Details
In this book, which is the first of its kind, leading experts examine the civil and criminal forfeiture systems in Australia, Canada, China, Ireland, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. In the fight against organized crime and international money laundering, there is a global trend for countries to enact forfeiture and confiscation laws that are applied through the civil process rather than the traditional criminal justice system. The authors gathered here analyze the appeal these civil forfeiture laws have for governments for their potential to disrupt criminal organizations and for their quantifiable benefits to the state. But without the usual safeguards of the criminal process, civil forfeiture laws are controversial, attracting constitutional challenges, particularly on human rights grounds.
This book will be of great interest to policy-makers in government, and law enforcement agencies who are thinking of reforming their own laws, as well as to law reform agencies or select parliamentary committees where the issue of reform is topical. It will also appeal to students in criminal law, criminology and human rights.
Preface
Introduction
Simon N.M. Young
PART I: AN INTRODUCTION TO CIVIL FORFEITURE
1. Perspectives on Civil Forfeiture
Jeffrey Simser
PART II: GLOBAL PROLIFERATION OF CIVIL FORFEITURE LAWS
2. An Overview of Asset Forfeiture in the United States
Stefan D. Cassella
3. Ireland: The Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Proceeds of Crime
Felix J. McKenna and Kate Egan
4. Asset Forfeiture in South Africa under the Prevention of Organised Crime Act 121 of 1998
Raylene Keightley
5. Civil Forfeiture – The Australian Experience
Sylvia Grono
6. Civil Asset Forfeiture in Canada
James McKeachie and Jeffrey Simser
7. Assets Recovery under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002: The UK Experience
Angela V.M. Leong
8. Is the Patient Expected to Live? UK Civil Forfeiture in Operation
Sara Dayman
PART III: FORFEITURE OF CRIMINAL PROPERTY IN CHINESE SOCIETIES: PROSPECTS FOR MODERN FORFEITURE LAWS
9. The Confiscation System in Mainland China
Xing Fei and Kung Shun Fong
10. Civil Forfeiture for Hong Kong: Issues and Prospects
Simon N.M. Young
11. Civil Confiscation of Proceeds of Crime: A View from Macau
Jorge A.F. Godinho
12. The Current Forfeiture Regime in Taiwan
Lawrence L.C. Lee
Index
Edited by Simon N.M. Young, Associate Professor and Director, Centre for Comparative and Public Law, Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong
‘. . . this work is an important contribution to the global discourse on pursuing property, money or resources linked to crime.’
– Michelle Gallant, Journal of Business Law
‘Informed and informative, Civil Forfeiture of Criminal Property is a seminal work of impressive scholarship and strongly recommended for professional, academic, and governmental judicial studies collections in general, and criminal justice reference collections in particular.’
– Library Bookwatch, Midwest Book Review
‘This book is interesting because there is a dearth of writing on the subject. It must be read for that reason.’
– Sally Ramage, The Criminal Lawyer
‘Once called “the monster that ate jurisprudence”, civil forfeiture is now an established weapon in the fight against organized crime, terrorism, drug trafficking and corruption. This fine collection of essays covering civil forfeiture regimes in ten diverse jurisdictions, written by leading practitioners, provides a comprehensive and detailed overview of the jurisprudential, legal, political and practical dimensions of the new generation of these powerful and controversial laws. I commend this book to criminal, civil, comparative and human rights lawyers who have an interest in how serious and profit-motivated crime, and responses to it, develop over time and in different legal cultures.’
– Arie Freiberg, Monash University, Australia
