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This paper aims to determine whether a connection can be formed between corruption, plea-bargaining and civil alternative dispute resolution.

Academic articles and textbooks are examined as are relevant reports by various academic institutions.

Despite the similarities between plea-bargaining and civil alternative dispute resolution, the differences between the two overwhelmingly supersede their similarities. As such, there is unlikely to be an interplay between corruption, criminal plea-bargaining and civil alternative dispute resolution.

There are limited data available in relation to the prevalence of corruption activities by Chinese officials within the Belt and Road Initiative. Any discussions within this study is based on the impressionistic observations of the author, which may not reflect the true state of affairs in China.

Those who are interested in examining the relationship between the criminal plea-bargaining and civil alternative dispute resolution will have an interest in this topic.

The value of the paper is to demonstrate the difficulties in cross-fertilizing criminal law procedures with civil dispute resolution.

Drawing upon a case study with public prosecutors, this article seeks to illustrate a reflective methodology for the analysis of activities.

The paper first describes the origin of the intervention at the National School of Magistracy and the great diversity of public prosecutor daily activities, and then presents the theoretical and methodological framework employed: the “clinic of activity” and its associated analyses in “crossed self‐confrontation”. This perspective organizes a developmental process in the professional experience of professionals by the way of the analysis methodology, constructed in a Vygotskian interpretation of the thought‐language relations and its consequences for consciousness and psychological development. Finally, the paper illustrates the approach using the example of a micro‐event, a lapsus lingae that occurred during work activity, and shows how such an apparently insignificant “detail” can become a subject of reflection and enable an individual and collective elaboration of thinking about work.

By examining this singular event and the progression of its interpretation, the paper attempts to explain the approach and field of operation in the clinic of activity. This example shows how an apparently insignificant event can lead to an analysis of the work activity. In this example, an error in pronunciation, interpreted by the professionals as a lapsus linguae, is the basis of an analysis which makes it possible to show and develop the principle of the counter argument, the obligations that this principle carries, as well as the historical and generic forms of the counter argument within hearings.

This paper looks to transform preoccupied professionals into occupied professionals, or in other words, to expand the profession's limits.

This paper aims to debate moral and legal dilemma embedded with plea bargaining (PB) and raises a question whether the approach of “PB” is a viable tool to tackle financial crimes and to what extent it contributes in recovery of stolen money. This paper critically examines the concept with reference to relevant laws of the USA, the UK, Pakistan and Nigeria.

This study used legal scholarship, jurisprudence and other open source data to analyze issues in the application of PB as a viable tool in asset recovery and financial crimes.

This paper provides that PB has certain moral and legal dilemma in terms of legality and punishment; the concept offers a sense of escape from criminal punishment by simply return of partial stolen money or “settlement” in exchange of discounted punishment even without imprisonment, thus incentivizing an offender. Further, the concept is unregulated, misapplied especially in developing world like Pakistan and Nigeria, where plea bargain laws are mostly manipulated by white-collar individuals. Therefore, this study recommends the amendment of relevant laws pertaining to PB; construction of “plea bargain handbook” to prevent arbitrariness and misapplication and to ensure transparency in its application; legislations like Speedy Trail Act; creation of “Fast Track-Model Courts” and a balancing system between “settlement” and “deterrence.”

Perspectives on PB are brought to bear from financial crime and malpractice and recovery of stolen money.

Criminal law has dramatically expanded since the 1970s. Despite popular and academic attention to overcriminalization in the United States, empirical research on how court actors and, in particular, prosecutors, use the legal tools associated with overcriminalization is scarce. In this chapter, we describe three forms of overcriminalization that, in theory, have created new tools for prosecutors: the criminalization of new behaviors, mandatory minimum sentencing statutes, and the internal expansion of criminal laws. We then use a unique dataset of felony filings and dispositions in Florida from 1995 to 2015 to test a series of hypotheses examining how overcriminalization influences prosecutorial practices given three changes to the political economy during this time: the decline in violent and property crime, the Great Recession, and a growing call for criminal justice reform. We find that prosecutors have been unconstrained by declining crime rates. Yet, rather than rely on new criminal statutes or mandatory minimum sentence laws, they maintained their caseloads by increasing their filing rates for traditional violent, property and drug offenses. At the same time, the data demonstrate nonviolent other offenses are the top charge in almost 20% of the felony caseload between 2005 and 2015. Our findings also suggest that, despite reform rhetoric, filing and conviction rates decreased due to the Recession, not changes in the law. We discuss the implications of these findings for criminal justice reform.

The purpose of this paper therefore is to identify and examine major issue-areas in law, prominent among which are the Plea-Bargain and S308 Immunity Clause, and how they impact the process of effectively combating corruption in Nigeria.

The paper uses documentary sources and analytical method to examine the issues involved.

The identified issue-areas are inhibitors rather than facilitators.

The implication is that the government needs to change the existing laws to strengthen the fight against corruption.

This is to ensure that the war against corruption is strengthened and effective.

To ensure that offenders face the full weight of the law for their action.

This paper is the author's original work and all references are appropriately acknowledged.

This paper aims to examine the anti-corruption policy of the Federal Executive Council of Nigeria, to determine whether the policy is working and/or has produced unintended effects. The Federal Executive Council is the body comprising all the Ministers of the Federation, including the President and Vice President.

The analysis took the form of a desk study, which analysed various documents and reports such as the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, 2008-2016, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (Establishment) Act, 2004, the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015, the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act, 2016, the Public Interest Disclosure and Witness Protection Bill, 2017 and the Financial Action Task Force Recommendations, 2012.

This paper determined that the anti-corruption policy of the Federal Executive Council of Nigeria could achieve its desired objectives if the following recommendations are implemented: research grants which are sent to Nigerian universities by international and corporate bodies should be exempted from the current treasury single account arrangement. This would enable universities to easily access the funds and disburse the same to qualified students. The Federal Government should follow the guidelines laid down in Section 270 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015 for plea agreements. In other words, the prosecution should only offer a plea bargain to a person who has been charged with an offence. The prosecution should not receive and consider a plea bargain from a person who has not been charged with an offence. Any attempt to water down the effect of Section 270 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015 may weaken the ongoing fight against corruption and money laundering because criminals will be encouraged to continue looting public funds. The Financial Action Task Force Recommendations (Recommendation 3) requires that criminal sanctions for natural persons convicted of money laundering should be effective, proportionate and dissuasive. The Federal Government of Nigeria should introduce a Bill to the National Assembly that would provide a clear framework for the use of investigatory powers by law enforcement, the security and intelligence agencies and other public authorities. This includes the interception of communications, the retention and acquisition of communications data, the use of equipment interference and the retention and use of bulk data by the security and intelligence agencies. The Bill must establish a number of safeguards against the arbitrary or unlawful use of investigatory powers by the executive. The UK’s Investigatory Powers Act, 2016, for example, established a number of safeguards for the retention and acquisition of communications data. Authorisations for obtaining communications data will have to set out why accessing the communications data in question is necessary in a specific investigation for a particular statutory purpose and how it is proportionate to what is sought to be achieved. A police officer who receives information from a whistleblower about money hidden in an apartment should apply to a Court or Justice of the Peace within the local limits of whose jurisdiction he/she is for the issue of a search warrant before conducting a search on the said premises. This procedure is in line with Section 143 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015 and the Court of Appeal decision in Hassan v. E.F.C.C. (2014) I NWLR (Pt. 1389) 607 at 625. The Public Interest Disclosure and Witness Protection Bill, 2017 should be given accelerated consideration in the House of Representatives based on its urgency and significance for the Federal Executive Council’s whistleblowers policy.

This paper focusses on the anti-corruption policy of the Federal Executive Council of Nigeria from 29 May 2015 to 10 June 2017. It does not address the older policies.

This paper offers a critical analysis of the new anti-corruption policy of the Federal Executive Council of Nigeria. The paper will provide recommendations on how the policy could be strengthened. This is the only paper to adopt this kind of approach.

As Nick Leeson begins his six‐and‐a‐half‐year sentence in Singapore the question must be asked — is this really the end of the road or is there greater fallout to come? The two most crucial things to emerge from months of press coverage interviews and negotiation are (1) the status given to the criminal and (2) the impact on plea bargaining; of the two perhaps the first matter is the more interesting, but the implications must be considered.

This paper aims to explore the evolution of the law for combating economic crimes including money laundering in Tanzania and explore the current developments in the anti-money laundering (AML) law and the ongoing fight against these crimes in Tanzania.

A desk-based review of documents on money laundering and its control in Tanzania was conducted. The paper presents qualitative data from the documentary sources. It applies the doctrinal legal research approach to examine, analyze and describe the AML law applicable in Tanzania. The paper uses the “law-in-context” research approach to explore some non-law aspects of money laundering in Tanzania and interrogate how the law addresses non-law dimensions of money laundering. Policy documents and media reports were analyzed. The thematic data analysis technique was applied, which involved identifying, describing and reporting issues according to the themes emerging from the data.

The AML law in Tanzania emerged from the law that was originally enacted to curb economic crimes. The law has evolved for some decades. Its evolution has been driven by domestic factors and foreign drivers which are political, economic and social in nature. The role of the AML law has been changing. Initially, the law was a tool for curbing economic crimes. Recently, the law has acquired a new role, namely, to facilitate the recovery of illicit funds and non-financial assets from offenders and enable the authorities in Tanzania to use those economic resources for developmental purposes.

The paper underscores the need for the Government of Tanzania to re-consider the broader implications involved in its current efforts to tackle economic crimes and money laundering. The balance between the implementation of the measures to combat money laundering and economic crimes in Tanzania and the importance of protecting rights of persons indicted with those offences should be struck. The AML law should be applied in such a way not to infringe the rights of the accused persons and not to throttle economic activities including the flow of legitimate foreign investments into Tanzania.

This paper generates insightful information to policymakers, law enforcers, regulators and other stakeholders who undertake activities to tackle money laundering and its control in Tanzania and researchers who study these issues for purposes of providing understanding of the problem and facilitating policy and legal reforms. The paper raises issues that can be explored further in future and contribute to the discourse on money laundering and its control in Tanzania.

Purpose – To assess how well varied policy initiatives address rape survivors’ difficulties participating in criminal prosecution.

Method – The evaluation takes a victim-centered perspective, rejecting the assumption that retraumatization is a necessary or inevitable by-product of prosecution. It accepts decision-making powers granted to law enforcement and prosecution practitioners to “found,” charge, prosecute, and plead cases, but questions the means adopted to achieve immediate goals. The evaluation considers legislative, procedural, and extra-criminal proposals such as restorative justice (RJ) conferencing and prosecutorial behavior modification. The evaluation draws on empirical investigations of case attrition, law enforcement, and prosecutorial decision-making, interorganizational collaboration in case processing, RJ, and survivors’ experiences with criminal prosecution.

Findings – Many of rape survivors’ difficulties with criminal prosecution stem from legal actors’ lack of knowledge about survivors’ purposes for participation and strategies to maintain ownership of a conflict that has been appropriated by prosecution, the conflicts survivors’ preexisting social relations pose, how lack of information about and experience with courtroom roles and norms produces anxiety and defensive behavioral strategies, and how survivors interpret and experience inconsistent messages about their role in and power over prosecution. The criminal justice process can directly reduce the causes of retraumatization and achieve procedural justice in ways that have positive implications for better substantive outcomes.

Practical implications – Instituting practices accommodating users’ behavioral orientations should increase the perception that reporting and prosecuting are viable options. Following Taslitz (1999), improving the effectiveness of rape survivors’ communication will increase gender equity generally.