The political morality of convergence in contract

One of the most interesting recent developments in contract law has been an academic and political effort to integrate private law. The proposed Common European Sales Law was ultimately withdrawn, and a series of setbacks, including the British referendum to exit the EU, has recast the politics of convergence. But it remains an objective for many European scholars. This essay considers the wisdom of convergence on a single law of transactions from the perspective of philosophical contract theory. The essay proceeds by disaggregating the rights at stake in contract law. It characterises the formal right to contract and describes its moral impetus as one that should underwrite contract law in all states, especially liberal states. But the essay argues that the legitimate contours of the formal right are contingent on tenets of political culture that vary across Member States. Similarly, substantive regulation of contract is morally compulsory and serves universal interests; the essay takes regulation of permissible work and remuneration for work as examples. But the rules and standards that best advance those moral interests depend on economic facts specific to individual political communities. The essay concludes by arguing that contract law is a poor tool by which to accelerate political and economic convergence.     

现代刑事诉讼法的“帝王"原则:程序法定原则重述

程序法定原则作为刑事诉讼法的首位原则、“帝王”原则,构成了现代程序法的基石, 其地位如同罪刑法定原则之于刑法典。从内容上分析,程序法定原则包括了形式(程序合法性)和实质(程序正当性)两项要件,由此产生了形式意义上的程序法定原则和实质意义上的程序法定原则。作为现代刑事诉讼程序的一种通论性和一般性原则,程序法定原则对于整个刑事诉讼程序具有统摄性,在刑事诉讼各个阶段都存在着程序法定的具细原则。我国刑事诉讼制度在立法和司法实践中存在的种种问题最后几乎都可以归结为“程序法定”原则的不彰、程序法定价值的不显。基于此,刑事诉讼法典的制定和运行,贯彻程序法定原则是当务之急。     

经济法的实质正义观及其实现

形式正义和实质正义分别属于近代和现代法律分配权利和义务的价值观念。形式正义是按照绝对平等和自由的原则分配权利和义务,而实质正义则是根据主体身份特征进行倾斜式分配。实质正义不但促进了民法的社会化,而且催生了经济法和社会法的诞生。实质正义首先通过立法环节转化为具体的权利和义务规范及法律责任,其次通过行政和司法机关得以实现。     

论法律形式合理性的十个问题

法律制度的理性化表现在两个方面,一为实质合理化,一为形式合理化。法治原则在司法领域必然意味着形式合理性的优先,即,在司法过程中,当个案处理结果的实质合理性与法律本身的形式合理性可以两全时,司法者应当而且必须兼顾这两种价值,在司法裁判中同时实现个案中的实质合理性与法律的形式合理性;然而,当实质合理性与形式合理性发生不可两全的矛盾而不得不有所牺牲时,司法裁判则应当以优先实现形式合理性为原则,以牺牲形式合理性为例外。无论是对于持有社会本位价值观念的人们而言,还是对于持有个人本位价值观念的人们而言,只要他们遵循理性的指引来选择达成目的的手段,以优先实现形式合理性为原则、以牺牲形式合理性为例外的司法公正,都是唯一合理的选项。     

The Powers of Application

This paper studies the formality of law and legal reasoning. It argues that, though the law (and its application) is indeed formal in that it does not take into account a significant number of considerations that should in principle be relevant for an all–things–considered decision, this is not to be explained on the basis of some ontology of rules (i.e., rules as exclusionary reasons), but upon the nature of legal discourse when viewed as a social practice. How the law is applied to particular cases, when substantive considerations not referred to by the rules are important enough to defeat their application to the case and questions of this kind are not answered by the legal material (which includes or might include rules, principles etc.), but by beliefs that underlie legal practice, beliefs about the world and its relation to human beings and society. Insofar as these beliefs have impact upon practices we recognise as legal they are termed "images of law." Legal reasoning cannot be understood without paying due attention to the nature and evolution of images of law.     

试论“超越法律”的企业社会责任

"超越法律"的企业社会责任,是企业负担的那些超出法律强制性义务规定且符合社会价值和期望的责任,确认这种责任的法律规范实为"软法",它主要通过责任目标内化于企业的商业行为和治理结构之中,以实现企业的"自我管制";通过保护利益相关者的实质性和程序性权利,提高利益相关者的谈判抗衡力量以实现市场的自发对抗;并以声誉机制和非政府组织的作用作为责任的实施机制的补充。     

Aristotle's Forms of Justice

Abstract. In Aristotle's account, corrective and distributive justice are not (as they are today) particular substantive ideals, but are rather the formal patterns that inhere in interactions and in the legal arrangements that regulate them. Corrective and distributive justice are the structures of ordering internal to transactions and distributions, respectively. The Aristotelian. forms of justice thus constitute the rationality immanent to the relation ships of mutually external beings. This article stresses Aristotle's formalism, contrasting it to modem instrumental conceptions of legal rationality, and defending it against Kelsen's allegations of emptiness. The article concludes with the suggestion that corrective justice, as the conceptual pattern that makes private law what it is, can be considered the formal and final cause of private law.     

犯罪着手的教义学重述:学说对决、命题重证与具体解答

形式客观说并未丢弃实质,故其本为形式与实质相结合说。是否立足于构成要件行为是法益侵害紧迫危险性的刑法定型,决定了形式客观说和实质客观说各自是否为犯罪着手认定提供了明确标准,且是否导致犯罪着手认定的过于提前或推迟,进而决定了是否背离罪刑法定原则。犯罪着手的认定标准,应抛弃脱离形式限制的实质客观说而仍坚持形式客观说,但其“开始命题”应通过“基于大数法则的类型化危险形成说”而将犯罪着手的认定标准予以实质性落实。通过“基于大数法则的类型化危险形成说”,形式客观说对结合犯、隔离犯、徐行犯和原因自由行为型犯罪的着手能够做出妥当解答。     

论公司社会责任的司法实践——从公益诉讼角度谈我国公司社会责任司法实践的完善

公司社会责任是公司在追求利润最大化的同时对社会应尽的责任。我国公司社会责任的实体法规定相对完善,而在诉讼法领域却一直缺少与实体规定相对应的救济程序,导致公司违反社会责任,对社会公共利益构成危害时没有合适的诉讼程序对其进行追究,因此,构建公益诉讼程序应是完善我国公司社会责任司法实践的重要步骤。依据我国具体国情,应从立法和实务操作上分别着手,改革我国的诉讼结构,构建公益诉讼制度,以期增加公司社会责任的可诉性,把公司社会责任真正落实到司法实践中。     

价值困境、核心价值与宪法价值共识——宪法回应价值困境的一个视角

当代社会价值困境,是个体价值渐次遮蔽社会核心价值,最终陷入社会价值共识虚无的状态;而在转型中国,各种非理性价值或价值异化掺杂其中,价值困境更为深刻。作为回应的社会主义核心价值体系,却因独白式的传播方式而陷入认同困境。在依法治国的语境下,顺应社会核心价值之内在属性,应以宪法作为其规范载体;而宪法对社会核心价值之确认,构成宪法权威之理据,并可将形式意义的"话语共识"升华为实质性的宪法价值共识。虽然现行宪法业已在文本上全面表达了社会主义核心价值体系,但仍存结构局限,有鉴于此,应采取妥适路径,实现宪法价值体系与社会主义核心价值体系的有机融合。     

The Voice of the Community in Private Law Discourse

Formalist private lawyers, with their view of law as an autonomous sphere and their emphasis upon allocative rules, tend to approach the issue of the harmonisation of private law in Europe with the following question: are the substantive rights and remedies of private individual actors sufficiently similar within each of the Member States to allow for the unification of autonomous private legal systems. Here the issue is essentially one of terminology. While sceptical voices maintain that formal private law is also a more complex matter of interrelated procedures and practices, many formalists conclude that whilst the terms of rights and remedies may differ slightly throughout Europe, there is sufficient substantive convergence to allow for harmonisation. However, lawyers of a sociological persuasion who see private law as being contingent upon society Ð a process reflexively and recursively facilitating economic activities and responding to social change Ð consider harmonisation to be dependent upon the harmonisation of market practices themselves. This paper, one of the most subtle of sociological contributions, tackles this issue with an innovative eye to the increasing blurring of the distinction between public and private concerns. The voice of Europe is the voice of a political collective and theoretically, under the once sacrosanct paradigm of the public/private divide, should not be heard within the 'individualistic' sphere of private law. However, just as national private law judges are generally responding to social concerns and are seeking to integrate collective voices within a once 'atomised' realm, so too are they taking note of the political voice of Europe: attempting to respond to the desire for integration and harmonisation within their jurisprudence.     

Political Unhappiness

The starting point of this paper is the idea of individual autonomy: Autonomy from the social body and from its influences, i.e., broadly speaking, autonomy from the "whole" of which the individual is a part. In particular, I shall address some of the problems arising out of the relations between the whole and its parts, basically problems of law and morality. We are accustomed to thinking that the relation between a particular individual and the universal whole to which the individual belongs should be a happy relationship. Such "happiness," however, will prove to be—from the liberal perspective here assumed—a problematic notion. From such premises as these, an argument will be developed, on behalf of social recognition and legal protection for out-of-the mainstream forms of behaviour or lifestyles, i.e., for individuals or groups that claim the "otherness" of their position together with a right of freedom from discrimination.     

论社会危害性理论与实质刑法观的关联关系与风险防范

社会危害性理论与法益理论确实可以成为实质刑法观的理论基础,但是社会危害性理论与实质刑法观的关联性比较复杂,并非如部分学者所提示的那样一一对应。就持有传统社会危害性理论立场的学者而言,他们其实并非可以简单地归入实质刑法观立场;而主张改革完善传统社会危害性理论的部分学者,反而坚持实质刑法观立场。在中国语境下,实质刑法观面临的风险与批评,主要根源就在于作为实质刑法观理论基础的社会危害性理论具有太过强大的解释功能,且实质解释论的功能表现包括了保障人权的正面功能与严重侵犯人权的负面功能的两面,呈现出矛盾属性。为了防范风险,不但需要发展实质刑法观,而且需要完善社会危害性理论。单面的实质刑法观或者保守的实质刑法观,主张通过实质罪刑法定原则的限制、实质犯罪论的限制与实质司法解释权的限制,以有效防范开放的实质刑法观可能存在的侵蚀人权保障机能的风险,因而应当成为当下中国最理想的选择。     

Headscarves, Human Rights, and Harmonious Multicultural Society: Implications of the French Ban for Interpretations of Equality

Through the lens of the French law prohibiting Muslim headscarves in schools, this article examines the way in which societal tensions that arise in the context of religious and cultural pluralism are translated into legal discourses relating to human rights and equality. It explores the way in which the law is rooted in France's broader sociopolitical structure and history and contrasts it to the United Kingdom and Turkey. It proposes that the law is based on an anachronistic, formal interpretation of equality that is inappropriate for addressing the inevitable cultural diversity of modern French society, and through its permeation into law and policymaking more widely, it is a primary cause of the heightened social tensions involving the Muslim minority. An assessment of the legitimacy of a law that restricts minority groups' cultural practices in this way in any society should be based on a substantive interpretation of equality and should necessarily involve an active endeavor to understand the meanings of those cultural practices for those groups within their distinct context. Upon this foundation, law and policy can be developed in a way that better reconciles the pluralism of modern society with the common objectives of social harmony, stability, and tolerance.     

行政程序中的形式与形式主义

行政程序不仅具有形式性属性,也具有实质性属性.我国行政程序法制发展重形式、轻实质的倾向已经在法律实践中产生了不良后果.这种偏颇主要源自三个法律程序观的误识:一是行政程序的泛司法化误识;二是行政程序的反实质化误识;三是行政程序的非法律化误识.必须强调行政程序的实质因素与形式因素并重的良性行政程序发展观.     

县域社会违建执法的组织形态与治理绩效辨析

县域社会违建执法需要一定的组织载体,但在不同农村类型中,体制层面执法资源配置不均和社会层面违建个体情境差异共同塑造了不同类型的政府执法组织,并产生不同治理绩效。在城中村,正式化执法组织具备常规执法权且执法密度大,虽能够强化执法效果,但在执法过程中始终存在政府与征拆居民的利益博弈;在城郊村,正式化与半正式化相结合的执法组织有助于强化政府执法力量和权威,但受信息制约和人情关系影响容易产生灰色利益空间,进而侵蚀执法目标;在远郊村,半正式化执法组织本身没有专业执法权,政府常在一定时期内通过组织动员手段来补强执法力量,但执法绩效具有不稳定性。三类农村违建执法组织的治理绩效差异,反映出国家法律在县域城乡社会落地的非均质性。     

试论"超越法律"的企业社会责任

The corporate social responsibility “beyond law” is the responsibility of enterprises beyond the mandatory obligations by force of law but in line with social values and expectations. Indeed, the legal norms on such kind of responsibility are “soft law”, which mainly incorporate social values and expectations in corporate business behaviors and governance structure, so as to realize corporate “self-regulation”. By protecting the substantive and procedural rights of stakeholders and improving their negotiation power, the “soft law” aims at realizing the spontaneous confrontation and balance of the market, and the corporate reputation mechanism and the functions of NGOs adds much to the performance of corporate social responsibility. He Zhaodan, Economics Doctor of Sun Yat-Sen University, mostly focuses on Law and Economics. She has published six research articles in the academic journals of China.     

An Interpretation of Max Weber's Theory of Law: Metaphysics, Economics, and the Iron Cage of Constitutional Law

Among legal scholars, Anthony T. Kronman and David M. Trubek have provided the leading interpretations of Weber's theory of law. Kronman and Trubek agree on two important points: Weber's theory is fundamentally contradictory, and Weber's theory relates primarily to private law subjects such as contracts. This article contests both of these points. Building on a foundation of Weber's neo-Kantian metaphysics and his sociological categories of economic action, this article shows that Weber's theory of law is not fundamentally inconsistent; rather it explores the inconsistencies that are inherent within Western society itself, including its legal systems. Furthermore, Weber's insights can be applied to modern constitutional jurisprudence. Weberian theory reveals that modern constitutional law is riddled with irreconcilable tensions between process and substance—between formal and substantive rationality. In the context of racial discrimination cases involving equal protection and the Fifteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court's acceptance of John Hart Ely's theory of representation-reinforcement demonstrates the Court's resolute pursuit of formal rationality, which insures that the substantive values and needs of minorities will remain unsatisfied.     

面向21世纪的刑事司法理念

刑法理念是刑事司法理念不可或缺的内容。面向2 1世纪的刑事司法理念首先要求对刑法理念进行探讨,这种探讨应立足于形式合理性与实质合理性这一对范畴,并以此对罪刑法定原则的基本精神做深入的挖掘。罪刑法定是以形式合理性为其价值取向的,因而应当建立形式合理性的刑法观念。如果不想使罪刑法定原则成为一个口号或标语,就必须注重它在司法实践中的贯彻和落实,这就是罪刑法定原则的司法化问题。罪行法定原则的司法化涉及司法体制、司法理念和司法人员的素质等问题,特别是应建立这样的司法理念:罪刑法定原则下形式合理性优于实质合理性。     

伪证罪：一个规范的语境分析

刑法规范表达的妥当性是刑事司法活动在不逾越刑法基本原则的前提下实现刑法调控社会功能的制度性保障 ;由此 ,规范语言的意义应当始终指向该规范的价值目标。但是 ,我国现行刑法第 30 5条关于“伪证罪”的规范性描述却在一定程度上消解了伪证罪立法的价值 ,这种由表达缺陷导致的价值损耗虽具有个案性质 ,我们却不难从中洞见某种普遍的立法意义。规范语言是规范价值的载体 ,法律之文本意义与规范意义的统一是“司法合法”的保证 :所以 ,这种统一不但应当成为法律的形式化特征 ,而且也是法律规范的实质性要求