完善宪法程序若干问题初探

我国目前亟需完善的宪法程序为 :各级人民代表选举程序 ;修改宪法程序 ;保护公民宪法权利的宪政立法程序 ;执政党执政程序 ;违宪审查程序 ;其他国家机关对本级国家权力机关负责的程序 ;国家权力机关监督本级其他国家机关的程序。     

完善我国宪法监督制度之构想

设立宪法法院负责宪法监督工作是一种最切合实际的完善我国宪法监督制度的方案。除在中央设立宪法法院外,可在地方设立巡回宪法法院。宪法法院应当具有相对独立性。为保证宪法法院有效行使其宪法监督职能,必须赋予其事前审查权、宪法解释权等职权。宪法监督程序须由相应的主体提起。     

To Wonderland Through the Looking-glass: Conceiving a Critical Legal Argument for Contractual Justice in the South African Law of Contract †

The aim of this paper is to identify the possible substructure (looking glass/es) of a critical legal argument for contractual justice (Wonderland) in the South African law of contract. South African contract law still fails, ten years after the constitutional transformation, to reflect the constitutional ideals of freedom, equality and human dignity in an acceptable manner. I argue that this disposition places a question mark over the legitimacy of contract law and marginalizes opportunities for the social change envisaged by the Constitution. The paper explores Duncan Kennedy’s Form and Substance-argument and indicates that the reluctance to accommodate these values may be attributable to the fact that the majority of role-players position themselves on the individualism/rules side of Kennedy’s continuum – a paradigm that perceives the law of contract as a body of positivistic rules to be applied neutrally and regardless of the social or socio-economic distortions its application may generate. In an attempt to move away from this traditional approach, the privileged paradigm is criticised. A typical CLS-approach is followed which employs sociology, psychological jurisprudence and game theory to criticise the law from outside the restrictive realms of law itself. Simultaneously, I attempt to illuminate the argument for a shift (step through the looking glass) to another paradigm. I conclude that our judiciary finds itself in a position similar to that of Plato’s prisoners in the cave and will not reach the point where they apply relevant (constitutional) values directly to contractual disputes. The State is thus responsible for infusing contract law with contractual justice, by implementing legislation to this effect in order to limit the hegemonic consequences of the judiciary’s obsession with freedom of contract and utopian rules, which fail in reality to further the ideal of justice. Paper presented at the Critical Legal Conference, 4 September 2004, London, UK. This paper is dedicated to the memory of the late Judge of Appeal, Mr. Justice P.J. Olivier. The paper is based on research conducted for the thesis in partial fulfilment of the degree LLD in the Faculty of Law at the University of Pretoria under the title ‘A critical legal argument for contractual justice in the South African law of contract.’ The degree supervisor is Professor Karin van Marle in the Department of Legal History, Comparative Law and Jurisprudence. The author wishes to thank the following persons for valuable deliberations and input: Karin van Marle, Graham Bradfield and Anashri Pillay. In addition, the author wishes to acknowledge and thank the University of Cape Town for financially supporting this research. †Paper presented at the Critical Legal Conference, 4 September 2004, London, UK. This paper is dedicated to the memory of the late Judge of Appeal, Mr. Justice P.J. Olivier. The paper is based on research conducted for the thesis in partial fulfilment of the degree LLD in the Faculty of Law at the University of Pretoria under the title ‘A critical legal argument for contractual justice in the South African law of contract.’ The degree supervisor is Professor Karin van Marle in the Department of Legal History, Comparative Law and Jurisprudence. The author wishes to thank the following persons for valuable deliberations and input: Karin van Marle, Graham Bradfield and Anashri Pillay. In addition, the author wishes to acknowledge and thank the University of Cape Town for financially supporting this research. apply relevant (constitutional) values directly to contractual disputes. The State is thus responsible for infusing contract law with contractual justice, by implementing legislation to this effect in order to limit the hegemonic consequences of the judiciary’s obsession with freedom of contract and utopian rules, which fail in reality to further the ideal of justice.     

受教育权的司法救济

受教育权是公民的宪法权利,具有自由权、社会权、发展权的多重性质。通过行政诉讼解决受教育权案件有其积极意义,但也存在诸多弊端和局限性。宪法诉讼是受教育权司法救济的根本途径。只有从宪法层次和高度解决一系列的理念和技术障碍,逐步实行宪法司法化,才能最终保障受教育权的实现。     

物权的平等保护与我国行政救济制度发展

我国新近通过的《物权法》确立了对公私物权予以平等保护的重要原则,该原则及其贯彻对我国现行行政救济制度提出了挑战,它要求行政救济制度必须从实体、程序等方面更新一些现有规定,并重视行政救济制度对物权相关权益的平等保护,来实现对公民、法人和其他组织物权较彻底的平等保护。     

宪法监督司法化的制度构想

宪法监督的司法化,是宪法监督的最主要和有效的方式。我国应当建立宪法诉讼制度,改革可以分三阶段进行:第一阶段,由行政审判庭审理少数“准宪法诉讼”案;第二阶段,宪法监督委员会和人民法院共同实施监督;第三阶段,设立宪法法院承担全部宪法监督职能,最终确立我国的宪法监督制度。     

“宪法政治”理论的时代课题——关于中国现代法治主义理论的另一个视角

中国现时代处于一个“非常时期” ,即有别于日常政治的宪法政治时期。因此 ,政治国家的问题是我国宪法的理论基础 ,目前法学界倡言的法治主义属于一种市民社会的规则之治 ,但如何把法律人的法律上升为政治家的法律 ,或者说如何处理民法与政治法的关系 ,是当前我们国家宪法政治所要解决的一个重要问题 ,而对此 ,欧洲大陆国家的公法理论和英美传统的阿克曼的宪法政治学说 ,为我们提供了一个可资借鉴的新视角     

论离婚损害赔偿制度的法律适用

离婚损害赔偿是配偶一方违法侵害他方的合法权益 ,导致婚姻关系破裂 ,离婚时对无过错配偶方所受的损害 ,过错配偶应承担民事责任的法律制度。离婚损害赔偿民事责任须具备一定的构成要件。离婚损害赔偿的权利主体应是无过错的配偶方 ,义务主体应是实施了法定违法行为的过错配偶方 ,不宜将离婚当事人以外的第三人也视为义务主体。离婚损害赔偿既包括物质损害赔偿 ,也包括精神损害赔偿 ,而精神损害赔偿意在对无过错受害方给予精神抚慰。     

Unity Without Totalitarianism: Tensions Within Normativity

Although he did not invent the term, Jürgen Habermas has popularised “constitutional patriotism” as a form of political unity that avoids excessive nationalism. This paper attempts to examine the link between emotivism and normativity that has otherwise been excluded from Habermas’s notion of constitutional patriotism. Beyond Habermas, political theory as a whole has not yet taken emotivism as a serious component of normativity. Rather than developing it in isolation, this paper attempts to reconcile emotivism with cognitive-normative practices found within rational deliberation. Reconciling the two not only provides a better normative steering component for judging good from bad practices, but also depicts contemporary political practices more accurately. In sum, constitutional patriotism’s normativity must be sourced from a complex integration of emotion and cognition, or put another way, from the interplay between citizens’ moral sentiments and rational judgements.     

Constitutionalism as a solution to despotism and imperialism: the Iranian Constitutional Revolution in the Ottoman-Turkish press

This article contributes to the growing scholarship on the connections between the Ottoman and Iranian revolutions by exploring Ottomans’ reactions to and portrayal of the constitutional struggle in Iran. Based on an examination of primary sources that have not been utilized before, it reveals how an ideologically diverse group of intellectuals tried to link the two revolutions together in the Ottoman-Turkish press, focusing on shared problems and ideals. It demonstrates that undergoing a revolutionary process themselves, these intellectuals interpreted the events in Iran through the prism of their own experiences and used them to garner support for the constitutional regime at home. Through their depictions of the Iranian revolution, they not only portrayed the 1908 Revolution as part of a broader struggle against despotism and imperialism with significant implications for the Islamic world, but also conveyed the message that the Ottoman constitution needed to be supported and protected so that it did not fail like the one in Iran.