Legislation Drafted to Protect Personal Information

China — Laws are being drafted by the legal research institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (‘CASS’) to protect personal information. Mr Zhou Hanhua, researcher of the Legal Institute of the CASS, was quoted saying that ‘In the Chinese tradition personal rights are normally neglected and so the frequent happening of personal information being maliciously infringed.’ For example, some schools in China installed close-circuit TV to prevent cheating during examinations and this has resulted in every action and behaviour of students being placed under control. In other instances, when information is required for the purposes of social insurances or for other online purchases, more than 100 pieces of personal information is collected. This has lead to the increase of abuse using personal information.

Under the newly drafted law, handphone numbers, home addresses, medical files and occupation information would be protected. Under the present laws, the violation of personal reputation can only be subjected to civil liabilities. However, once the law is officially brought into force, violation of personal information would have both civil and criminal liabilities. (Source: www.china.org.cn)

Federal Sentencing System Wrongly Applied

US — A splintered Supreme Court threw the nation’s federal sentencing system into turmoil recently by ruling that the way judges have been sentencing some 60,000 defendants a year is unconstitutional.

In ordering changes, the court found 5–4 that judges have been improperly adding time to some criminals’ prison stays. The high court stopped short of scrapping the nearly two-decade-old guideline system, intended to make sure sentences do not vary widely from courtroom to courtroom. Instead, the court said in the second half of a two-part ruling that judges should consult the guidelines in determining reasonable sentences — but only on an advisory basis.

‘Ours, of course, is not the last word. The ball now lies in Congress’ court,’ Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in one part of the ruling. ‘The national legislature is equipped to devise and install, long-term, the sentencing system, compatible with the Constitution, that Congress judges best for the federal system of justice.’ Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, said he would begin working to ‘establish a sentencing method that will be appropriately tough on career criminals, fair and consistent with constitutional requirements.’

Under the challenged federal court system, juries consider guilt or innocence but judges make factual decisions that affect prison time, such as the amount of drugs involved in a crime, the number of victims in a fraud or whether a defendant committed perjury during trial. A coalition of liberal and conservative justices said the practice of judges’ acting alone to decide factors that add prison time violates a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial. (Source: www.cnn.com)

Right to Information Becomes Law

UK — From the start of the New Year the Freedom of Information Act has come into force. Under this new law people will have the right to access information held by 100,000 public bodies including the police force, hospitals, schools, local councils and the government. The public bodies would now be obliged to reply to requests for information allowing people to have access to information on how decisions are made and how public money is spent.

Anyone, of any nationality, and living anywhere in the world, will be able to make a written request for information, and expect a response within 20 working days. For the majority, there will be no charge.

Lord Falconer said that the need to know culture has been replaced by a statutory right to know. I am convinced that the laws which took effect will make government more open, and the balances we have built into the system will ensure that effectiveness is not compromised. (Source: news.bbc.co.uk)

Patent Law Shakes Up India’s Drugs Sector

India — The country’s US$4.5bn pharmaceutical industry is at a crossroad following the introduction of a new patent regime on 1 January this year. The new law was introduced as part of the government’s efforts to honour its commitment to the World Trade Organisation (‘WTO’).

In the past, India would not grant patents on final products, but rather on the process used to manufacture them. But when it signed the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights in 1994, it was given 10 years to change its decades-old patent law and make it compliant with WTO laws.

With the new law, the government will now grant patents for all new products developed after 1995. However, this change is expected to hit hard at local pharmaceutical companies. Under the old process, pharmaceutical companies could produce medicines introduced by international firms via a different process and sell them at less than half the price, thus making huge profits. But this will not be the case anymore.

This new law is bad news for the patients as they are used to local medicines at cheap rates. Now they are at the mercy of the patent holders who can demand whatever price they desire, said Mr Dhaara Patel, secretary general of the Indian Drug Manufacturers Association.

But Rajeev Ranjan, Director of Policy and Promotion in the Commerce Ministry, says the government has made provisions for the public and insists the new patent policy is good for the industry as well as the people. Only when there is patent protection will companies invest more in research and come up with new molecules. This is the price we must pay for new medicine. (Source: news.bbc.co.uk)