The Rule of Law and Authoritarian Rule: Legal Politics in Sudan

Mark Fathi, Massoud . 2013 . Law's Fragile State: Colonial, Authoritarian, and Humanitarian Legacies in Sudan . Cambridge University Press. Pp. xxii + 265. $109.99 cloth, $34.99 paper. Does the rule of law guarantee peace and democracy, as so many people in the development and governance field believe? What are the historical and sociocultural conditions that shape the way rule of law mechanisms work in practice? Mark Massoud's monograph tracing the changing dimensions of the rule of law in Sudan from its colonial period to the present offers an important perspective on these questions, casting doubt on the simple argument that the rule of law produces democracy and peace. Instead, he shows how colonial and authoritarian rulers used the rule of law to consolidate power and legitimate their rule. In Law's Fragile State: Colonial, Authoritarian, and Humanitarian Legacies in Sudan, Massoud develops the concept of legal politics, arguing that the way the rule of law works varies with the political system in which it is embedded. He concludes that the forms of legal politics that reinforce the power and authority of legal institutions are more likely to sustain an authoritarian state than to bring democratic rule. His analysis is a valuable caution to those who promote the rule of law as the salvation for all. Taking a sociolegal perspective, he shows how it works in practice.     

Must Legalistic Conceptions of the Rule of Law Have a Social Dimension?

Abstract.  The article considers the nature of legalistic, or formal, conceptions of the rule of law, focusing particularly on the work of Joseph Raz and Albert Venn Dicey. It asks how such apparently narrow conceptions are generated, and how far they can resist including broader social claims. It concludes that the rationale behind legalistic conceptions compels them to address issues of poverty and the literacy of the law's subjects. However, legalistic conceptions of the rule of law can still avoid sliding into the wider non-legalistic models advanced by writers such as T. R. S. Allan.     

History in the Law of the Constitution

This article addresses the diminution of historical understanding in English constitutional law by reconsidering Dicey's approach to history in his foundational work. It argues that Dicey's approach was inconsistent and unconvincing – separating a historical view of an evolving constitution from a legal view, discounting history's legal significance and nonetheless repeatedly evoking a whig history to enhance the appeal of the constitution's rules and principles. It recalls the features or deficiencies of whig history, famously characterised by Herbert Butterfield from a modern historical perspective. To Butterfield's characterisation it adds an elaboration on their constitutional significance and a neglected comparative dimension. From those features, it develops, in conclusion, methodological suggestions for a history that might yet serve constitutional legal purposes.     

The Political Origins of English Private Law

The article seeks to explain the emergence of the view that English law contains a fundamental divide between public and private law. I propose to explain the divide, not as a conceptual distinction, grounded in the internal rationality of law, but as a response to the potential problem of political legitimacy arising from the fact that in the domain of private law courts are constantly engaged in making substantive law. That by itself shows that the divide between public and private law is politically motivated, but I further argue that the prevailing view of law among proponents of the divide revives Dicey's conception of the common law within the narrower domain of private law. Since Dicey's views are widely believed to be motivated by his political views, if I am right, this lends support to the conclusion that the views of defenders of the divide are grounded in similar political positions.     

中国依法治国的渐进性

穷国无法治 ,愚昧无法治 ,乱世无法治。我国不是一个连一点法律经济成本都付不出的穷国 ,但也不属于可以付出足够法律经济成本的发达国家 ;我国不是一个连一点现代法治所需文化条件都不具备的愚昧国家 ,但也不属于完全具备现代法治所需文化条件的国家 ;我国不是一个处于乱世的国家 ,但波澜起伏的社会变革对法治的影响也是显而易见的。因此 ,中国依法治国的渐进性是一种客观规律。     

Opening the door to enforcement of foreign non-monetary judgments in Jersey: Brunei and Bandone v Fidelis and Others [2008] JRC152

The common law rule preventing the enforcement of foreign non-moneyjudgments (set out in Rule 35(1) of Dicey, Morris & Collins)("Dicey") has been amended in Jersey. The Courts now have adiscretion to enforce foreign non-monetary judgments, includingequitable orders such as specific performance, and injunctiveor declaratory relief, which are so vital to effective modernday remedies. In doing so, the Jersey Courts have adopted theapproach taken in the Canadian and Caymanian Courts.     

Eyes Wide Shut: On Risk,Rule of Law and Precaution

The rule of law offers legal certainty, laying down boundaries to the state's playing field. The precautionary approach stipulates that the absence of scientific certainty is no reason not to act to prevent harm. Here, uncertainty frames action. The precautionary approach potentially expands the state's playing field, and this expansion might well undermine the precepts of the rule of law. The certainty‐uncertainty axis exposes a tension between the rule of law and the precautionary approach in what Ulrich Beck has termed the world risk society in second modernity. It is this tension that is the focus of analysis in this article.     

从法律原则到个案规范——阿列克西原则理论的民法应用

司法中针对某具体个案适用法律原则的通常情形是,没有既有规则可以适用(即"穷尽规则"),或者尽管有规则,但因其与原则相冲突而被排除适用。这两种情形的规范表现在实质上均可理解为原则之间的冲突。在相冲突的原则中确定何者最终适用于该具体个案,恰是阿列克西原则理论(尤其是其"竞争法则")所要解决的问题。适用"竞争法则"的核心在于找寻与确立优先条件或变量,相较于阿列克西的比重公式,参照生活常情或"事物本质"能为其找寻与确立提供更为具体的实践操作路径,因为优先条件或变量的确立由此转变为找寻连接基本案件事实与优先原则的中点(此即"裁判案件要确定的核心要素")。以"竞争法则"为理论根基,再辅之以确立优先条件或变量的具体路径,原则的规则化便水到渠成:即通过具体的优先条件或变量确立相冲突原则中优先适用的原则(即优先原则),适用优先原则的结果便是创设一个规则(即个案规范),优先条件或变量进而成为该个案规范的构成要件。个案规范才是裁判该具体个案的直接依据。     

习近平法治思想中涉外法治话语生成与实践逻辑——以“一带一路”倡议为视角

在习近平法治思想中,坚持统筹推进国内法治与涉外法治已成为当前指导中国开展涉外法治工作的重要指针和发展方向。而"一带一路"建设正是这一话语生成的重要实践场所。从其发展演变来看,"一带一路"涉外法治实践不仅体现了习近平法治思想中的规则意识、安全意识以及公平公正意识,而且亦形成了反制、竞争与合作的具体实践路径。更为重要的是,在全球治理上,人类命运共同体、共商共建共享原则都揭示出新的国际法命题。因此,未来"一带一路"涉外法治实践应紧密围绕习近平法治思想,加快涉外法治战略布局,形成强有力的涉外法治保障体系,以期促进"一带一路"高质量发展,重塑国际法治新秩序。     

Punishing Bodies,Securing the Nation: How Rule of Law Can Legitimate the Urbane Authoritarian State

Although authoritarian rule of law may seem an oxymoron, strategic reconfigurations of the “rule of law” can produce acceptance of law that observes procedure while erasing rights. By bringing into conjunction critical discourse theory and scholarship on the legal professions and political liberalism, this article shows how rulers can deploy rhetoric and legislation to produce derogations from the liberal content of rule of law while sustaining a state legitimacy built on claims to state realizations of rule of law. A close analysis of Singapore's Vandalism Act shows that silencing the critique of lawyers and constraining the power of judges has been crucial to a legitimation of the surveillance and criminalization of dissenters. The consolidation of state power effected via law and discourse might be seen as making the nation a notional panopticon—corporal punishment, even if conducted behind prison walls, becomes instructive public spectacle conveying the state's seeming omniscience and monopolistic command of law.     

Between the Law: The Unmaking of Empire and Law's Imperial Amnesia

Asian victims of Japanese imperialism have filed lawsuits against the Japanese government and corporations since the 1990s, which became prime sites for redress decades after Japan's defeat in World War II. As this ethnography demonstrates, this process paradoxically exposes a legal lacuna within this emergent transnational legal space, with plaintiffs effectively caught between the law, instead of standing before the law. Exploring this absence of law, I map out a post‐imperial legal space, created through the erasure of imperial and colonial subjects in the legal framework after empire. Between the law is an optic that makes visible uneven legal terrains that embody temporal and spatial disjuncture, rupture, and asymmetry. The role of law in post‐imperial transitions remains underexplored in literatures on transnational law, legal imperialism, postcolonialism, and transitional justice. I demonstrate how, at the intersection of law and economy, post‐imperial reckoning is emerging as a new legal frontier, putting at stake law's imperial amnesia.     

Ideals and Practices in the Rule of Law: An Essay on Legal Politics

Massoud, Mark Fathi. 2013 . Law's Fragile State: Colonial, Authoritarian, and Humanitarian Legacies in Sudan . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 277. Paper $34.99. This essay responds to the three commentators in the symposium on my book, Law's Fragile State, by describing the sociolegal study of the rule of law as an investigation into both a set of ideals (the rule of law as a normative question) and a set of practices (the rule of law as an empirical question). Studying the rule of law involves understanding the contingent nature of its ideals as well as investigating the actual work that lawyers, judges, state officials, aid workers, activists, and others have done in specific contexts to promote legal remedies to social or political ills. These overlapping layers of the study of the rule of law—ideals and practices, normative and empirical—provide a sociolegal framework for understanding the successes and failures of legal work and, ultimately, how citizens experience state power in democratic and nondemocratic societies alike.     

法治的量化分析——法治指数衡量体系全球经验与中国应用

指数是衡量全球各国经济、政治走势的重要尺度,各种类型的指数从某种程度上精确折射着社会生存的客观真实状态。在民主、法治等社会科学领域始终缺少一种定量分析的研究方法。法治在进入高速发展的信息化时代之后,我们应改变传统抽象法治观念的思维,并突破不同文化间法治价值观念的屏障,将法治理念贯穿至具体的指数模型之中。法治指数体系中囊括了诸如民主指数、腐败指数等一系列精确、稳定的指数样本。本文从全球具有较大影响力的法治指数出发并结合中国的基本国情进行方法论上分析与探索,为当今中国寻找一种新型、理想的法治发展路径。     

法·治·与·行·政——德国行政法在法治国背景下的展开

德国现代行政法的建立与发展很大程度上是在法治国背景之下完成的。法治国思想从最初提出之际,就是对国家行为的法律规范要求。在此背景下,奥托.迈耶提出“依法律行政”,并以此为基础建构起德国现代行政法。德国法治国思想其后经历了从自由法治国到社会法治国,以及从形式法治国到实质法治国的演变。作为对社会法治国的回应,给付行政理论开拓了德国行政法的新视野;而形式法治国到实质法治国的演变,则在实质法治观下对德国行政法进行了重新塑造。     

法治反对解释的原则

反对解释是法治初级阶段的一个重要原则.这一原则要求法官奉行司法克制主义,对明确的法律条文必须无条件遵守,在解释中不能附加法官个人的意思.反对解释不是说不要解释,而是说不能过度解释,法官只能行使有限的创造权力,对法律文本已明确的含义,法官的解释就是认同.在我国,由于长期以来一直批判法家的严苛,主张判决中天理、人情与法律的和谐相处,结果使得法律文本被置于不重要的地位.严格执法实际上没有成为我们的执法理念,法律被任意解释、曲解的现象大量发生.严格法制是我们不能逾越的阶段,反对解释的原则应是司法活动的重要原则.     

Laboratories of Statehood: Legal Intervention in Colonial Africa and Today

The immense body of contemporary work aimed at ‘promoting the rule of law’ is often accused of ‘neo‐imperialism’. Yet, despite many points of contiguity between past and present legal interventions, the charge is overbroad and rarely illuminating. This article attempts to move beyond polemic to track concrete historical and structural forerunners of today's rule of law work. Focusing mainly (though not exclusively) on late imperial British endeavours, it traces colonial legal interventions over time, the techniques adopted (and rejected), the shifting normative bases of legitimacy, and moments of strategic recalibration in the face of resistance. Three broad attitudes towards law across the period are (provisionally) characterised as ‘regulative’, ‘constitutive’ and ‘institutive’ moments. In each phase, the Powers treat colonial territories as laboratories of statehood, within which experiments are conducted to locate the optimal configuration of law. In conclusion some counterparts to these moments in today's ‘rule of law’ activities are identified.     

在习近平法治思想指引下建设生态文明法治体系

建设中国特色社会主义法治体系,是全面推进依法治国的总目标,也意味着生态文明法治领域的一场深刻变革:建设生态文明法治体系。在长期的理论与实践探索中,生态文明法治体系建设取得积极成效却也面临新挑战。习近平法治思想深刻回答了为谁建设生态文明法治体系、如何建设生态文明法治体系以及建设何种生态文明法治体系等重大问题,是新时代建设生态文明法治体系的根本遵循和行动指南。为此应坚持以人民为中心,推进生态文明法治体系建设不断深化,坚持整体谋划思路,提升生态文明法治体系科学化水平,坚持现代化方向,推动生态文明法治体系迈向良法善治。     

违约可得利益损失的确定规则

可得利益是合同法的中心关注,是当事人订立合同的目的所在,对其保护事关当事人交易的积极性和社会整体经济利益的增长,因此各国的违约损害赔偿制度对于可得利益损失普遍给予较高程度的保护。我国合同法等法律虽然明确设定了违约可得利益的概念和规则,但司法实践却表现得较为谨慎、保守甚至是消极,多数法院会因为可得利益损失的不确定性(证据不确定性和计算不确定性)而否定原告的主张。要改变我国法表达与实践脱节的现实困境,需要从程序和实体两方面确立可得利益损失的确定规则,一方面有效降低可得利益损失的证明标准,另一方面对可得利益损失的计算标准加以类型化,以有效保护非违约方的可得利益和期待利益,增强我国违约救济制度的适用性和操作性。     

习近平法治思想对法治基本价值理念的传承与发展

习近平法治思想对法治的基本价值、理念进行了本土化诠释、时代化丰富和理论性创新。其立足我国国情民意和新时代历史方位,对人民民主、宪法法律至上、公平正义、人权保障、权力监督、法律平等等法治基本价值话语作了深层思考与理论凝练,传承发展了我们党长期以来形成的法治价值理念,揭露了西方法治价值理论的缺陷和偏颇,体现了法治价值普遍性与特殊性的统一,为全面依法治国、建设法治中国提供了价值导向和遵循。深入研究习近平关于法治价值的重要论述意义重大,有利于全面深刻理解习近平法治思想的真谛,有利于提升习近平法治思想的感召力与实践力,有利于增强中国特色社会主义法治理论在国际社会的话语权。