转型中国的法律体系建构

按照中国执政者依法治国的施政蓝图,到2010年中国将形成自己的法律体系,立足于这样一个重要时点的临近,本文以中国政府尤其是立法机关关于法律体系建设的认识和实践为基本线索,探讨了中国社会转型背景下法律体系建设的整体思路和布局问题。文章将迄今为止中国政府在法律体系认识和实践上的主要技术特征概括为四个方面,即理性主义的建构思路、国家主义色彩、立法中心-行政配合的运作模式,以及简约主义的风格,认为这些特征在集合意义上铸就了当下中国在法律体系建设上的某种封闭性质;主张就此进行深入反思,并从转型中国社会法治秩序形成的原理和要求出发,树立一种关于中国特色法律体系构建的开放性思考,作出相应的制度安排。     

论清代皇帝决策的法律机制

中国古代,皇权与中央权力集中体现为皇帝决策权.清代统治者借鉴汉唐宋明历代政治法律实践的经验教训,并根据自身的治国理政需要,构建具有鲜明特色的皇帝决策法律机制.首先,基于"皇权无上限"的原则,法律明确规定皇帝的决策权范围,赋予各级机构对于皇帝决策权范围之外相关事项的直接决定权.其次,法律严格设定"本章批答""御门听政"两...     

A Reasonable Balance of Law and Sentiment: Social Order in Democratic Taiwan from the Policeman's Point of View

Taiwan's political democratization has engendered a contradiction in its legal regime: consolidation of rule of law at the macro-institutional level is matched by the persistent marginalization of legal authority in ground-level social practices. This article uses an ethnographic study of neighborhood police to explore certain practical and structural elements involved in maintaining this contradictory sociopolitical order. I examine some of the processes through which state authority is invoked and applied to the policing of public space, focusing on the ideals of legitimacy that animate these processes. The argument of the article is that historical and cultural factors embodied in contemporary Taiwan's "idea of police"—exemplified in the trope of a balance between reason, law, and sentiment—are crucial to understanding how solidification of the rule of law within state institutions is kept within the boundaries of a social sensibility that does not take law as the last word.     

Law, Struggle, and Political Transformation in Northern Ireland

This article analyses the role of law as an element of the Republican Movement's violent and political struggle during the Northern Ireland conflict. The trials and legal hearings of paramilitary defendants, the use of judicial reviews in the prisons, and the use of law in the political arena are chosen as three interconnected sites which highlight the complex interaction between law and other forms of struggle. The author argues that these three sites illustrate a number of themes in understanding the role of law in processes of struggle and political transformation. These include: law as a series of dialogical processes both inside and outside a political movement; law as an instrumental process of struggle designed to materially and symbolically 'resist'; and the constitutive effects of legal struggle upon a social and political movement. The article concludes with a discussion as to whether or not Republicans' emphasis upon 'rights and equality' and an end to armed struggle represents a 'sell out' of traditional Republican objectives.     

Caught in an Authoritarian Trap of Its Own Making? Brazil's ‘Lava Jato’ Anti-Corruption Investigation and the Politics of Prosecutorial Overreach

The negative and corrosive impacts of corruption in the fields of economics, politics, and law are widely discussed. Less understood are the potentially negative impacts of anti-corruption struggles and strategies themselves. This article presents a case study of Brazil's ‘Car Wash’ (‘Lava Jato’) scandal from a legal and political perspective. Although the subsequent Operation Car Wash investigation was widely regarded as remarkably successful, supposedly buttressing the rule of law through high-profile prosecutions of leading politicians and businesspersons, the article argues that legal due process, wider constitutional law, and the political process were undermined. While the use of media leaks to strengthen the investigation proved tactically successful, when coupled with new legal instruments it undermined the presumption of innocence and contributed to a climate in which political and legal debates themselves became increasingly subordinated to simplistic polarizing anti-corruption discourses, thereby undermining an already fragile political and institutional environment.     

The European Brotherhood of Lawyers: The Reinvention of Legal Science in the Making of European Private Law

Against the historical backdrop of the codification debate in nineteenth century Germany, this article traces the reassertion of "legal science" as an autonomous source of European legal integration in current legal and political discourse about the harmonization of European private law. The article argues that a grasp of widely shared ideas about the role and function of legal science and legal scientists is vital both toward an understanding of the extraordinary impact of the academic project of a European civil code on legal and political discourse in the Union in particular, and toward furthering the theory of legal fields in general.     

市、县政府法制部门职能作用发挥问题研究

推进依法行政、建设法治政府是新时期政府工作的重点。政府法制部门作为推进依法行政工作的综合协调机构,其职能作用发挥的范围和程度至关重要。本文试从市、县政府法制部门的职能、定位着手,阐明基层法制部门在法制系统、主体业务、促进政府依法行政、维持社会稳定方面的重要作用,对市、县法制部门存在的职能授权不充足、基础工作不到位、权力使用不规范、价值发挥不充分等问题进行了探讨,并有针对性地提出了一些建议,以期促进市、县法制部门职能作用发挥的最大化。     

Paradise Lost...: The Meaning of Modernity and the Antinomy of the Law

This essay argues for the centrality of the study of paradoxes of particularity and universality in the interface between law and politics in modernity. Particularly, in order to understand the process of constitution of a political collective and the role of supernumerary elements that re-enter a constituted legal-political system. After introducing the question of paradoxes or antinomies in the relation between law and politics in modernity, the essay engages with current understandings of exceptionalism and the possibility of a leftist or ‘real’ suspension of the law. In order to do so, this essay makes full use of certain theoretical tools developed in anthropological accounts of political and legal processes, and current French-oriented and Latin American political philosophy.     

行政法视野中的金融危机及其应对

行政法在应对金融危机中的作用,主要通过规范政府的行政行为体现出来.行政法能够及时通过立法确认和保障政府宏观调控经济、整顿市场秩序的职权;能够督促政府积极转换职能,提高危机管理水平;能够有效稳定市场秩序,确保交易公平,规范权力运作.因此,在行政法学研究中应积极引入现代公共危机管理理论,健全行政法制,提高政府应对风险的能力.     

政府诚信与信赖利益保护

一个政府要在全社会建立起良好的信用氛围,它首先必须自己是一个信用的政府。而要使政府诚信于民,重要的是将政府的权力运行纳入法制轨道。政府诚信也因此不仅仅是一种抽象的道义要求,更是一种具体的法律义务。《行政许可法》第八条规定标志着信赖利益保护原则在我国法律中得到了确认,对建设诚信政府和法治政府具有深远意义。但我国对信赖利益保护制度尚缺乏足够法律构建,诚信政府的法制建设也有待于进一步完善。     

认真对待软法——公域软法的一般理论及其中国实践

我国最近20多年的公域之治一直在实践着一种软硬兼施的混合法结构,这在相当程度上彰显出民主政治与法治建设的中国特色。本文认为,包含着大量本土性制度资源的“软法”,是一种法律效力结构未必完整、无需依靠国家强制保障实施、但能够产生社会实效的法律规范。软法与硬法同为法律的一种基本表现形式,它以不同于硬法的方式体现法律的基本特征、实现法律的主要功能,并具有严格区别于硬法的个性特征与独特功能。软法与硬法大致具有法律逻辑上的错综复杂、法律功能上的优势互补、法律规范上的相互转化三种基本关系。软硬兼施的混合法模式乃是我国解决公共问题的基本模式,这就要求我国公法学回应公域之治的现实需要,在对软法作用加以客观评析的基础上,研究探讨全面提升公域软法的理性品质,并按照宪政精神与法治原则的要求推动中国公法朝着软硬兼施的混合法结构方向发展,旨在全面实现公域之治与法治目标。     

Singapore's Culture War over Section 377A: Through the Lens of Public Choice and Multilingual Research

The 2007 debate over the retention of Singapore's male sodomy law provision set off a vigorous and passionate public debate reminiscent of the US culture war. However, the Singapore government's final decision reflects an interesting compromise. The law was retained, but its moral content was severely curtailed. This article critically examines this episode and explores the political dynamics driving the compromise. Enriching public choice theory on interest group capture, this article argues that the ruling party's political dominance coupled with limited but real political competition is surprisingly effective in aligning the government's position with the preference of the majority despite concerted pressure from well‐mobilized minority interest groups. Current legal scholarly work on this debate has focused on the “vigorous debate” in the English‐language forums. In this article, the examination of the contemporaneous discourse in Chinese and Malay newspapers enables a more accurate and comprehensive appreciation of this culture war episode.     

Prosecuting and Defending Diplomats as War Criminals: Ribbentrop at the Nuremberg Trials

This article considers the question of holding foreign ministers responsible for war crimes. A recent decision by the International Court of Justice, the Arrest Warrant case, Congo v Belgium, appears to have diluted the developing international customary rule that suspends immunity when a grave international crime has been committed. This article suggests that the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal decision in the Ribbentrop Case constitutes a precedent for how international criminal law should interpret the nature and scope of the immunity for foreign ministers. As a successful prosecution of Hitler’s former foreign minister, it is remarkable how little attention has been paid to this aspect of the Ribbentrop Case given that it was a path-breaking decision. For that reason, the present article is a case study of this example where prosecutors at an international criminal tribunal were able to successfully prosecute a foreign minister in a manner that may, therefore, still prove instructive given the existing legal position following the Arrest Warrant Case. The article considers in detail how Ribbentrop’s defence lawyers constructed a series of arguments that the prosecution were, however, largely able to demolish through resort to a variety of strategies. Dr Michael Salter is Professor of Law at the Lancashire Law School, University of Central Lancashire, United Kingdom; Dr Lorie Charlesworth is Senior Lecturer at the Law School, Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom.     

Reassessing the Feminist Theoretical Project in Law

This article seeks to address the current state of theoretical debate within feminist legal studies in the United Kingdom and beyond. It is part map, part critique of dominant theoretical trends – an attempt to identify and explore a range of questions about feminist scholarly engagement in law, including the relationship between academic feminism and political activism, the distinction (if any) between 'feminist' analyses and broader engagements with law and gender, and the normative underpinnings of feminist legal scholarship. The author makes no pretence to neutrality on these issues, questioning the perceived 'drift' between political and academic feminism, and arguing strongly for the recognition and realization of feminism's normative and transformative aspirations. Similarly, she challenges the emergence of an 'anti-essentialist' norm in feminist discourse, and reaffirms the value of 'women-centred' feminist approaches. Finally, this article is also a personal venture, a 'stock-taking' exercise which seeks to interrogate the author's own understanding of what feminist legal work entails.     

Objectives of Russian law schools today: what is the “ideal jurist”?

ABSTRACT

This article describes how Russian law schools understand their objectives today and whether there is an ideal model of a jurist to which law schools should conform. Different qualitative methods were used in this study, including a review of the post-Soviet legal education reforms, analysis of regulations governing higher legal education, analysis of websites, and expert semi-structured interviews with heads of law schools. The results demonstrate the difficulties faced by law schools, which are forced to balance the state standards of higher education and external legal, social, economic, and political challenges. The study concludes that law schools are experiencing serious difficulties with respect to understandings of their objectives as well as the current redefinition of the normative ideal model of a jurist. The study also makes it possible to draw conclusions about the importance of legal knowledge, different ways of understanding prestige in the legal profession, and the revival of features of the Soviet model of the “ideal jurist.”     

Rights as a Divide‐and‐Rule Mechanism: Lessons from the Case of Palestinians in Israeli Custody

Critics have highlighted the complicity of human rights law in mass disempowerment and domination—a criticism equally applicable to child law. This article investigates this issue, as evidenced by three recent developments that Israel has justified by invoking these legal frameworks: an increased separation of Palestinian adults and children in Israeli custody; the Israeli legal system's growing preoccupation with “rehabilitating” the now‐segregated Palestinian children; and the Israeli authorities' ever‐diminishing interest in such rehabilitation for adult Palestinian prisoners. By canvassing the legal architecture, judicial rationalizations, adverse effects, and sociopolitical context of these developments, this article foregrounds their divide‐and‐rule logic and structure of driving a generational wedge between Palestinians and potentially weakening their political ties, solidarity, and resistance.     

Intracultural Awareness in Legal Language—Silvio Berlusconi’s Iconography of Law

Against the assumption that legal and normative systems are coextensive with geopolitical units and national spaces, the article advocates for the need to study how different legal and normative semiospheres, within the same geopolitical unit and national space, often give rise to ‘normolects’ that are transversal to socio-economic classes, ethnicities, and cultural lifestyles. The concept of legal and normative ‘imaginaries’ is useful to come to terms with the legal and normative semiotic ideology of such normolects, including their non-verbal dimension and legal-normative semiotic ideologies. More generally, the article prompts legal scholars, and particularly semioticians of law, not to focus exclusively on inter-cultural awareness in legal-normative language but to concentrate also on intra-cultural awareness. As a case study, the article analyses a drawing through which the former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi visualized and advertised for a bill of reform of the Italian judicial system by his Minister of Justice, Angelino Alfano. The semiotic analysis of this visual artifact casts new light on the controversial political and judicial figure of Mr Berlusconi. The drawing is read as a visual embodiment of the conflict between two different legal and normative ideologies within the present-day Italian political and judicial arena. The paradoxes that underpin this iconography of law and mar a rational confrontation of legal-normative arguments in contemporary Italy are uncovered.     

The Fluid Jurisprudence of Israel's Emergency Powers: Legal Patchwork as a Governing Norm

Israel's long‐standing state of emergency has had considerable bearing on the state's governance. Less known, but equally important, is the fact that Israel's legal system features several overlapping and incoherent emergency legal mechanisms that exist side by side. This article demonstrates that Israel's ever‐shifting body of emergency law has been used to suit its governing authorities’ political ends. A chief goal has been to create flexibility in the application of law in order to systematically discriminate against Palestinians while maintaining a degree of legitimacy as a government by law. With these various emergency legal mechanisms available, Israel's governing officials can extend the authorities of discrete emergency regulations by mixing and matching laws or by moving freely from one legal mechanism to the next to serve desired ends. This article argues further that what may have started as a pragmatic solution quickly became programmatic and concerted. Thus, contrary to the conception that Israel's convoluted emergency jurisprudence is the accidental outcome of trying times, Israel's complex emergency jurisprudence is in fact a governing tool. This reality compels us to consider new analytical frameworks in which a state of emergency is an enduring condition. To this end, this article draws on the work of colonial law scholars. By analyzing jurisdictional complexity in contexts where emergency is dominant, these studies explain the political motivation for maintaining structured ambiguity.     

关于建设法治政府的几点思考

国务院《全面推进依法行政实施纲要》确立了建设法治政府的目标 ,要实现这一目标 ,必须转变政府职能 ,改变行政管理体制。只有科学界定和依法规范职能 ,才能真正建设“有限”和“有为”政府 ;只有改变行政管理体制 ,才能为依法行政提供制度保障