论法院在行政案件审理中的证明责任配置权

行政案件中的证明责任配置权,是指将证明责任在行政案件当事人间加以合理分配的权力。学界通说认为,行政案件中的证明责任只能由立法机关来配置。然而,法院却已在现实地行使该项职权,而且这种权力的行使也已获得实定法的明确认可。这背后蕴含了对一般司法规律和行政诉讼制度特性的综合学理考量。质言之,赋予法院在行政诉讼具体案件中配置证明责任的权力有其事实、规范和学理上的依据。同时,结合我国法律移植的传统和当前所面临的法治实践状况,法院在行政案件中配置当事人间证明责任的权力又应有其限度。因此,我们应当坚持在实定法规定证明责任基本分配规则的前提下,赋予法院适度的证明责任配置权。     

论行政诉讼缺席判决制度的目的、功能和司法理想

改造完善行政诉讼缺席判决制度必须解决的三个基本理论问题:行政诉讼缺席判决制度的目的、功能和司法理想。缺席判决制度的设立目的是为人民法院在缺席行政案件审理中运用审判权提供程序保障,维护法律尤其是司法的尊严;缺席判决制度的功能应当是控制缺席情形的发生,保障诉讼当事人的合法权利,保证司法审查权通过诉讼程序得到实现;理想的缺席判决制度应当是能为当事人所理解的具有正当性和高效性的制度。     

再论扩大我国行政诉讼的司法变更权

在我国,司法变更权实际上是国家权力机关以法律的形式赋予人民法院的职权,是国家权力的具体配置。目前我国行政诉讼的司法变更权适用范围过窄,扩大行政诉讼司法变更权有利于充分保障相对人的合法权益,实现对行政权的全面监督,是依法行政、建设社会主义法治国家的需要。     

略论行政诉讼证据交换制度及其完善

最高人民法院《关于行政诉讼证据若干问题的规定》第一次规定了行政诉讼中的证据交换制度。这是近几年来我国司法制度改革 ,尤其是行政诉讼制度进一步完善的重要成果。证据交换制度在改变行政诉讼中的“证据随时提出主义” ,进一步确立“证据适时提出主义” ;实现当事人的地位平等 ;提高行政诉讼效率 ;促进行政诉讼从现行的超职权主义模式向以当事人主义为主的模式转变等方面具有重要的意义。但是 ,现有的规定在交换的范围、交换的原则、交换的程序、交换的方式、交换的时间等方面 ,尚需进一步完善。     

《权力结构中的行政诉讼》出版

<正>国家行政学院杨伟东教授撰写的《权力结构中的行政诉讼》已由北京大学出版社出版。作者认为行政诉讼本质体现的是国家权力结构的设计,其存在和运作无不关涉权力的配置、冲突和协调。行政诉讼制度的变革,既需要从宏观上观察、反思甚至调整国家权力结构的整体配置,又要细致入微地分析行政     

民事诉讼举证时限制度的理论解析

2001年,举证时限这一颇具创新性的民事诉讼制度在饱受争议中出台。嗣后,理论研究者对其褒贬不一,司法实务部门的具体操作也各有不同。2012年修正通过的《中华人民共和国民事诉讼法》第65条规定的新举证时限制度在外观上是承前启后,实质上则是废旧迎新。举证时限制度中的举证,是指提出证据申请,对当事人提出的证据申请,人民法院应以证据裁定的方式予以回应。人民法院驳回当事人提出的证据申请,意在拒绝实施证据调查,而并非否定证据能力。法官在作出证据裁定时,除应考虑逾期这一因素外,还应斟酌其他情形。为保证新举证时限制度在与相关配套制度的衔接中实现功能最大化,应该在保障当事人的陈述权、明晰证据申请的撤回与放弃以及规制防御方法的提出等几个方面予以完善。     

论我国民事诉讼中的举证时限制度

举证时限制度，是指负有举证责任的当事人，未在法律规定或人民法院指定的期限内，向人民法院提交证明其主张的有关证据材料，即丧失提出该证据的权利，并承担因此而造成的法律后果的一种诉讼制度。举证时效制度是举证责任制度的有机组成部分，它通过时间上的限定，对当事人提出证据的权利进行合理限制，给负有举证责任的当事人一种外来的时间上的和不利后果上的压力，能够督促当事人积极履行举证责任，为求得胜诉而主动调查收集证据并及时向法院提出其所拥有的全部诉讼证据，为法院顺利开庭集中审理提供了充分条件。当事人若不在限定的期限内举证，将失去证据的提出权和证明权，即承担举证责任的败诉风险，举证时限从而成为是否承担不利裁判风险的临界点。     

法官的诉请变更告知义务在实践中的问题及其完善

2001年底最高人民法院颁布了《关于民事诉讼证据的若干规定》(以下简称《证据规定》)初步确立了释明权制度。第35条规定:“诉讼过程中,当事人主张的法律关系的性质或者民事行为的效力与人民法院根据案件事实作出的认定不一致的,不受本规定第34条规定的限制,人民法院应当告知当事人可以变更诉讼请求。当事人变更诉讼请求的,人民法院应当重新指定举证期限。”这是对法官的诉请变更告知义务的规定。这一制度的建立     

行政机关证据失权制度的理解与适用

【裁判要旨】如果第三人能够提供相应证据或者申请人民法院依职权调取相应证据从而证明被诉行政行为合法,则人民法院应当认定被诉行政行为有相应的证据,而不应直接作出其违法的认定。如果当事人主张的其双方之间的民事争议的认定对于行政登记是否正确合法具有关键影响,即当事人之间民事争议的认定能够直接决定行政登记是否正确合法的,则人民法院可以参照行政诉讼法第六十一条所规定的行政诉讼一并解决相关民事争议制度,对相关民事争议在行政诉讼中一并审理解决,并在此基础上认定相关行政登记行为是否合法。     

略论举证时限制度

我国审判方式改革的不断深入,对证据制度产生了多方面的影响和要求,理论界和司法实践部门对证据制度的研究也越来越深入和细化,证据法的制定亦已提上议事日程。民事诉讼中的举证时限,作为证据制度中一个很重要的问题,也引起广泛关注,笔者对此问题略抒管见。 一．我国证据提出时限的立法与司法现状 举证时限,是举证责任制度的重要组成部分,是指当事人必须在一定期限内举证方为有效,超过一定期限举证,人民法院可不予采纳。举证责任的本质是在民事诉讼中如何配置举证负担的一项法律制度,从时限这一角度分析应理解为当事人应在一定的…     

Bhartṛhari and Maṇḍana on Avidyā

The concept of avidyā is one of the central categories in the Advaita of Śaṇkara and Maṇḍana. Shifting the focus from māyā, interpreted either as illusion or as the divine power, this concept brings ignorance to the forefront in describing duality and bondage. Although all Advaitins accept avidyā as a category, its scope and nature is interpreted in multiple ways. Key elements in Maṇḍana’s philosophy include the plurality of avidyā, individual selves as its substrate and the Brahman as its field (viṣaya), and the distinction in avidyā between non-apprehension and misapprehension. A closer investigation shows that Maṇḍana is directly influenced by Bhartṛhari’s linguistic non-dualism in developing the concept of avidyā. This study also compares other key constituents such as vivartta and pariṇāma that are relevant to the analysis of avidyā. As the concept of counter-image (pratibimba) emerges as a distinct stream of Advaita subsequent to Maṇḍana, this study also compares the application of pratibimba in the writings of Bhartṛhari and Maṇḍana.     

Immigration,intermarriage and the changing face of Europe in the post war period

In this article we compare the propensity to intermarry of various migrant groups and their children who settled in Germany, France, England, Belgium and the Netherlands in the post-war period, using a wide range of available statistical data. We try to explain different intermarriage patterns within the framework of Alba and Nee's assimilation theory and pay special attention to the role of religion, colour and colonial background. We therefore compare colonial with non colonial migrants and within these categories between groups with ‘European’ (Christian) and non-European (Islam, Hinduism) religions. First of all, religion appears to be an important variable. Migrants whose faith has no tradition in Western Europe intermarry at a much lower rate than those whose religious backgrounds correspond with those that are common in the country of settlement. The rate of ethnic endogamous marriages in Western Europe are highest in Hindu and Muslim communities, often regardless if they came as guest workers or colonial migrants. Whereas differences in religion diminish the propensity to intermarry, colour or ‘racial’ differences on the other hand seem to be less important. This is largely explained by the pre-migration socialisation. Furthermore, the paper argues that the attention to institutions, as rightly advocated by Richard Alba and Victor Nee, needs a more refined and layered elaboration. Institutions, often as barriers to intermarriage, do not only emanate from the receiving society, but also—be it less formalized—within migrant communities. Especially religions and family systems, but also organized nationalist feelings, can have a profound influence on how migrants think about endogamy. Finally, strong pressures to assimilate, often through institutionalized forms of discrimination and stigmatization, not only produce isolation and frustrate assimilation (with resulting low intermarriage rates), but can also stimulate assimilation by 'passing' mechanisms. These factors, together with a more comparative perspective, are not completely ignored in the new assimilation theory, but—as this study of Western European intermarriage patterns stresses—deserve to be included more systematically in historical and social scientist analyses.     

Unraveling the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Kāvyaprakāśa</Emphasis>: Jayadeva Pīyūṣavarṣa’s idiosyncratic sequence of topics in the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Candrāloka</Emphasis>

In his twelfth century alaṃkāraśāstra, the Candrāloka, Jayadeva Pīyūṣavarṣa reverses the sequence of topics found in Mammaṭa’s Kāvyapr-akāśa, an earlier and immensely popular work. With such a structural revisionism, Jayadeva asserts the autonomy of his own work and puts forth an ambitious critique of earlier approaches to literary analysis. Jayadeva investigates the technical and aesthetic components of poetry in the first part of the Candrāloka, prior to his formal semantic investigations in the latter half of the text, thus suggesting that aesthetic evaluations of poetry beneficially inform scientific investigations of language. Jayadeva’s organization of his chapters on the semantic operations, moreover, intimates that the study of suggestive and metaphoric functions of language clarifies our understanding of denotation, which is conventionally understood to be the primary and direct path of verbal designation.     

Turning a Madhyamaka Trick: Reply to Huntington

Huntington (2007); argues that recent commentators (Robinson, 1957; Hayes, 1994; Tillemans, 1999; Garfield and Priest, 2002) err in attributing to Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti a commitment to rationality and to the use of argument, and that these commentators do violence to the Madhyamaka project by using rational reconstruction in their interpretation of Nāgārjuna’s and Candrakīrti’s texts. Huntington argues instead that mādhyamikas reject reasoning, distrust logic and do not offer arguments. He also argues that interpreters ought to recuse themselves from argument in order to be faithful to these texts. I demonstrate that he is wrong in all respects: Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti deploy arguments, take themselves to do so, and even if they did not, we would be wise to do so in commenting on their texts.     

Illumination,Imagination, Creativity: Rājaśekhara,Kuntaka, and Jagannātha on <Emphasis Type="Italic">Pratibhā</Emphasis>

Sanskrit poeticians make the visionary faculty of pratibhā a necessary part of the professional poet’s make-up. The term has a pre-history in Bhartṛhari’s linguistic metaphysics, where it is used to explain the unitary perception of meaning. This essay examines the relation between pratibhā and possible theories of the imagination, with a focus on three unusual theoreticians—Rājaśekhara, Kuntaka, and Jagannātha Paṇḍita. Rājaśekhara offers an analysis of pratibhā that is heavily interactive, requiring the discerning presence of the bhāvaka listener or critic; he also positions pratibhā in relation to Bildung (vyutpatti) and practice. For Kuntaka, pratibhā, never an ex nihilo creation by a poet, serves as the basis for the peculiar forms of intensified insight and experience that constitute poetry; these may also involve the creative scrambling and re-articulation of the object in terms of its systemic composition. At times, Kuntaka’s pratibhā comes close to a strong notion of imaginative process. But the full-fledged thematization of the imagination, and of pratibhā as its support and mechanism, is best seen in the seventeenth-century debates preserved for us by Jagannātha. A link is suggested between the discourse of poetic imagination in Jagannātha and similar themes that turn up in Indo-Persian poets such as Bedil.     

Preventing Homelessness for System‐Involved Youth

Too many youth and young adults find themselves on the streets, couch‐surfing with friends, in emergency shelters or worse, after exiting the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. In some circumstances, youth have had court hearings until their exit from the legal system, but those hearings have not focused on long‐range plans of youth and emergencies youth may encounter. In other circumstances, there has been little or no planning prior to discharge, especially for young people who leave the juvenile justice system. Courts can and should prevent, alleviate or end youth homelessness for youth who appear before them through strategies that are enumerated in the recently‐passed NCJFCJ resolution. This article expounds on three of these strategies – coordinating transition and re‐entry plans, insisting on effective legal representation of youth, and utilizing sound judicial leadership. It also describes the concurrent efforts of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice and the American Bar Association's Homeless Youth Legal Network to remove legal barriers and improve outcomes for youth and young adults experiencing homelessness.     

Best practices for structuring a family court parenting plan evaluation under the 2022 AFCC Guidelines

Evaluation appointment orders provide enforceable scaffolding for conduct of family court parenting plan evaluations, and use of the evaluator's reports, feedback, file, and testimony. Unlike a contract, a stipulated or adjudicated appointment order is directly enforceable by the family court. It unambiguously positions the evaluator as the family court's appointee – answerable directly to the court and, in some jurisdictions, protected by quasi-judicial immunity from damages claims. A well-crafted appointment order governs the roles and expectations of the court, the evaluator, the parties, the lawyers, and the collateral witnesses. An appointment order mandates the legal duties, rights, powers, and responsibilities of the professionals, the parties, and the collateral witnesses. At minimum, an appointment order articulates the legal basis for the appointment, the purpose and scope of the evaluation, compensation of evaluator, and the duty of the parties to participate in the process. A written evaluation protocol or procedures statement discloses in advance the methods of investigation and assessment that the evaluator intends to use. Together, the appointment order and written protocol help the evaluator, lawyers, parents, and judge manage the complexity of the evaluation process.     

The Supreme Array Scripture: A New Interpretation of the Title “Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra”

This article argues for a new interpretation of the Sanskrit compound gaṇḍa-vyūha as it is used in the common title of the Mahāyāna text the Gaṇḍavyūha-Sūtra.The author begins by providing a brief history of the sūtra’s appellations in Chinese and Tibetan sources. Next, the meanings of gaṇḍa (the problematic member of the compound) are explored. The author proposes that contemporary scholars have overlooked a meaning of gaṇḍa occurring in some compounds, wherein gaṇḍa can mean simply “great,” “big” or “massive.” This general sense is particularly common in the compound gaṇda-śaila (a “massive rock” or “boulder”) and is found in such texts as the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, the Harivaṃśa and the Harṣacarita. Following the discussion of Gaṇḍa, the author examines the term vyūha (“array”) as it is used in the Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra. The article concludes with the suggestion that a more appropriate translation of the Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra would be “The Supreme array Scripture.”     

The Mūlāvidyā Controversy Among Advaita Vedāntins: was Śaṅkara Himself Responsible?

The concept of avidyā or ignorance is central to the Advaita Vedāntic position of Śȧnkara. The post-Śaṅkara Advaitins wrote sub-commentaries on the original texts of Śaṅkara with the intention of strengthening his views. Over the passage of time the views of these sub-commentators of Śaṅkara came to be regarded as representing the doctrine of Advaita particularly with regard to the concept of avidyā. Swami Satchidanandendra Saraswati, a scholar-monk of Holenarsipur, challenged the accepted tradition through the publication of his work Mūlāvidyānirāsaḥ, particularly with regard to the avidyādoctrine. It was his contention that the post-Śaṅkara commentators brought their own innovations particularly on the nature of avidyā. This was the idea of mūlāvidyā or ‘root ignorance’, a positive entity which is the material cause of the phenomenal world. Saraswati argues that such an idea of mūlāvidyā is not to be found in the bhāṣyas (commentaries) of Śaṅkara and is foisted upon Śaṅkara. This paper attempts to show that although Śaṅkara may not have explicitly favoured such a view of mūlāvidyā, his lack of clarity on the nature of avidyā left enough scope for the post-Śaṅkara commentators to take such a position on avidyā.     

Evaluation of six presumptive tests for blood, their specificity, sensitivity, and effect on high molecular-weight DNA

Luminol, leuchomalachite green, phenolphthalein, Hemastix, Hemident, and Bluestar are all used as presumptive tests for blood. In this study, the tests were subjected to dilute blood (from 1:10,000 to 1:10,000,000), many common household substance, and chemicals. Samples were tested for DNA to determine whether the presumptive tests damaged or destroyed DNA. The DNA loci tested were D2S1338 and D19S433. Leuchomalachite green had a sensitivity of 1:10,000, while the remaining tests were able to detect blood to a dilution of 1:100,000. Substances tested include saliva, semen, potato, tomato, tomato sauce, tomato sauce with meat, red onion, red kidney bean, horseradish, 0.1 M ascorbic acid, 5% bleach, 10% cupric sulfate, 10% ferric sulfate, and 10% nickel chloride. Of all the substances tested, not one of the household items reacted with every test; however, the chemicals did. DNA was recovered and amplified from luminol, phenolphthalein, Hemastix, and Bluestar, but not from leuchomalachite green or Hemident.