Ice Ice Baby: The De Facto Termination of Parental Rights by an Enforcement Agency

The current administration's zero tolerance stance on illegal immigration has resulted in the separation of thousands of families and the de facto termination of parental rights. While undocumented parents were always at risk of detainment, expanded immigration enforcement under the Trump administration has greatly increased that risk. Detainment has directly and indirectly resulted in the prolonged separation of parents from their children. This Note proposes a Department of Homeland Security Regulation that will require ICE to use the least restrictive methods to achieve its goals while emphasizing efforts to keep families together.     

Do the illegal and legal rents of politicians affect municipal election outcomes? Empirical evidence

This paper aims to analyse whether illegal (corruption) and legal rent extraction (high politicians’ wages) affect electoral outcomes at municipal level. We use an initial sample of 145 Spanish municipalities over 50,000 for two electoral periods: 2004–2007 (before the crisis) and 2008–2011 (during the crisis). Our findings show that neither illegal nor legal rent extraction impact on re-election in non-crisis times. However, we observe that citizens penalize legal rent extraction in the ballots during the crisis. Regarding the economic performance of the local governments, we find that its effect on re-election is important in non-crisis period. Nevertheless, in time of crisis, given that the economic situation is bad in general in the country, voters pay less attention to economic factors and focus on politicians’ behaviour.     

Experimentalism in transnational forest governance: Implementing European Union Forest Law Enforcement,Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreements in Indonesia and Ghana

Over the past decade, the European Union (EU) has created a novel experimentalist architecture for transnational forest governance: the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) initiative. This innovative architecture comprises extensive participation by civil society stakeholders in establishing and revising open‐ended framework goals (Voluntary Partnership Agreements [VPAs] with developing countries aimed at promoting sustainable forest governance and preventing illegal logging) and metrics for assessing progress toward them (legality standards and indicators) through monitoring and review of local implementation, underpinned by a penalty default mechanism to sanction non‐cooperation (the EU Timber Regulation that prohibits operators from placing illegally harvested wood on the European market). This paper analyzes the implementation of VPAs in Indonesia and Ghana, the two countries furthest advanced toward issuing FLEGT export licences. A central finding is the reciprocal relationship between the experimentalist architecture of the FLEGT initiative and transnational civil society activism, whereby the VPAs’ insistence on stakeholder participation, independent monitoring, and joint implementation review, underwritten by the EU, empowers domestic non‐governmental organizations with local knowledge to expose problems on the ground, hold public authorities accountable for addressing them, and contribute to developing provisional solutions.     

“多次违法行为”入罪之思考——以多次非法行医为视角

我国法律规定未取得医生执业资格的人非法行医,被卫生行政部门行政处罚两次以后,再次非法行医的,应当以非法行医罪追究其刑事责任。此种将多次行政处罚后再实施违法的行为纳入刑事犯罪构成要件或者说作为罪量要素的定罪模式是合理的,不违反禁止重复评价原则和刑法谦抑性原则。但为了防止刑事制裁范围的肆意扩大,应从违法主体、违法程序及违法次数上对"非法行医被二次行政处罚后再次非法行医"入罪进行一定的限制,以实现人权保障和惩罚犯罪的有机统一。     

The Significant Development of the Exclusionary Rule of Illegal Evidence in China: from the Perspective of the Promulgation of “The Rule of Strict Exclusion of Illegal Evidence”

The function and value of exclusionary rule of illegal evidence lie not only in the prevention of mistrial, but also in the manifestation of procedural justice, the regulation of judicial conduct and the emphasis on the protection of human rights. The promulgation of “the rule of strict exclusion of illegal evidence” has made a positive response to the practical problems during the implementation of exclusionary rule of illegal evidence. Many provisions in this rule are much more strict than before, such as further defining the scope of illegal oral evidence, clarifying the method of excluding the repeated confessions, emphasizing the timeliness of exclusion of illegal evidence and the synchronization of supervision of investigation, attaching the importance of collection and application of process evidence, and exerting the review of the legitimacy of evidence in pre-trial conference. After the promulgation of “the rule of strict exclusion of illegal evidence”, we should continue to focus on the implementation of exclusionary rule of illegal evidence, ensuring its function of post-punishment and illegal prevention.     

扣缴义务人责任研究：类型化与反思

税法上扣缴义务人未完全履行扣缴义务，脱法扣缴行为随之产生，扣缴制度的立法目的成空，追究扣缴义务人责任是为必然。依现行税法规定，扣缴义务人不仅将视情况承担“补缴、追缴”，“限期改正、责令改正”、“刑事处罚”等主责任，而且需承担“滞纳金”，“罚款”或“滞纳金与罚款”等一并使用的从责任。责任形态的复杂性和现行税法的诸多缺陷，导致扣缴义务人责任实务运用极为混乱。要想从源头上解决此问题，必须对扣缴义务人责任进行多维定性，以扣缴义务人基本权利的行使作为扣缴制度财政目的的边界，以财政目的的实现作为扣缴义务人义务履行、权利行使的边界。     

恶意透支型信用卡诈骗司法认定中若干疑难问题探析

最高人民法院、最高人民检察院联合发布的《关于办理妨害信用卡管理刑事案件具体应用法律若干问题的解释》对恶意透支作出了进一步规定,并确定了"经发卡银行两次催收后超过三个月仍不归还"的限制条件。但在司法实践中,对于如何理解经发卡银行两次催收后超过三个月仍不归还、两次催收的认定、三个月的宽限期计算等问题仍存在争议,本文试对以上几个问题进行探讨。     

论程序违法发回重审的条件——域外认知&中国立场

发回重审是重要的程序违法的制裁与救济机制,它对于维护程序的公正、实现程序的独立价值具有重要作用,但是程序违法不是发回重审的充分条件;只有程序违法严重影响程序公正或者可能影响判决、并且已经在原审中被及时提出过异议,才会导致发回重审。     

共犯与身份的中国问题

即便我国刑法总则缺乏共犯与身份的明文规定,通过借鉴域外理论与判例经验,根据共犯规定及共犯原理,也能妥当处理共犯与身份问题。根据身份是影响行为的法益侵害性还是行为人的非难可能性,可将身份区分为违法身份与责任身份;非身份者参与违法身份犯罪的,虽成立违法身份犯的共犯,但应减轻处罚;非身份者参与责任身份犯罪的,应分别定罪处罚。委派到非国有公司从事公务的国家工作人员只是一种责任身份,其伙同公司人员侵占本单位财产、收受贿赂、挪用本单位资金的,具有国家工作人员身份的分别成立贪污罪、受贿罪、挪用公款罪,公司人员则相应成立职务侵占罪、非国家工作人员受贿罪、挪用资金罪。     

非法采矿牵连环境犯罪研究

非法采矿与侵害矿业环境是孪生关系,山体滑坡、地陷、毁林以及污染水源等损害价值特别巨大。但损害环境从未定罪而仅以非法采矿罪判刑,罪刑不相适应导致违法成本少于非法采矿的收益,催生非法采矿现象蔓延。因此,应认定非法采矿牵连系列矿业环境犯罪形态：毁坏财物罪、污染环境罪、滥伐林木罪以及非法占用耕地罪等。牵连犯罪广泛,不应有统一的处断原则,对于社会危害性较大、牵连关系度松散的非法采矿牵连矿业环境犯罪,应适用数罪并罚原则;对恢复环境、消除危险、填平损失等,还应适用非刑罚措施。