Piercing the Parliamentary Veil against Judicial Review: The Case against Parliamentary Privilege.

For centuries, parliamentary privilege has stood as a bar against judicial review over the internal affairs of Parliament. The literature surrounding parliamentary privilege has mostly been about the scope of the privilege; few have discussed if the existence of the privilege itself is justified. This article undertakes that task, by examining parliamentary privilege as a defence against judicial review. Three propositions will be made. First, in the context of judicial review, parliamentary privilege is defined by the outer limits of the principle of exclusive cognisance. Article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1689 adds nothing. Second, parliamentary privilege as it relates to judicial review is incompatible with the two prevailing models of the separation of powers. Third, six arguments that may be made in favour of parliamentary privilege will be refuted. Accordingly, parliamentary privilege should no longer provide a defence towards judicial review.

Dutifully Defying Death: A Right to Life-saving Emergency Treatment.

Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights provides for the right to health. Two questions are considered in this article. Does this right entail a more specific right to life-saving emergency treatment? And if so, should the latter right become justiciable in the domestic courts? Two propositions will be made in this article. First, the right to life-saving emergency treatment is a necessary component of the right to health. Second, the conventional arguments against the justiciability of socio-economic rights do not apply to the right to life-saving emergency treatment. Such a right should be justiciable at the domestic level.

Biocompatible and Biodegradable Magnesium Oxide Nanoparticles with In Vitro Photostable Near-Infrared Emission: Short-Term Fluorescent Markers.

Imaging of biological matter by using fluorescent nanoparticles (NPs) is becoming a widespread method for in vitro imaging. However, currently there is no fluorescent NP that satisfies all necessary criteria for short-term in vivo imaging: biocompatibility, biodegradability, photostability, suitable wavelengths of absorbance and fluorescence that differ from tissue auto-fluorescence, and near infrared (NIR) emission. In this paper, we report on the photoluminescent properties of magnesium oxide (MgO) NPs that meet all these criteria. The optical defects, attributed to vanadium and chromium ion substitutional defects, emitting in the NIR, are observed at room temperature in NPs of commercial and in-house ball-milled MgO nanoparticles, respectively. As such, the NPs have been successfully integrated into cultured cells and photostable bright in vitro emission from NPs was recorded and analyzed. We expect that numerous biotechnological and medical applications will emerge as this nanomaterial satisfies all criteria for short-term in vivo imaging.