Fair Share Housing for Managed Growth

The Mt. Laurel decision represents the culmination of judicial thinking in exclusionary zoning type litigation. Implicit in decisions striking down local land use controls found to be “exclusionary” in nature has been the notion that a community has a legal duty to accept a “fair share” of the housing needs of the region. Fair share housing now begins to take on some substance with the New Jersey court's decision. Similar language on responsibilities for regional needs may be found in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decisions in Kit-Mar and Girsh, and in the federal district court's opinion in Petaluma.     

Mt. Laurel: A View from the Bridge

Across the Delaware River from the “region” which the New Jersey Supreme court appears to suggest should be the planning base for Mt. Laurel Township's land use decisions lies the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania which has been having some severe land use pangs of its own. Long before even the initiation of the Mt. Laurel litigation, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had begun to decide “exclusionary zoning” cases. And it has continued, intermittently, ever since its National Land ¹ decision in 1965 to admonish municipalities that they must not commit exclusionary² zoning. Thus, the court held a 4 acre minimum lot size exclusionary and then, five years later, held a 2 acre minimum lot size similarily invalid³.     

The Authority and Interpretation of Regulations

In the past half century, governments have increasingly relied on regulations—secondary legislation issued by administrative bodies and departments—to impose obligations on private parties, multiplying the occasions for regulatory interpretation. This article develops a theory of regulatory interpretation. It argues that such a theory involves understanding the authority of regulations. Turning to the public law of the UK, US, and Australia, this article identifies an intriguing similarity; in each case, regulations have authority when they rationally and nonarbitrarily implement delegated power within the means permitted by statute. The article then argues that this account of regulatory authority justifies a common approach to interpretation in which the object of interpretation is the purpose the regulation seeks to implement, discerned from the regulation's text and accompanying explanation of its purpose, and constrained by background legal norms.     

Beyond “Sic Utere …” to the Regional General Welfare

Since the lower court opinions in Oakwood at Madison and Mt. Laurel, a definitive decision has been awaited from the New Jersey Supreme Court dealing with the issues of exclusion in housing and land use regulations. It was also expected that Justice Hall, author of the well-known Vickers' dissent, would have the chance to lead the majority in its decision, Though Madison reached the court first, it was fraught with delays and unusual circumstances, placing it in line behind Mt. Laurel. Thus, Mt. Laurel emerged as the vehicle for this court's important restatement of the law of municipal land use control. Announced March 24, 1975, the New Jersey Supreme Court's decision in Mt. Laurel was indeed written by Justice Hall—a valedictory of sorts just before his retirement from the bench in April.     

Land Use Litigation and Low-Income Housing: Mandating Regional Fair Share Plans

With its opinion in Mt. Laurel the New Jersey Supreme Court has written a new chapter in the law of exclusionary zoning and land use regulation. The carefully reasoned and innovative opinion may even prove to be the Magna Carta of suburban low- and moderate-income housing opportunity.     

中国土地执法摇摆现象及其解释

中国土地执法实践呈现“摇摆现象”,即有时执法有效,有时执法失灵。执法摇摆现象的发生,并非完全因为法律不完备或者土地执法部门能力有限,还在于中国集中体制下的“嵌入式执法”。在中国国家体系中,土地执法部门被嵌入在集中体制及其建构的中心工作中。在中心工作完成过程中,土地执法部门真正完成的并非其职能目标,而是集中体制目标。不同中心工作的建构,导致土地执法效果可能有效也可能失灵,呈现出摇摆不定的执法效果。集中体制本身的分化,即中央和各级地方政府目标重点的不同,也使得土地执法效果更不可预期。     

Up and down the Zoning Scale

Zoning in this country has traditionally been a waiting game with the development proceess. Not knowing what specific property will be used for and not controlling the ball game suficiently to say what will be the use, land has been zoned in a “wait and see” classification. Some land has been overzoned for certain uses; other land has been left fairly open as to its potential use. Thus the system itself necessitates constant change in a property's classification as circumstances change. Many of these changes are made to accommodate a specific development proposal, so they are to the landowner's benefit. However, other rezonings result in a reduction in the landowner's potential for profit. It is this type of change—downzoning—that is the subject of this discussion.     

Police accountability and the Irish law of evidence

Common law courts have differed on whether and to what extent an exclusionary rule should be used as a tool to impose standards on the police. The Irish courts have pursued an uncompromising approach in this area. Basing themselves on the imperative of upholding the constitutional rights of the accused, they have been willing to exclude relevant and cogent evidence on the basis that it was obtained by the police in breach of those rights. This article locates the Irish constitutional exclusionary rule in the broader context of the role of the law of evidence in police governance. Citing specific examples from the Irish legislation and case law, it shows how recent legislative interventions and some judicial hesitancy have fuelled inconsistent and contradictory trends. It concludes that there is now a pressing need for reflection on the respective roles of the legislature and the courts in this area.     

依法律行政原理的移植与嬗变

依法律行政,旨在藉由法律的合理性控制行政的恣意,并获得法的安定性和民主性,它是近代形式法治国家的产物,是自由主义与民主主义的结合。德国依法律行政原理经由奥托·迈耶的提炼基本定型,经由美浓部达吉等人传至日本,并影响了我国早期的行政法学。在新中国,依法行政逐渐得到强调。这种转变既有行政立法高涨的现实影响,也有方法论上的原因,但更多缘于全国人大—行政机关—司法机关的权力格局。从全国人大与国务院的宪法关系来看,应当重新确立依法律行政原理,并从行政诉讼上为依法律行政提供保障机制,同时摒弃依法行政中的某些错误观念,以确保法治国家的真正实现。     

Letters to the Editor

While many basked in the euphoric rays emanating from the New Jersey state court Mt. Laurel decision, commentators and litigators in the land use field were tempering their sentiments with the knowledge of the U.S. Supereme Court's impending consideration of a primary federal land use challenge in Warth v. Seldin. The Court's 5-4 decision, affirming a federal appeals court'ss affirmance of the dismissal of an exclusionary zoning challenge by various individuals and groups, was predicated on the elusive concept of “standing.” If a sufficient case or controversy existed, according to the Court, or if the various classes of plaintiffs alleged a sufficiently personal stake in the outcome of challenge, their right to challenge Penfield's zoning could be established. In Warth the majority took a restrictive view and, on a one by one basis, denied standing to each of the plaintiffs.     

Outing Courtesy: The Role of Rude Dissent in Rule of Law Systems

This essay critically examines Keith Bybee's All Judges Are Political, Except When They Are Not. Although Bybee's creative use of the cultural form of courtesy helps us better understand the consensus‐building and legitimating features of rule‐of‐law systems, it overlooks the role that rude dissent can play in exposing the violent, exclusionary, and materially disadvantaging aspects of such systems. Using examples of outing closeted public figures and the rude AIDS activism of the 1990s, this essay explores the rule of law from the perspective of those who are subject to it.     

Is the power of a state to impose sales tax in Nigeria fettered by the imposition of value added tax by the federal government?

The imposition of sales tax by some states in Nigeria has been resisted on the grounds either that a state lacks the power to impose taxes under Nigeria’s constitution or that a state cannot validly impose sales tax as long as the Value Added Tax Act, a federal law, remains in force, the Value Added Tax Act having ‘covered the field’. This article contends that none of these grounds is valid under Nigeria’s constitution: a state government can impose sales tax in exercise of its residual powers; and the doctrine of covering the field is inapplicable in the inquiry.     

土地财政的行政法治视阈

中国模式的土地财政危及了国家经济安全,阻碍了经济社会的可持续发展。只有依照市场经济法治国家对行政权力的规制原则,清晰地界定政府与市场、公民、企业以及中央政府与地方政府的各种应然关系,加速土地财政向公共财政的转型,加强对行政权力的立法监督、民主监督、人大监督,建立以公共服务为导向的政绩评价体系,才能够从根本校正地方政府片面追求土地财政利益的行为,才能为加快转变发展方式提供强大动力和体制保障,才能实现社会和经济的可持续发展。     

国家转型与治理的法律多元主义分析——中、俄转轨秩序的比较法律经济学

国家治理结构包括法律、政策与关系规则之三元组合,三者之间存在互补、替代与转化关系。转型过程中,法律和政策都不完备,如何维持平稳转型,防止良性社会资本的耗散和恶性关系规则对社会秩序的侵蚀,使人治、法治和关系治理形成互补效应,是规则实施多元化理论关注的焦点问题。中、俄两国转轨秩序演进的实践表明,根据三元甚至多元规则实施过程中的替代、转化、互补、互动等机制,实现相对平稳的法律变迁,是至关重要的。     

行政执法权全面下移的组织法回应

虽然行政执法权全面下移工作已然铺开,但我国现有法律规范体系并未为其提供充足的规范基础,既有的行政组织结构及其相应规则也没有为镇街有效承接执法权做好充分准备。行政执法权全面下移依然承受着合法性与有效性的双重考问。以《行政处罚法》为框架的分析思路,并不能为消弭质疑提供有力支撑。行政执法权全面下移带来了镇街行政法身份、规模与组织形式、与区县人民政府职能部门的关系等方面的变化。这些变化意味着行政执法权全面下移属于执法权配置的结构性变迁,因而只能在组织法框架下探寻其解决之道。具体而言,应当通过《地方各级人民代表大会和地方各级人民政府组织法》的修改赋予镇街执法主体资格,在此基础上以行政法规、地方性法规等形式安排镇街机构设置与人员编制,理顺镇街执法与县(市、区)职能部门的关系,并为镇街执法提供必要的财政保障。     

Supreme Court to Hear Landmark Case on Climate Change Emissions: Judgment Day Comes in Global Warming Litigation

The Supreme Court has historically been reluctant to involve itself in environmental matters, especially those relating to the regulation of releases or emissions of harmful substances. The court has typically been content to allow the legislative branch to fashion appropriate regulations to address environmental issues and for the executive branch to enforce those regulations. The acceptance of certiorari in the Second Circuit's Connecticut v. AEP case was a surprise because it not only involves environmental regulation, but also the common law applicable to public nuisance actions seeking redress for climate change damage allegedly caused by emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). The AEP case is shaping up to be a blockbuster in the climate change debate in the United States, and the decision could have broad repercussions in not only future litigation involving climate change, but also GHG legislation and the insurance available to address damage due to weather-related events.     

Sustaining the State: Legal Consciousness and the Construction of Legality in Competing Abortion Activists' Narratives

This article investigates how activists involved in both sides of the street politics of abortion simultaneously create, are constrained by, and use law when recounting a period of conflict that resulted in litigation. The activists‐turned‐litigants' construction of legality is explored by identifying and analyzing patterns of inclusion, absence, amendment, and type of law (i.e., state or extrastate) in and across the stories they tell. It is found that even though there are multiple reasons to expect all of these activists to resist or amend the state's conception of law, their narratives ultimately reproduce state law's legitimacy and power. The activists' stories also illustrate that legal consciousness is contextually and experientially based and is therefore subject to change. This finding has implications for legal mobilization as well as for the nature of legal consciousness.     

Returning to the Past: The South Australian Colonisation Commission,the Colonial Office and Aboriginal Title

In the closing decades of the twentieth century many scholars sought to both address and redress the ways in which indigenous people's rights in land had been treated historically by colonisers in Anglophone settler societies. More recently, this work has been criticised by a new generation of legal historians who have sought to delineate more carefully the role that the law actually played in the treatment of aboriginal title in the past. In keeping with the latter approach, this article seeks to recover the manner in which the indigenous people's interests in land were treated in the British colony of South Australia at the time it was founded in the early-to-mid nineteenth century. It emphasises the manner in which the colonisers, the South Australian Colonisation Commission, rather than the British Colonial Office, deployed a range of legal arguments, especially in the context of political negotiations between these two parties. It concludes that the imperial government's treatment of indigenous interests in land was primarily determined by its perception of the relationships of power on the ground between the colonial state, the settlers and the Aboriginal people rather than by its application of any particular legal principle or norm.     

Punishment's Legal Templates: A Theory of Formal Penal Change

The well‐known gap between law on the books and law in action often casts doubt on the significance of changes to law on the books. For example, the rise and fall of penal technologies have long been considered significant indicators of penal change in socio‐historical analyses of punishment. Recent research, however, has challenged the significance of apparently large‐scale penal change of this kind. This article clarifies the significance of penal technologies' rise and fall by offering an alternative account of formal penal change, introducing the analytical concept of “legal templates,” structural models of legal activity (e.g., punishment) available for authorization and replication across multiple jurisdictions. Analyzing punishment's templates explains how new penal technologies can be important harbingers of change, even when they fail to revolutionize penal practice and are not caused by a widespread ideological shift. This article locates the significance of punishment's legal templates in their constitutive power—their ability, over the long term, to shape cognitive‐cultural expectations about what punishment is or should be. This power appears only when the template is widely adopted by a plurality of jurisdictions, thereby becoming institutionalized. Ultimately, these institutionalized templates define the scope of future punishment.     

Two Properties, One Land: Law and Space in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand

If we use the word land to refer to the physical substance, and reserve the word property for the intellectual apparatus that organizes rights to use land, we can say that in colonial New Zealand, the British and the Maori overlaid two dissimilar systems of property on the same land. That difference in legal thought structured each side's perception of what the other was doing, in ways that illustrate unusually clearly the power of law to organize our aware' ness of phenomena before they reach the level of consciousness. Over the course of the nineteenth century, as the balance of power gradually swung to the side of the British, they were largely able to impose their property system on the Maori. The centrality of property within the thought of both peoples, however, meant that the transformation of Maori into English property rights involved much more than land. Religious belief, engagement with the market economy, political organization–all were bound up in the systems by which both peoples organized property rights in land. To anglicize the Maori property system was to revolutionize Maori life.