Information on registered primary healthcare diagnoses from the Register of Primary Health Care Visits (RPV) is used to allocate healthcare funding in Finland. Our aim was to analyse the diagnosis rate trajectories in the RPV and, through that, assess the equitable development of funding. We extracted national- and regional-level diagnosis numbers from the RPV. Joinpoint regression analysis with Model 1 (overall trend) and Model 2 (potential changes in trend) was used to assess diagnosis rate trajectories from 2018 to 2024. Model 1 demonstrated that the number of registered primary healthcare diagnoses has increased between 2018 and 2024, but the growth has not been uniform across all trajectories. Model 2 showed significant differences in the diagnosis rate trajectories between regions and diagnostic groups. There were significant discrepancies in the registration of primary care diagnoses. Reducing these discrepancies by standardizing diagnosis registration practices is necessary to ensure equitable healthcare funding.

The meaning of equality is highly contested. As a result, courts across different jurisdictions have developed distinct doctrinal approaches to operationalize the concept. This article argues that four primary equality frameworks can be identified, each reflecting not only different understandings of equality but also varying degrees of judicial deference to the legislature and executive. The first is the equality-as-non-discrimination model, which predominates in most common law jurisdictions and dominates the theoretical discourse on equality. The second, prevalent in many continental European jurisdictions, is the equality-as-reasonableness model, under which courts apply a relatively strict standard of review, even in cases that do not involve suspect classifications. The third, the positive-equality model, recognizes that courts can derive positive obligations from the principle of equality. Finally, the deferential model largely entrusts the definition and implementation of equality to the legislature and executive. This article highlights the normative strengths and weaknesses of each model, arguing that no single approach holds an absolute normative advantage over the others. Instead, the suitability of a particular model depends on the societal and institutional context in which a court operates.

The article examines how the Czech courts addressed restrictions on the right to conduct business during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although grounded in the Czech authorities’ response to the health crisis, the analysis extends to broader conclusions about the necessity of upholding rule-of-law principles. The article therefore highlights how constitutional imperatives of proportionality, equality and the justification of government actions must be preserved in judicial review, even in times of crises.

There is an increasing global focus on gender diversity and equality in the workplace, particularly regarding women in leadership roles. Our study explores this focus in the wine industry in Australia, examining women's representation in CEO, winemaker, viticulturist, and marketing roles. By using results from a previous Australian study, we find that women have significantly increased their presence in all roles but one (marketing role) when comparing 2007–2013 with 2021–2023. Our study also confirms that women are more likely to be in winemaking and viticulturist roles, conditional upon a woman being in the CEO role. However, women in winemaking and viticulturist roles still lag behind women in leadership roles across other industries in Australia. We offer conclusions and directions for future research.

This article documents the survival of gender inequalities in UK archaeology. We discover how an early equality and diversity agenda (Morris 1992) was dismantled in the late 1990s and explore the impact this had on women’s careers. Analysis of data from Chartered Institute for Archaeologists1 employment surveys for the period 1999–2008 enables a developed understanding of why many women, often reluctantly, left archaeology in their 30s, in a continual ‘leaky pipeline’, as volunteer group British Women Archaeologists was established. We find core issues linked to this ‘sector exodus’ as a gendering of tasks/under-employment, lack of support around parenting, and gendered promotion, leading to pay disparity. We argue that a refusal in the late 1990s to modernize employment structures around women workers’ needs underpins ongoing economic precarity in the sector.

In line with Singapore’s vision of the separation of powers, the courts’ duty is primarily to give effect to domestic law; the political branches take the lead in engaging with international law. A study of Singapore’s interface with international law would therefore be incomplete were it to consider only the courts’ role and not the political branches’ model of international law as primarily a guarantor of Singapore’s sovereignty and standing as a participant on the international stage. The political branches have been circumspect in engaging with international law in other areas, such as human rights, preferring a specifically Singaporean vision of rights. A symmetry emerges: the courts and political branches engage strongly with sovereignty-related norms; take other areas of international law as inspiration for developing domestic law; and take human rights law seriously even as their fidelity is ultimately to a specifically Singaporean legal framework for rights protection.

This Article explores the reach of Section 9 of South Africa’s democratic Constitution which entrenches the right to equality before the law and equal protection and benefit of the law in the light of the long legacy of apartheid geography. It argues that the equality clause has had its most profound impact in relation to areas of the law where discrimination is embedded in legal rules, perhaps most notably in the field of family law, and that it has had less impact in addressing patterns of material inequality that run along racial lines but that are not directly furthered by legislation or legal rules. It identifies some of the reasons why the equality clause is less effective at addressing patterns of racial inequality that arise from social and economic practices.

The German Federal Constitutional Court has defined constitutional limits for exclusionary legislation in social law. In these judgments, the Federal Constitutional Court has used human dignity and social equality doctrines to address poverty and social exclusion based on a specific group status as constitutional issues. In doing that, the Federal Constitutional Court has developed practices of a social constitutionalism. While the reviewing power of apex courts for restrictions in classic civil liberties is generally accepted, it is more contested and less obvious for distributive welfare policies. That is why, the practices of social constitutionalism of the Federal Constitutional Court have been an important constitutional development in recent years. The case law shows that they strengthen the social rights protection of the most vulnerable groups in society: people in need and refugees.

Millions worldwide face poverty daily. While its effects vary by society, poverty consistently marginalizes individuals, limiting their opportunities and access to societal benefits. Myths about poverty undergird and perpetuate socioeconomic exclusion, being the vehicles for cultural processes, such as stigmatization, racialization, and rationalization. These myths abound in law. They include the conception of poverty as solely concerned with the deprivation of basic material goods; equal opportunities and collective amnesia about the past; stigmatization of people in poverty as irresponsible and lazy; the categorization of aspects and elements of their poverty condition as criminal. This Article argues that judges, as (meta)narrators, have the power to challenge myths and develop new narratives about poverty, through the language of non-discrimination and equality. This could open the way to judicially redress certain troubling situations of misrecognition, social exclusion and inequality. Ultimately, as long as myths about poverty prevail in law any attempt to tackle the issue of socioeconomic exclusion is destined to fail. This article contributes to the law and sociology literature on poverty in judgecraft by addressing the research gap on narratives of poverty within judicial reasoning and practice.