司法独立与司法行政化的界限

司法独立原则是一项为现代法治国家所普遍承认和确立的原则,是司法公正的根本保障,而我国司法制度中的司法存在征行政化的倾向,成为我国现行司法制度中的一个特点,也是近年来为许多学者所诟病的司法制度的一大弊端。本文从司法独立理论的要求出发,确立司法行政化的合理界限。有利于人们认清司法独立的内在含义,能够使人们对司法行政化有理性的认识,消除对司法行政化盲目的排斥心理。     

论司法独立与司法监督

司法独立与司法监督是既矛盾又统一。司法独立要求排除一切干扰,司法监督力图渗透到司法内部加以干扰,但两者的共同价值在于实现司法正义,在根本目的上是统一的。我国存在着党、人大、社会舆论、司法机关内部等各种监督,这些监督方式存在一定的不足。通过司法体制改革,司法独立与司法监督能够"和谐"并处,真正实现司法公平,我国最终必然能够成为真正的法治国家。     

世纪沉浮:司法独立的思想与制度变迁——以司法现代化为视角的考察

司法独立作为现代法治的一项基本原则 ,是司法现代化的形式合理性表征 ,是衡量一个国家法治文明程度的重要标尺。以司法现代化为视角 ,考察 2 0世纪中国司法独立的百年曲折历程 ,勾勒近现代中国司法独立思想的形成与确立 ;从清末变法修律这一司法现代化的历史起点 ,探讨中国司法独立的制度发端及其得失 ;分析其内在矛盾及其制约因素。当代中国的司法独立历经了勃兴与衰落、反思与改革、重构与进步的艰难发展历程。透过这世纪沉浮 ,折射出司法独立的思想与制度变迁脉络 ,从而揭示这一变迁的实质和内在规律性。     

论司法改革

司法改革的关键在于司法独立,而司法独立的前提是权力分立与制衡,而从中国司法的传统和现状来看,司法权始终是行政权的附庸。司法改革的突破依赖于人们从观念上认识到司法独立与加强党的领导在根本上是一致的,进而从政治体制改革入手,确立可以与行政权相抗衡的强大司法权,并在制度上保障法官的独立性。     

论联邦党人的司法独立思想——兼对我国司法改革的借鉴意义

司法独立问题不但是一个司法制度范围内的问题,也是诉讼法制领域的研究对象,它还是涉及宪政关于国家权力如何配置的根本问题。本文通过对《联邦党人文集》的研习,分析了联邦党人对司法独立的阐述,探求了近现代意义上的西方独立的司法系统之构建要素,并在此基础上,通过比较分析的方法对我国司法独立改革建设提出了相关建议。     

司法独立结构分析与司法改革

完整的司法独立是由外部结构、内部结构和上下结构构成的三重结构。外部结构的核心是法院独立;内部结构的核心是法官独立;上下结构的核心是审级独立。应该在司法独立的三重结构理念基础上,推进目前的司法体制改革,逐步实现完整的司法独立。     

司法监督的功能及制度设计（下）——检察院民事行政案件抗诉与人大个案监督的制度比较

(一)司法民主、司法监督与司法独立：在现代司法理念中，司法独立与司法民主是并行不悖的。司法民主，是现代法治社会对司法制度建构和运作的一种正当性要求和原则，即：司法权的行使应该受到人民的制约，司法活动应该有民众的参与，司法的运作应该受到人民的评价，司法人员应该受到人民的监督。司法民主是实现司法独立的前提要求，其实现途径是多方面的，包括司法严格适用法律，司法权限的节制，议会对司法官人事任免、财政预算等方面的制约和保障，陪审、参审制，以及公众和媒体等对法官行为的日常监督，等等。     

现代司法理念与我国司法管理体制的重构

司法理念决定着人们的行为方式,决定着制度的价值方向。现代司法理念是人们在认识司法客观规律过程中形成的一系列科学的基本观念,是支配人们在司法过程中的思维和行动的意识形态和精神指导,包括司法中立、司法独立、司法公正、司法效率、司法民主等。我国的司法管理制度缺乏的就是现代司法理念的支撑,存在许多与现代司法理念冲突的地方。因此,必须以现代司法理念为指导,重构我国的司法管理体制。     

略论南京国民政府时期司法经费的筹划管理对司法改革的影响

司法改革 ,离不开足够的经济保障 ;司法独立 ,必需有可供司法机关独立支配的经费。南京国民政府时期 ,司法改革缺乏厚实的经济支撑。司法经费由省库拨付时 ,深受地方行政势力牵制 ;1 94 1年以后 ,改由国库拨付 ,适逢国难当头 ,经费难以及时到位 ;抗战胜利后 ,又值恶性通货膨胀 ,经济全面崩溃 ,司法经费朝不保夕。地方行政干预司法 ,妨害了司法独立 ;司法经费不足 ,降低了司法人员的生活待遇 ,影响他们安心本职工作 ,操守有亏者则会利用经费管理漏洞 ,上下其手 ,弄法害民。经费问题既是国民政府司法改革的瓶颈和司法独立的障碍 ,也是司法腐败的渊薮之一。如何处理好司法经费与司法改革的关系 ,南京国民政府留下的经验教训 ,当今社会足资为鉴。     

我们需要什么样的司法民主

民主的主要含义不是主体意义上的,而是一套保障人的尊严的制度与规范体系,司法民主是与此相关的要素的综合。由于对司法民主作大民主式的误读,产生了长期将司法民主与大众司法等同、将司法民主与司法职业化和司法独立对立起来的认识。这一认识上的偏差已经对中国的司法产生了严重误导,甚至可能会促使司法改革倒退。历史和现实都告诉我们,大众司法就其主要倾向是非民主的。司法职业化和司法独立是司法现代化的产物,它们是司法民主的必要条件。我国的司法民主化建设必须抓住以下几点:坚持司法职业化的方向;实行人民陪审员制度的人民化;提高司法规范的民主含量,将宪法规范的民主权利迅速具体化;进行司法独立的制度建设,使司法真正能担当起人权守护神的重任。     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.