January 1951. This may have arisen at least in part out of a reading of his 1949 habilitation dissertation on the complexities of nineteenth and twentieth-century rivalries in the Balkans. Markov was now excluded from the party. (Irene Markov retained her membership.) At the same time, he was stripped of his official (and prestigious) status as a . He was permitted to maintain his academic career. Nevertheless, his field of study abruptly changed from the nineteenth and twentieth century Political and Diplomatic History of the Balkans to an intensive study of the Fourth Estate in pre-revolutionary and revolutionary France.
From research undertaken at the Stasi Records Agency it becomes apparent that for approximately two years Walter Markov was active as one of approximately 100,000 Stasi informants in East Germany. In February 1959 a Stasi officer called Rauch, visiting him in his apartment, obtained a verbal commitment ("Verpflichtungsgespräch") from Markov that he should provide reports on people he came across in the course of his work. Slightly unusually, there seems never to have been a signed written declaration of commitment. Rauch reports that Markov was constantly nervous of damaging his personal relationships with friends and academic colleagues in other universities: Rauch was understanding. There are references in the files that Rauch created to a "gentlemen's agreement". Rauch, who became Markov's Stasi handler, was chiefly interested in his "international" contacts, meaning members of the academic community in West Germany and the "capitalist abroad". (In practice, outside West Germany espionage on behalf of Warsaw Pact governments was usually undertaken by the KGB, whose reports went directly to Moscow.) There can be no guarantee that surviving files at the Stasi Records Agency present a complete picture of Markov's work for the Stasi. Rauch appears to have been one of Markov's former students who hoped to gain promotion within the service by making use of his re-established contacts with his former professor. Their meetings were generally brief (but presumably long enough for an exchange of reports and instructions), and took place roughly once every two months, either in Markov's apartment or at the university. The relationship seems to have fizzled out during 1961. Nevertheless, Markov's academic career ran relatively smoothly during the 1960s and 1970s and his international reputation grew. This, and the fact that during the 1960s he began to receive the "usual national honours" (starting, in 1961, with the National Prize), indicate that one way and another the period of his work for the Stasi coincided with a certain level of informal rehabilitation, following his dramatic fall from grace back in 1951. There is no record of his having been officially readmitted to the SED before 1989, however.
Jacobins and enragés.
Two particular focuses of Markov's researches on the French Revolution involved the contributions of the Jacobins and of the so-called Sans-culottes. In the process, he established the basis for a left-wing radical interpretation. As he chronicled the demands of the Jacobins, Markov was among those who recognized clear adumbrations of another revolution, the Proletarian revolution choreographed by Marx. Moving beyond mainstream traditions of Marxist historiography he placed new emphasis on the small but influential group of working-class radicals known as the Enragés. "Die Freiheiten des Priesters Roux", his 1967 biographical study of the executed radical priest Jacques Roux, turned out to be the first in a four-volume biographical study which provided a characteristically careful and detailed study of a man hitherto more usually consigned to a couple of paragraphs. For Walter Markov, Roux represented "a consistent plebian egalitarianism". The work gained for Markov a reputation in East and West Germany, and further afield, as a scholar prepared to shun "top-down" history in favour of history told "from the bottom upwards". An additional side-effect of his switch from Balkan to French history was the extent to which he was able to network internationally, notably with hist friends, the hugely influential French left-wing historian, Albert Soboul. In contrast to most East German citizens, he appears to have enjoyed unrestricted international travel privileges, at least from the early 1960s.
Internationalist.
A further sign that official attitudes had changed since 1951 was Walter Markov's admission, in 1961, to full membership of the (East) German Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He was also a co-founder and became president of the Deutsche Afrika Gesellschaft ("German-African Society"), of which he held the presidency between 1961 and 1969. During 1962 and 1963, Markov spent time at Nsukka in Nigeria as the first Director of the History Department at the new university. In 1963 he briefly held a guest professorship in Sri Lanka, but throughout and beyond the 1960s, even though he was the recipient of a number of academic awards and prizes from foreign universities, most of his research and teaching still took place in Leipzig.
During 1970/71 he taught at the University of Santiago in Chile (which under the Allende presidency became an important ally of the German Democratic Republic). By this time, partly as a result of his overseas visits and contacts, he was acquiring an academic interest in the recent history of liberation struggles and decolonistation in what people in Germany at this time were beginning to refer to as the "third world". In 1968 he became the first director of the Department for African and Near-Eastern Studies which he had set up at the University of Leipzig. His research interests also broadened out to embrace "world history in the revolutionary context" ("Weltgeschichte im Revolutionsquadrat") which was the title of a book he published in 1979.
Final years.
Walter Markov retired from his university posts in 1974. His later years were encumbered by poor health, but he continued to publish regular articles in the academic press and to observe the progress German Democratic Republic from his Marxist perspective. In his retirement he could never have been classified as a signed-up critic of the régime; but nor were his contributions entirely bereft of criticism. His interest in comparative revolutionary research was carried on by his former student Manfred Kossok.
Two serious heart attacks in 1983/84 reduced his productivity. He continued to work on his memoires and agreed to a few interviews about aspects of his earlier life. After the changes which paved the way for democracy and reunification, at the end of 1989, he joined the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), which was a newly relaunched and rebranded incarnation of the old East German ruling SED party, now struggling - ultimately with considerable success - to adapt itself for a democratic future.
Walter Markow died on 3 July at , a small lakeside settlement just outside Berlin.
Publications (selection).
Walter Markov's published legacy includes approximately 800 papers and articles, published in journals such as Die Weltbühne, and the . There are also around 30 monographs.


Marie-Luise Jahn

Marie-Luise Jahn (28 May 1918 – 22 June 2010) was a German physician and a member of the anti-Nazi resistance movement White Rose.
Jahn was born in Sandlack, East Prussia (today Sędławki, Poland), where she grew up. From 1934 to 1937 she attended school in Berlin and began her studies in chemistry at the University of Munich in 1940. There Jahn became a close friend of Hans Conrad Leipelt and a member of the White Rose resistance group. After Hans and Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst
had been imprisoned she continued to publish the Scholl leaflets and collected money to aid the widow of Kurt Huber. In October 1943 she was also arrested by the Gestapo and sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment by the Volksgerichtshof in 1944.
After her liberation she studied medicine at the University of Tübingen and worked as a physician in Bad Tölz. In 1987 she was a founding member of the White Rose Foundation and member of the executive board until 2002.
She died on 22 June 2010 in Bad Tölz.
References.


Pulpit Law

The Pulpit Law (German "Kanzelparagraph") was a section (§ 130a) to the "Strafgesetzbuch" (the German Criminal Code) passed by the Reichstag in 1871 during the German Kulturkampf or fight against the Catholic Church. It made it a crime for any cleric in public to make a political statements that the government thought would "endanger the public peace." It applied to all of Germany. There were no jury trials in Germany, so the government could act aggressively. The law reads:
The passage of the law was part of an anti-clerical campaign including various other laws. Clerics openly resisting these laws were fined or imprisoned and church property was confiscated. By 1872, clerics were banned from teaching in schools and the Jesuits were ordered out of the country. Historian Anthony Steinhoff reports The casualty totals:
The section remained in force until 1953, though it was rarely enforced after 1878 when Chancellor Otto von Bismarck came to terms with the new Pope. Several religious orders like the Jesuits remained banned from the German Empire, confiscated properties were not returned, a de facto discrimination against the Catholic minority continued in Civil Service positions and civil marriage remained mandatory.


Eidsvoll Warranty

The Eidsvoll Warranty () was an act passed by the Norwegian Constituent Assembly at Eidsvold on May 13, 1814. The prime purpose of the act was to create a stable Norwegian currency.
Summary.
An elected Finance Committee at the Constituent Assembly presented its proposal followed by a vigorous debate. The final vote ended with passage of the resolution with 76 votes for the proposal and 29 votes against passage. The resolution provided for the elimination of the current state budget deficit as well as the projected budget until March 1, 1815 of 14 billion Norwegian riksdaler. The resolution contained a guarantee that the Norwegian government would repay government debt incurred during the Denmark–Norway union. In 1813, following the Danish financial crisis in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, a new currency system had been introduced based on the "rigsbankdaler". The resolution contained a guaranteed exchange rate for the "riksbankdaler" at a fixed level. Although the Eidsvoll Warranty was intended to stabilize the value of the Norwegian currency, the rate continued to fall over in next few years leading up to the establishment of the Norges Bank on June 14, 1816.


Irish Poor Laws

The Irish Poor Laws were a series of Acts of Parliament intended to address social instability due to widespread and persistent poverty in Ireland. While some legislation had been introduced by the pre-Union Parliament of Ireland prior to the Act of Union, the most radical and comprehensive attempt was the Irish act of 1838, closely modelled on the English Poor Law of 1834. In England, this replaced Elizabethan era legislation which had no equivalent in Ireland.
Pre-Union.
In 1703, the Irish Parliament passed an act for "Providing the erection of a workhouse and for the maintenance and apprenticing out of foundling children". By 1771, there were 'Houses of Industry in every county and by 1833, the total cost was £32,967.
Post-Union.
Until 1838, the use of 'Houses of industry' was on a much smaller scale than in England and Wales.
Poor Law Unions.
The report of the Royal Commission on the Poorer Classes in Ireland 1833 led to the Irish Poor Law Act of 1838, under which three "poor law commissioners" divided Ireland into poor law unions, in which paupers would receive poor relief (either workhouse or outdoor relief) paid for by a poor rate based on a "poor law valuation". The name "union" was retained from the English "union of parishes" model although the Irish union boundaries diverged greatly from those of the civil parishes. A union was named after the town on which it was centred, where its workhouse was located. Unions were defined as groups of poor law electoral divisions, in turn defined as groups of townlands. Electoral divisions returned members to the board of guardians, with voters who paid higher rates having more votes. During and after the Great Famine, boundaries in the impoverished west were redrawn to create more and smaller union for easier administration. When the Irish General Register Office was established in 1864, each union became a superintendent registrar's district, with groups of electoral divisions forming a dispensary or registrar's district. The Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 divided administrative counties into urban and rural districts, with each rural district corresponding to the non-urban portion of a poor law union within the county.
Emigration.
During the Great Famine, workhouses became so overwhelmed that large numbers of paupers were assisted to emigrate. This had the effect of permitting more to enter the workhouse in the hope of escaping starvation and disease. In response, Guardian-assisted emigration was reserved only for those who had received indoor relief for over two years.
After partition.
Following the Partition of Ireland, in the independent Irish Free State, poor law unions and rural districts were abolished in 1925 and the powers of boards of guardians transferred to the county councils' County Boards of Health or County Boards of Public Assistance.
In Northern Ireland, poor law unions survived until the Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Service in 1948.
Further reading.
20th century.
Kely, G O, Donnell, A Kennedy, P Quin, S Irish Social Policy In Context:(1999) Dublin University College Dublin Press


Judge of the Cumans

The judge of the Cumans ( or "kunbíró"; ) was a short-lived legal office, then an "ex officio" title in the Hungarian royal court, existed since the second half of the 13th century. In 1270, the Palatine of Hungary assumed the dignity and became part of its title to merge the two positions for centuries, during which time Cuman settlers were concentrated into Kunság region.
History.
Origins.
The position most possibly evolved with the resettlement of the Cuman tribes following the Mongol invasion of Hungary in 1242. In the introductory of the so-called second Cuman law of 1279, King Ladislaus IV ("the Cuman") referred to his grandfather King Béla IV, who placed Cumans under the direct jurisdiction of the Palatine, accordingly. Nora Berend, among others, questioned the authenticity of the document and called an "18th century forgery" which served the purpose of historical legitimacy to the restoration ("redemptio") of the autonomous Jassic-Cuman district by Maria Theresa in 1745. In contrast, historians Attila Zsoldos and Tibor Szőcs considered the text is authentic and claimed the Palatine received that authority already during the Cumans' first entry into Hungary in 1239, in analogy to the status of the dignity of Count of the Pechenegs. Szőcs argues Denis Tomaj unusually held ispánates in Eastern Hungary beside his position of Palatine, which laid near to the Cuman tribes' lands, thus he could be the first office-holder who became judge of the Cumans. Contrary to Denis Tomaj, later Palatines after the Battle of Mohi (11 April 1241), for instance Ladislaus Kán, Denis Türje, Roland I Rátót and Henry Kőszegi originated from Transdanubian kindreds, causing the decline and marginalization of the dignity of judge of the Cumans, in addition to the emerging civil war between Béla IV and his son Duke Stephen.
Following the war, the Cuman territories became part of Stephen's realm, who adopted the title of junior king and lord of the Cumans () in 1262. Duke Stephen also married Elizabeth, daughter of Zeyhan, a Cuman chieftain. The first known person who held the dignity of judge of the Cumans was Gregory Monoszló, who mentioned in this capacity twice in 1269. There is a scholarly debate, whether Gregory II or his namesake son from the Monoszló kindred served as judge during that time. Nevertheless, Gregory III was Elizabeth's brother-in-law through his marriage and was also a member of Stephen's ducal court in the 1260s. Following the death of Béla IV, Stephen V succeeded his father as King of Hungary. With the appointment of Mojs II in August 1270 – also a relative of the King –, the Palatine assumed the title and became "ex officio" judge of the Cumans to relieve pressure on the king's jurisdictional powers. When the dignity of Palatine was divided to two office-holders sometimes in the 1290s, only the "Transdanubian" Palatine (e.g. Roland II Rátót) bore the title.
Tibor Szőcs notes, the dignity of judge of the Cumans remained only a theoretical role, as the second Cuman law never entered the soil of implementation. For the next decades, there is no diploma or other contemporary source which refers to the palatines' procedures related to Cuman issues. Only Palatine James Borsa mentioned a plundering of Cumans among his grievances during the period of feudal anarchy in 1306, but this remark connected to his own personal complaint (the Borsa estates laid near to the Cumans' lands and the kindred had a long-standing relationship with them) and not his dignity. Before the extinction of the Árpád dynasty (1301), the last Palatine who was also "ex officio" judge of the Cumans, was Amadeus Aba in August 1300. During the feudal anarchy and subsequent war of succession, when many oligarchs were styled palatines, the position temporarily devalued until the 1320s. Under this, the title of judge of the Cumans detached from the palatinal institution, prominent loyal barons of Charles I, for instance Thomas Szécsényi and Demetrius Nekcsei bore the title, in 1319 and 1328, respectively, but with limited jurisdiction.
Functions and development.
Since 1322, the office of judge of the Cumans was again assumed to the palatinal dignity, and all palatines bore this title, except Leustach Jolsvai (1392–1397) and the early reign of Derek Bebek (1397–1398). However Pál Engel noted other authorities also held the title at the same time beside the Palatine, because they exercised sovereignty over each seats. In this simultaneous system, the Palatine was only a ceremonial and "honorary" judge of the Cumans, and the judges acted independently of the Palatine, according to Tibor Szőcs. The first known Palatine was Nicholas Zsámboki, who took action on the matter of Cumans, in accordance with a diploma from 12 April 1343. The document preserved that the Cuman chieftain Buthemer's kindred came under the jurisdiction of Zsámboki from Thomas Szécsényi, Voivode of Transylvania in order to Louis I's provision. This also confirms that the Palatine's authority was due to an "ad hoc" royal privilegium, and not a permanently fixed role. In 1371, Louis I granted this privilegium to his Cuman-origin royal fowler, Ladislaus and his Kuncheg kindred too.
Since the 1370s, there are charters which confirmed the existence of the Palatine's judgment in legal matters of Hungarians and Cumans, or in clearly sole Cuman case. Throughout the 15th century, still, the Palatine's supervision over the Cumans was fluctuating. The Statute XI of 1485, a part of the so-called Palatinal Articles of 1485, fixed the Palatine was "ex officio" judge of the Cumans, who "judges over whole Cumania and is also "ispán" (count) and judge of the Cumans". For this role, the Palatine received 3,000 gold coins from the Cuman district, confirming the previously established customary law. Since the late 15th century, the title was frequently changed to "Judge of the Cumans and Jassics" ().
While the authority over the Pechenegs gradually atrophied due to assimilation process, the title judge of the Cumans went to a different route. After the Battle of Mohács (1526) and subsequent Ottoman–Habsburg Wars, most of the area of Jassic-Cuman district was annexed by the Ottomans, while other parts were administratively attached to nearby border castles, such as Eger, Szolnok and Gyula. Most of the 16th century, the office of Palatine remained vacant, thus the preserved Cuman areas enjoyed greater autonomy under the authorition of the Pressburg, then Szepes Chamber. In 1608, Matthias II restored the Hungarian medieval administrative system based on customary law. The Palatine again became judge of the Cumans, who appointed a captain-general to head of the Cuman district. The Statute XLIII of 1630 guaranteed the judicial powers of the captain-general in the name of the Palatine. Tibor Szőcs notes, the Palatine's theoretical jurisdiction over the Cumans, which laid down in the late 13th century, only materialized in the 17th century, as new element, but not renovation of the tradition.
List of office-holders.
After 1270.
Since 1270, the Palatine served as "ex officio" Judge of the Cumans, except some years of interval in early 14th century (first two decades, between 1300 and 1322) and from 1392 to 1398. Other authorities also held the title at the same time beside the Palatine, because they exercised sovereignty over each seats. The following list contains those persons, who also bore similar titles in addition to the incumbent Palatines.


Lars Johannes Irgens

Lars Johannes Irgens (9 October 1775 – 22 April 1830) was a Norwegian jurist and public official. He served as a representative at the Norwegian Constitutional Assembly.
Lars Johannes Irgens was born in Hof in Solør, Hedmark, Norway. He was the son of the parish priest of Hof.
He was married to Christiane Louise Smith (1778-1858) with whom he had eight children including Norwegian government minister Nils Christian Irgens.
He served as a lieutenant in Oppland Dragon Corps ("Oplandske Dragonregiment"). He graduated as cand.jur. in 1802, and was appointed district stipendiary magistrate ("sorenskriver") at Sogn in Sogn og Fjordane the same year. He held this office until his death .
He represented Nordre Bergenhus amt (now Sogn og Fjordane) at the Norwegian Constituent Assembly at Eidsvoll in 1814 together with Peder Hjermann and Niels Nielsen. All three representatives supported the independence party ("Selvstendighetspartiet").