论限政是有限政府与有效政府的统一

传统宪政理论认为限制权力是宪政的核心,宪政建设必须加强对权力的限制。但学者认为传统理论只看到了政府的恶性,片面地主张限制政治权力的范围和规模,排斥权力的广泛运用。而在当前的环境下这种限制不能是消极的,在防止权力"恶"的同时,还要发挥它"善"的作用,也只有这样防止它"恶"的目的才能更好的实现。限政应该包含有限政府和有效政府两个方面,二者之间是对立统一的关系,只有二者有机结合才能更好的实现政治权力的目的。     

宪政规律论

文章通过考察世界宪政发达史,从纷繁复杂的宪政现象和宪法规范中高度抽象地总结出宪政制度构建及其运作过程所具有的一般属性与普遍规律。认为就立宪规律而论,宪政经历了从人权立宪—政治立宪—经济立宪的漫长演进过程,并正向知识立宪过渡。而从单纯地控制国家权力发展到既控制权力、又保障权力高效、民主地运行,体现出一条普遍的行宪规律。护宪规律则集中地表现为：违宪审查活动从自发到自觉以至制度全面理性化;违宪审查主体从无组织到有组织以至组织机构专门化趋向;违宪审审查方式从多重混合审查模式趋近于司法诉讼程序化     

关于宪政的几个基本理论问题

宪政要义在于限制政治权力、保护个人自由和权利,而民主则主要解决政治权力的来源及其获得方式问题。为了达成一种宪法秩序,应在宪政与民主之间建立相互支持的关系。实行宪政的关键在于“良宪之治”,而非“宪政程序化”。     

坚守宪政秩序的生动实践——对地方人大立法规范行使重大事项决定权的解读

近几年,地方国家权力机关以立法或规范性文件对重大事项决定权的行使作出规范,它的价值不仅在于凸现了人大权威的回归,更重要的是宪政理念的彰显,对宪政秩序的认同和呵护。宪政秩序的题中诮有之义有学者指出,宪政应该被理解为:保障公民权利、维护国家权力良性运行的统一;政治秩序法律化,以政治权力在宪法范围内有序运行为标准;宪政的核心是依宪治国。国家权力机关讨论决定重大事项在宪政     

“看得见的宪政”:理解中国宪法的财政权力配置视角

如果说政治权力的配置是宪政体制的核心,那么作为任何政治共同体存活须臾离不开的血液,财政权力就是最不可或缺的政治权力,财政权力配置堪称所有政治体制大厦的根基。财政权力配置有自身对权力的政治分工和权力制约规则,财、人、事的合力决定着其他政治权力的运行机制及其实效。收入、支出、转移支付、预算、决算和审计六项制度及其运行机制组成的财政权力配置,以宪法、税法、预算法、转移支付法等宪法性法律为主要表现形式,是最可能"看得见的宪政",也是最关键的宪法实践。由是观之,1994年的中国分税制改革,前所未有地重新配置了共和国的财政权力,可以说是中国宪法实践的一次影响深远的重大转型。而围绕分税制改革及其实效、历时三十余年、今天仍在持续的社会大辩论,也表明有必要从静态宪法观转向动态宪法观,把宪政视为不断自我修补、永远臻于完善的动态过程,这将有助于发现鲜活的中国宪法规则。     

论我国行政诉讼制度的宪政价值

宪政的精义在于控制国家权力、保障公民权利。我国行政诉讼法的颁布和实施实现了宪法控制权力、保障权利的目的 ,行政诉讼制度的逐步完善将进一步实现上述宗旨 ,因此它十分切合宪政主义精神。如果说西方国家控制行政是其宪政体制的必然结果的话 ,那么在中国渐进式改革的政治背景下 ,从控制行政走向宪政也许构成了我国宪政发展的必由之路。     

代议制与公共财政——近代西方代议制宪政模式的形成及其作用机理分析

宪政包含着责任政府原则,其核心价值之一,就在于确保国家权力的公共性,以便保证国家权力用于公共服务。透视近代西方国家宪政的发展历程,就会注意到近代西方国家的宪政模式是代议制,而代议制宪政模式的作用机理又是与国家财政的公共化建构紧密联系在一起的。代议制既是近代西方国家的宪政模式,又是近代西方国家财政公共化建构的制度之基。因为,只有确保国家财政的公共化才能确保国家权力的公共性。这也正是近代西方宪政模式与其古典和中世纪时期宪政模式的不同之处:后者主要是通过司法来规制国王所代表的行政权力,表现为司法型宪政模式;而前者主要是通过议会对国家财政的公共化组建和监管,来实施对行政权力的政治规范和约束,表现为代议制型宪政模式。     

中国近代宪政文化概述

宪政是宪法发展过程中的重要概念之一,宪政强调国家权力的限制和防范,强调公民的参政权和政治程序。鸦片战争以降,中国宪政的理论与实践依照简单的理性逻辑,不断向西方借鉴,缓慢发展。在富国强兵的理想和救亡图存压力下,近代中国对宪政价值与宪政文化理解出现了偏错,使得中国近代宪政之路荆棘丛生、曲折坎坷,且这种实用主义与工具主义的思维模式影响中国的宪法实践至今。厘清中国近代宪政发展历程,反思中国近代宪政实践为何陷入困境,糅合中方传统政治模式与西方宪政文化,最终达到宪政文明。     

民国初期的“共和”观念

“共和”在近代西方宪政意义上是指这样一种政体 :政府的权力是直接或间接地由人民大众授予的 ,执掌政府权力的人员应向人民负责 ,并且其任职期限是明确固定的。而民初国人由于受传统政治观念的影响对“共和”的理解却有着很大的分歧 ,这是民初宪政迟迟不能走上正轨的一个重要原因。     

西方宪政危机成因分析

西方宪政危机本质上是宪政内部矛盾运动的结果。具体到不同宪政国家,其宪政危机的发生,则各有其复杂而深刻的历史背景和现实原因。从世界近现代宪政史来看,宪政制度的缺失,国家权力秩序的失衡,国家权力的腐败,政治势力的恶斗,经济基础薄弱,社会发育不成熟等是导致宪政危机产生的主要因素。从政治、经济、社会等方面深入探讨宪政危机的成因,对于寻求化解和预防宪政危机的有效对策,促进宪政文明的健康发展有着十分重要的意义。     

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.