Mental health weapons prohibition: demographic and psychiatric factors in petitions for relief

Federal law and most states prohibit possession of firearms by individuals with a history of certain psychiatric diagnoses and/or treatment. In California, an involuntary 72-h hold can trigger a 5-year ban on firearm possession. Individuals so prohibited may petition for early termination of the ban. We report on the demographic and psychiatric characteristics of a sample of individuals petitioning for early relief in Los Angeles County, and on the results of their petitions. The majority of petitioners were Caucasian men over age 40. Sixteen percent of petitioners were employed in law enforcement or armed security, and all of their petitions were granted. Individuals for whom there was greater evidence of mental disorder were significantly less likely to petition successfully. The results are discussed in terms of the benefits of involving a forensic expert in the petition process, which is not presently required under California law.     

清末民初行政诉讼法制中的“民告官”传统遗存

在中国古代"为民父母行政"的传统行政法律文化中存在一个延宕千年的"民告官"传统。这一传统体现在"以上制下"的逐级申控制度、"从严治吏"的御史监察制度、"为民申冤"的直诉京控制度和"便民告官"的越诉特许制度等方面,其精神旨趣是廉政监督而非民权保障。"民告官"传统在清末民初近代行政诉讼法制滥觞和确立阶段仍然有不同程度的遗存。这种遗存可以从彼时行政诉讼审判机构的设立存废之争、具体制度设计和实际运行效果三个方面考察。未来中国行政诉讼法制的发展必须建立在对近代百年行政诉讼法制变迁充分省察的基础之上,必须认真对待和妥善处理"民告官"传统的影响。     

Administrative Procedure Code of the Kyrgyz Republic

The 2017 Administrative Procedure Code of the Kyrgyz Republic defines legal proceedings in disputes arising between administrative bodies and their officials, on the one hand, and individuals and legal entities, on the other.     

Pragmatic Discourse and Gender Inequality in China

Using courtroom dialogs from actual court trials in China as data, this article analyzes an emerging “pragmatic discourse,” deployed by judges to assist, but at the same time to constrain divorcing women. Through questions, statements, rebuttals, and other interactional devices, Chinese judges define the premises that underpin the law's understanding of gender equality and women's welfare. By looking at how discourses are deployed by judges and litigants, we link micro linguistic practices to more general social forces and processes. Despite their honest effort to protect women's rights, Chinese judges often inadvertently reinforce and reproduce the patriarchal norm. The data demonstrate how the hegemonic patriarchal order reasserts itself in an institutional forum that is meant to promote gender equality. The interaction of the discourses also highlights the tensions in Chinese society and displays the effect of changing social environment on the legal operation.     

我国农村土地征收纠纷行政救济机制研究

随着城市化进程的加快,我国在征地领域的纠纷日益增多,迫切需要行之有效的纠纷解决方式。由于我国司法救济存在着难以克服的固有缺陷,因而凸显出行政救济机制的重要性。目前构成我国行政解决机制的行政调解、行政裁决、行政复议和信访等制度的设计还存在法律效力和程序保障不足等问题。因此,应完善各种行政救济途径、构建科学的行政救济体系,建立行政救济机制与其他救济机制的有机衔接,充分发挥行政解决机制在我国农村土地征收中的积极作用。     

社会管理中的信访工作法制化建设和制度化创新

基层社会管理离不开信访工作创新。信访解决纠纷机制有其合理性,将会在一定范围内继续存在,但这种解决模式不应当是一种常态,只能是社会转型时期的一种纠纷解决措施。因此,应当通过信访本身具有的权利表达功能将这些政策性纠纷导入常规性的纠纷解决渠道,不断推进信访工作制度化、规范化和法制化建设,不断推进信访工作制度化创新。     

Reconfiguring Law: An Ethnographic Perspective from Botswana

Using two marital disputes, this article examines women's experiences in bringing legal claims regarding family property in Botswana. It highlights the ways women draw on diverse economic and social resources available to them through their differing positions within gendered social networks that shape daily life and affect the ability to access and manipulate a legal system incorporating Tswana customary law and European law. The divergent discourses among women and between women and men document how the administrative and theoretical separation of legal systems does not extend to people's uses of the law in arranging their own lives. This analysis challenges the formalist model of legal pluralism by demonstrating that legal arguments are constructed from the gendered social and economic facts of individuals'lives that traverse the legal categories of European and customary law. It also contributes to feminist legal scholarship by explicitly marking the links among gender, power, and law.     

“What Are You Going to Do with the Village's Knowledge?” Talking Tradition,Talking Law in Hopi Tribal Court

Though the details of face-to-face talk and interaction have been studied in Anglo American and British courtrooms, few attempts have been made to extend similar analyses to the study of contemporary indigenous and (post)colonial legal institutions that continue to employ legal processes informed by both Anglo-style adversarial notions of law and "local" notions of law, culture, and tradition. Using methods of legal discourse analysis and language ideology studies, this article investigates how interlocutors in a hearing before the courts of the Hopi Indian Nation construct discourses of tradition and Anglo American jurisprudence in multiple and competing ways, and for significant sociopolitical effect. An argument is thus made for attending to the microdetails of sociolegal interactions as an important site for exploring the complex articulations between the contemporary lives of indigenous peoples and the laws with which they are imbricated.     

The Limits of Institutionalised Legal Discourse*

Abstract. One of the most powerful accounts of the necessary connection between law and morality grounded on the openness of communication is provided by Robert Alexy, who builds a discourse theory of law on the basis of Habermas’ theory of general practical discourse. In this article I argue that the thesis based on the openness of legal discourse is problematic in that it does not provide a convincing account of the differentiation of legal discourse from other practical discourses. I offer an understanding of the institutionalisation of legal discourse as the tacit commitment of the participants to their shared normative experience and in particular in: 1) the possibility of containing normative force in space, 2) the possibility of transforming word into deed, 3) the possibility of grasping and controlling time and 4) the possibility of transforming deed into word. That commitment of participants in legal discourse is revealed as a set of fundamental assumptions embedded in all legal utterances, which provide the necessary bedrock that makes communication possible. It also provides a basis for the institution of legal discourse, to the effect that their problematisation signifies a departure from the latter.     

Democracy and Discourse in an Integrating Europe and a Globalising World

Globalisation and Europeanisation represent challenges not only to national economies and institutions but also to national legitimating discourses. This paper first outlines the theoretical requirements for such discourse, by considering it along two dimensions: ideational, which encompasses cognitive and normative functions, and interactive, which encompasses co-ordinative and communicative functions. The paper illustrates these through empirical discussions of the post-war construction of discourses in France, Britain and Germany. It then examines how the discourses have responded to the challenges to traditional conceptions of economic organisation, social welfare, and political democracy from European and globally-related economic and institutional changes. The paper concludes that while France remains in search of a legitimating discourse, Britain is in the process of renewing its Thatcherite discourse, and Germany is in the process of recasting its post-war liberal social-democratic discourse.     

Getting Schooled: Legal Mobilization as an Educative Process

This article explores the role of formal education and specific legal knowledge in the process of legal mobilization. Using survey data and in‐depth case narratives of workplace disputes in China, we highlight three major findings. First, and uncontroversially, higher levels of formal education are associated with greater propensity to use legal institutions and to find them more effective. Second, informally acquired labor law knowledge can substitute for formal education in bringing people to the legal system and improving their legal experiences. The Chinese state's propagation of legal knowledge has had positive effects on citizens' legal mobilization. Finally, while education and legal knowledge are factors that push people toward the legal system, actual dispute experience leads people away from it, especially among disputants without effective legal representation. The article concludes that the Chinese state's encouragement of individualized legal mobilization produces contradictory outcomes—encouraging citizens to use formal legal institutions, imbuing them with new knowledge and rights awareness, but also breeding disdain for the law in practice.     

试析中外专利无效争议之救济模式

由于专利的行政授予性,有关专利无效争议的性质应如何认定,相应地应采取何种救济模式,各国的规定并不相同.通过比较中国与世界上一些主要国家和国际组织的相关法律制度,挖掘问题的深层根由,进行理论分析,以期对我国专利无效争议机制的完善与重构有所裨益.     

Supreme Court Ruling Creates More Standing Room in the Already Heated Global Greenhouse Gas Movement

This article reviews the recent April 2, 2007 Supreme Court decision in the Massachusetts v. EPA, a highly important case regarding greenhouse gases. The case centered on the Court's review of EPA's denial of a petition to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles. The Court required EPA to reconsider its denial. The Court found that. 1) the petitioners have standing to challenge EPA's denial of their petition; 2) the Court has the authority to review the denial of the petition; and 3) the Clean Air Act authorizes EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles. This article looks specifically at the Court's analysis of standing and jurisdiction by Justice Stevens, who wrote the Court's majority opinion, and two dissenting opinions by Justices Roberts and Scalia. Most interesting is how the closely divided Justices (5 to 4 decision) viewed, very differently, the issues regarding standing, the evidence that emissions from new motor vehicles are causing global warming and harm to Massachusetts, and the agency's judgment in denying the petition. Lastly, the article speculates on the impact of the decision and the current activities taking place at the state and regulated community level involving future regulation, litigation, and opportunities by various companies and coalitions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The article then presents five broad areas where companies that emit greenhouse gases should need to maintain or increase awareness to better position themselves in the global greenhouse gas movement.     

“法律”一词使用、翻译的话语实践——集中于19世纪初期在中国的西方传教士

基于法律的独特语境,“法律”概念的使用和翻译不可避免地是复杂的。在近现代随着各个民族国家交往的深入展开,这样复杂地使用和翻译的背后隐藏着许多“重要故事”。我们可以认为,法律的存在其本身就意味着纠纷的存在,纠纷不仅可能是个人的,而且可能是广义社会的或说民族国家的,后者在特定时期可能是更为重要的。在纠纷中,随着人们的利益、观念、立场或者态度的不同,这种不同同样又是不可避免的,“法律”概念的一般含义因而也会裹挟在利益、观念、立场或者态度中表达自己的“差异”。因此,应当揭示使用、翻译背后的话语实践。     

Discursive mismatch and globalization by stealth: The fight against corruption in the Brazilian legal field

Law and globalization studies have documented how Global South lawyers compete over the adaptation of international norms. Yet, little is known about how this adaptation legitimates worldviews beyond the law. To advance this literature, this paper proposes a discourse-centered field analysis of the legal globalization of anti-corruption ideas in Brazil. It examines Brazilian lawyers' disputes over a 2016 anti-corruption bill. The bill supporters mobilize global anti-corruption discourses that are exogenous to the legal field to defend harsher criminal law. Their critics counter the reform by mobilizing endogenous legal ideas against criminal law expansion. In so doing, they do not challenge reformers' ideas about corruption. I show how this discursive mismatch leads to a form of globalization by stealth, whereby local dynamics allow global ideas to remain unchallenged in local fields.     

医疗纠纷可仲裁性之法律思考

无论是学术界还是实务界在研究、探索通过仲裁处理医疗纠纷的过程中，都要依据我国法律思考医疗纠纷的可仲裁性问题。医疗纠纷的可仲裁性不仅决定了仲裁协议是否具有法律效力，而且关系到仲裁裁决会被国内法院撤销或者不被外国法院承认和执行，最终导致仲裁无效。笔者认为，根据我国仲裁法的规定，营利性医疗机构发生的医疗服务合同纠纷具有可仲裁性，除此之外的医疗纠纷则不具有。     

The Dead, the Law, and the Politics of the Past

This article explores the role of law in cultural and political disputes concerning dead bodies. It uses three interconnecting legal frameworks: cultural and moral ownership, commemoration, and closure. It begins with a critique of the limitations of the private law notion of 'ownership' in such contexts, setting out a broader notion of cultural and moral ownership as more appropriate for analysing legal disputes between states and indigenous tribes. It then examines how legal discourses concerning freedom of expression, religious and political traditions, and human rights and equality are utilized to regulate the public memory of the dead. Finally, it looks at the relationship between law and notions of closure in contexts where the dead have either died in battle or have been 'disappeared' during a conflict, arguing that law in such contexts goes beyond the traditional retributive focus of investigation and punishment of wrongdoers and instead centres on broader concerns of societal and personal healing.     

中国志愿者出境从事志愿服务相关法律问题探析

自1981年中国政府代表与“联合国志愿人员组织”（UNV）代表在北京签约决定互派联合国志愿人员以来，中国与境外的志愿服务交流不断加强。2008年奥运会为我国志愿服务事业的深入发展提供了良好契机，越来越多的中国志愿者将走出国门从事志愿服务活动,但中国志愿者出境从事志愿服务所涉及的相关法律问题并未引起学者尤其是法学者的足够重视。本文在考察我国地方和国外立法实践的基础上，分别从中国志愿者出境问题和相关法律冲突解决的角度进行分析，并提出具体的立法建议，以推动境外志愿服务活动沿着规范化方向发展。     

从西方人权话语拓展看中国人权话语的国际化

西方人权话语拓展的主要方式是软渗透和硬介入。软渗透表现为通过西方人权"区域理念--区域规则--国际规则--国内规则"的规范扩散,推动非西方国家接受由西方主导建构起来的国际人权规范体系,形成对西方人权话语的法律确信,最终实现"西方人权国际化"和"国际人权国内化"。硬介入表现为通过政治、军事、经济、外交等方式强行推动非西方国家接受西方人权话语并将之纳入国内法律秩序,加速了西方人权国际化。西方人权话语拓展引起"它变"和"自变"效果。一方面,面对软渗透和硬介入,非西方国家或者被动接受,或者借助条约批准、保留等国际法手段予以选择性认同或变通,甚至提出竞争性替代话语加以对冲。另一方面,西方人权话语也在内外因素下不断自我调适,逐步提升可接受性。中国对外拓展人权话语,应充分利用"百年未有之大变局"带来的战略机遇期,借助政治、经济、文化等多种途径,加速国际人权话语格局的变革;尽快形成以发展主义权利观为核心的人权话语体系,并通过对话来增进中国人权话语的价值共识;坚持发挥规范性力量的作用,学会利用国际法律机制,着力提升在国际人权体系内将中国理念和话语转化为国际规则以及保障国际规则被遵守的制度能力。