Kirjahaku

This volume aims to provoke reflection on the English conception and treatment of prisoners' rights, through juxtaposition with the conception of prisoners' rights in Germany. First, the German and English understandings of prisoners' legal status are examined; secondly these understandings are placed against the background of broader social, political, and legal factors; and thirdly, the methodological problems of comparative law are addressed. English and German approaches to prisoners' rights present illuminating contrasts. In England, despite significant judicial activity in the development of a jurisprudence of prisoners' rights, protection of prisoners' rights remains partial and equivocal. Many aspects of prison life are left within the realm of executive discretion. This equivocal commitment to rights in England is juxtaposed with Germany's highly articulated rights culture and its ambitious system of prisoners' rights protection under the Prison Act 1976. The German Prison Act sets out foundational principles of prison administration, affords prisoners positive rights, defines the limitations of prisoners' constitutional rights, and provides prisoners with recourse to a Prison Court. Moreover, these rights and principles have been developed and refined in a substantial body of prison law jurisprudence over the last thirty years.

Drawing on theoretical, legal and policy material, Securing Legality seeks to develop a robust normative framework in which to understand the relationship between security, the rule of law and human rights. The book challenges the entrenched dichotomy, commonly invoked by activists, analysts and scholars, of the rule of law and human rights on the one hand and security on the other. It argues that security actors often fail adequately to grasp the role of law and legal legitimacy in their conceptions of security, while guardians of legality too easily overlook the intrinsic and explicit role that security plays in our conception of the rule of law and human rights. At the same time Securing Legality warns against the risk of ‘securitising law’, a process whereby the rule of law and human rights is increasingly viewed through the narrow lens of security. The book seeks to re-conceptualise the relationship between law and security, arguing that the concept of security should concern not only the safety of society, but also the value of its broader social arrangements.