Contexts Law Should Karl, Sylvia and Gabrielle

¶ … Contexts Law

Should Karl, Sylvia and Gabrielle benefit and be protected by European Union law? You answer by reference to what is the law and also by reference to what you think should be the law?

Law is defined as a system of certain rules, regulations, and guidelines which are generally made obligatory through certain institutions. There are different laws related to different social, economic, political, and business issues. For example there are labor laws, contact laws, property laws, trust laws, constitutional laws, administrative laws, criminal laws, tort laws, international laws, and many more. These all laws provide source of guidelines and rules which have to be followed by each and every one (Wrobleski, & Hess, 2000).

As globalization has changed the complete outlook of the each and every aspect of this world, it also has significant impact on laws and enforcement and implementation of laws. The laws followed in one part of world or in one country are not applicable and enforceable in the other country part or country. This makes it easy for the people with evil intentions to take undue benefits from this situation. In order to overcome this problem and issue the international bodies have come up with international laws and regulations. These international laws and regulations try to combat with the issues of public international laws and conflicts of law.

European Union in this regard has been proved to be most effective and efficient in coming up with European Union law. European Union law is the one and only example of a legal framework which is supranational is not restricted by the boundary or border limitations and restrictions. Under the European Union law, the member countries have mutually formed an authoritative system comprising of political institutions and courts (Chalmers, Davies, & Monti, 2010). These authoritative institutions have the power to enforce and implement laws and regulations against or for the residents of the member states. The member countries have their own set of national laws but whenever there is conflict between the both, the European Union law has precedence over the national law of the member country (Horspool, 2006).

Gabrielle should have been benefited and protected by the European Union law. There have been certain labor laws defined under the legislation of the European Union law. These labor laws define the laws and regulations which have to accepted and followed by each and every employer in the member countries of European Union. The question in the context of story was that Gabrielle was from a country which was not under the umbrella of European Union so there were chances that European Union law is not applicable here and it had been not possible to protect and benefit Gabrielle under the European Union law. But then there are some definite laws related to the international employees working in the member countries of European Union which had to be followed. According to the story, it was mentioned that it was relatively easier to hire labors from abroad as they were cheaper, work harder, and can be send back to their country whenever wanted. This reflects that Gabrielle who was an international labor was least protected and benefited by the labor law. On the contrary she should have been protected and should have been able to report the misuse and mistreatment.

Karl who was also a foreigner should have been least protected and benefited from the European Union law. But the fact which supported Karl was that he was involved in some illegal activities and was able to escape on the basis of being a citizen of a country which was not a member of the European Union. He after being involved in illegal acts was able to escape from the country. Karl should not have been protected and benefited by the European Union law, but he was benefited in this particular context as he managed to fulfill his evil intentions of killing three people. He should have been caught at any cost and should have been punished for taking law in his hand. If Karl wanted to take revenge of his sister he could have approached through proper channel.

Sylvia was protected and benefited by the European Union law, as she was the resident of the member country of the European Union. She had all protections and rights under the labor law enforced in the country. Apart from this as being the European Union commissioner of external affairs she was also benefited to interfere in the affairs of other countries and for this reason she was trying to take revenge of the murder of her role model from Karl Kasparov.

QUESTION # 2:

The characters in the Critical Contexts story are not generally filled with the milk of human kindness. What legal duties of care do they have and how would you distinguish between a legal duty of care and a moral obligation?

Obligation is defined as a requirement on an individual or a group of people to take certain kinds of actions. These obligations can be legal or moral. Obligations also vary from one person to another, from one society to another.

At times, it looks as if the action of one party or inaction of one party as negligent but whether any kind of legal claim exists is dependent upon whether a legal duty exists or not. So one needs to understand the concept of legal duty as well as moral obligation to understand and recognize the differences between the two words.

Legal Duty

Legal duty is defined as the legal obligation on a person that they are required to confirm to a standard of reasonable care at the time when they are performing some actions that might harm others. Such duties or actions might result in a civil claim and therefore an individual has to take care of these actions. If the law of the country says to take actions then the party should take such actions but if he does not then he might face legal issues (Raz, 1984).

Moral obligation

Moral obligation is not a compulsion on the individual and neglecting any kind of moral obligation does not require the individual to face any kind of lawsuits. However, if an individual does not perform such actions or neglects it then he or she might feel bad but this situation would only arise when he or she has identified that any kind of moral duty exists (Brandt, 1964).

Moral obligations are basically the norms and values that have been established in the society and a normal individual in normal circumstances are expected to perform. Moral obligations might differ from one country to another because of the societal differences, cultural differences and other differences that exist among different societies (Feinberg, & Narveson, 1970).

Almost each and every character of critical contexts story was involved in activities and acts which were cruel, unkind, and against the legal duty of care and moral obligation. Muriel Mandox, who herself was an active advocate of labour laws and rights, was involved in activities which were against the legal duties of care. She had habit of misusing and mistreating her employees. She uses to behave badly with the employees she hired as nannies for her children. She was obliged under the legal duty of care to take due care of her employees and do not humiliate or misbehave with them. But the actual situation was against this, as mentioned in the critical contexts story that she made fun of her employee in front of her friends and treated Gabrielle badly. Muriel Mandox was also guilty of murdering Gabrielle and hiding it from the police and other concerned officials.

On the other hand Karl was also involved in several activities which were against the legal duty of care. He was involved in several illegal and unlawful activities. Apart from this he also planned to sell his sister Gabrielle by cheating and deceiving her. This was against the legal duty of care and also against the moral obligations. Karl, in order to take revenge of her sister murder, killed three persons Muriel, Charles, and Bell which was against the law. He should have asked for the help from the law and should not have been involved in unlawful and illegal act.

Charles Mandox was also one of those characters which were involved in the activities against the legal duty of care and moral obligations. He was also accused of misusing his employees with wrong and immoral intentions. Charles was also liable for hiding his relationship with Bill even from this wife Muriel. He also supported his wife in hiding the murder of Gabrielle from police other concerned legal officials. This all was not only against the legal duty of care but also moral obligations.

Bill, who was always drunk, was also liable for deeds against the legal duty of care and moral obligations. He was accused of not following the proper working timings and was drunk at the time of duty. Bill also for personal benefits supported Charles and Muriel in hiding the incident of murder of Gabrielle. He was talking undue advantage of this incident and hence was involved in activities which were against the legal duty of care and also moral obligations.

QUESTION # 3:

When is it legally fair to dismiss an employee (answer by reference to Bill)? When is it legally unfair to dismiss employees (answer by reference to the Mondox nannies).

The organization or the employer can dismiss an employee for reasons of misconduct. The other reason for dismissing the employee would be business related reasons. However, the employer should follow a fair procedure in dismissing an employee. At times, dismissing an employee becomes difficult for employer to manage or to tackle particularly when an employee has worked in the company for duration of 12 months or more as the employer has to consider about unfair dismissal rights of the employees (Estreicher, 1985).

According to Employment Act 2002 an employer is required to follow new statutory discipline and grievance methods as of October 1, 2004 and employers have to notify employees of these methods and about their right to appeal against decisions which have been made during the disciplinary methods. If an employer does not follow them then the dismissal can be regarded as unfair dismissal. Therefore there are different things that should be considered by an employer while dismissing an employee (SmallBusiness, 2006).

Before dismissing an employee, employer should be well aware of what the law says about dismissing an employee (Galdon-Sanchez, & Guell, 2003). Employee can be regarded as dismissed under the act when:

When the contract of employment is finished by the employer with or without notifying the employee.

When the employee is dismissed and the employer refuses to allow the employee to come back and rejoin the work after maternity leave.

When an employer hires again some of the employees that have been dismissed but does not employ the rest of the employees then the remaining employees would be considered as dismissed.

When an employer makes the working environment so much hard that it becomes impossible for the employee to tolerate and he leaves the organization. This kind of dismissal is called constructive dismissal.

Dismissal can be fair as well as unfair and all this depends on the situation.

REASONS FOR DISMISSAL

There are five fair reasons that have been provided by the employment law to dismiss an employee (Summers, 1976). These 5 basic reasons are as follows:

Conduct of the employee:

When the behavior of the employee is unacceptable then it is fair to dismiss the employee. Bad behavior of one employee would increase chances of other employees having bad behaviors. An employee can also be dismissed fairly if he breaks any rule of the organization intentionally or even unintentionally.

Just like Bill who was always drunk and during working hours and was not following the proper timings of the work.

Capability:

When the employee is not able to perform the job then if he is dismissed it is said to be fair. Even if an employee is not able to perform the work because of his illness, or because of his health issues even then it is fair to dismiss the employee.