论经验法则的适用与完善

经验法则是指人们从生活经验中归纳获得的关于事物因果关系或属性状态的法则或知识.经验法则在司法审判实践中具有证据评价、事实推定以及法律解释的功能.由于受法官主观水平的影响,加之经验法则适用制度的不完善,经验法则在司法审判实践中产生了一定的局限性.建议从确立法律规范、完善质疑和上诉程序、明确经验法则标准、限制法官自由裁量权...     

认识经验法则

人们对事物的判断离不开经验法则,在诉讼中,当事人的证明和法官的事实认定也同样离不开经验法则.在司法实践中,我们应当如何判断经验法则、正确运用经验法则,以及违反或错误适用经验法则应当产生何种法律后果是一系列值得深入研究的问题.本文对这些问题进行了探讨,以加深对经验法则的认识,更好地把握经验法则.     

论经验法则在民事审判实务中的运用

在事实真伪不明、法律适用"无法可依"的情况下,法官运用经验法则裁判案件显得尤为重要,有必要从经验法则的现实困境入手,通过剖析经验法则在民事裁判中不当适用之原因,以高度盖然性证明标准、波普尔的证伪规则、社会效果评价规则对经验法则的运用进行合理界定,并从加强民事审判中的释明、加强民事裁判文书的说理、完善案例指导制度、强化法官继续教育培训四个方面着手,引导法官妥当、准确地适用经验法则。     

论经验法则在民事诉讼中的适用

经验法则作为约束法官自由心证的一种客观存在的不成文法则逐渐受到司法实务界与学术界的重视。但如何准确适用经验法则,特别是在涉及专业问题的新型案件中准确适用经验法则认定案件事实,仍然是民事诉讼学者探讨的课题。本文从经验法则的概念入手,对经验法则的分类进行探讨,在明确经验法则分为一般经验法则与特殊经验法则的前提下,对民事诉讼中如何运用特殊经验法则认定案件事实进行了论证,并对我国审判实践中如何更好地运用特殊经验法则提出了自己的观点。     

经验法则及其在民事审判中的运用

在民事审判中,经验法则主要在评价证据、推定事实、适用法律三个方面发挥作用。在我国的民事审判实践中,虽然出现许多运用经验法则进行裁判的成功案例,但也存在不当运用经验法则的情形。经验法则有其局限性,应当采取措施保证法官既有必要的自由度,又能谨慎、规范地进行心证,从而实现经验法则在民事审判中运用功效的最佳化。     

法官思维的理性依托于司法审判之既有理念

思维是人的一种精神实践活动,作为这种精神实践活动的结果和产物,是理论、学说和思想体系。法律思维作为现代法律科学中的一个概念,与一般的法律职业相关,它是法律职业者在长期法律实践中所形成的观察、思考、分析和判断法律问题的方式或习惯。在司法实践中,法官所作的任何裁判都是其思维活动直接作用的结果,或者说,法官的思维对案件的处理结果起着十分重要的作用。法官思维包括根据法律的思考和关于法律的思考两种法律方式。司法审判的目的是法官将法律规则适用于具体案件的活动中,寻找什么东西值得认识的思维所规定的。司法审判是受法官已经获得的前见所决定,这些前见规定着法官思维的质量,可以说有什么样的前见就有什么样的思维广度和深度。法官思维特征属于司法理念的一部分。     

论经验法则在司法裁判中的运行——基于认知科学的实证研究

经验法则,是指依据经验归纳出的,关于事物属性及事物间常态联系的知识。在纷繁复杂的案件审判中,大量的证据材料、线索或主张会不断的出现,法官难以对所有的信息进行全面理性的分析与裁断。此时,就需要借助认知图式来对某些信息做出直觉式的快速判断,并引导进一步的调查,包括启发推理与类比推理。法官在司法裁判中基于经验法则的运用所可能产生的认知偏差,不仅体现在基于主客观原因所导致的认知图式的错误"套用",也体现在基于法官职业所形成的认知图式的偏滑。在认知科学方面,法官应该接受一些基本的思维训练。在法律控制方面,则应该完善法官选任制度、保障法官充分接受原始证据,探索分段式审理。     

论经验法则在司法上的功能与应用

在审判实务上,无论是对案件事实的认定还是选择适用法律,均离不开经验法则。经验法则在盖然性上的强弱直接影响着法官对待证事实形成心证的状态,也影响着法官对于证据的自由评价。在认定案件事实上,经验法则与相关证据在功能作用上既相互关联,又互为区别。法官自应有一个对经验法则进行发现、认知、选择、判断和采纳的过程,并应密切关注其妥适性,以维护司法的公信度。     

论民事诉讼中的经验法则

由于立法的语焉不详,实践中法官对待经验法则的态度呈哑铃型的极端:避用和强用.鉴于经验法则在认定事实和适用法律上的独特价值,我们认为极端型适用模式并不可取,构建并完善该制度及其配套机制以充分发挥其功效才是司法者应有的态度,本文以司法实践中部分典型民商事案件为视角,缕析了经验法则的适用现状、困境.解构了经验法则的属性、局限...     

欢迎订阅2011年《法律适用》

《法律适用》创刊于1986年,是最高人民法院主管、国家法官学院主办的应用法学理论研究刊物。现由最高人民法院副院长万鄂湘担任编辑委员会主任和主编。《法律适用》立足于中国的司法实践,紧密结合审判实践中新型、疑难、特殊问题,着重研究法官在适用法律过程中的法律适用问题,本着探讨争鸣、完善司法的精神,全面展示我国法官和应用法学研究的学术成果,深     

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.     

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.     

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.”     

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.     

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.     

Monks Who Have Sex: Pārājika Penance in Indian Buddhist Monasticisms

In the study of Buddhism it is commonly accepted that a monk or nun who commits a pārājika offence is permanently and irrevocably expelled from the Buddhist monastic order. This view is based primarily on readings of the Pāli Vinaya. With the exception of the Pāli Vinaya, however, all other extant Buddhist monastic law codes (Dharmaguptaka, Mahāsāṅghika, Mahīśāsaka, Sarvāstivāda and Mūlasarvāstivāda) contain detailed provisions for monks and nuns who commit pārājikas but nevertheless wish to remain within the saṅgha. These monastics are not expelled. Rather, they are granted a special status known as the śikṣādattaka. In this paper I explore the rules. concerning pārājika penance and the śikṣādattaka with specific regard to monastic celibacy. Given that five out of six extant law codes recognise this remarkable accommodation to the rule of celibacy, I argue that we must look to Vinayas other than the Pāli Vinaya if we are to arrive at a nuanced and representative view of Indian Buddhist monasticism.

Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet. Augustine of Hippo (354–430 C.E.)

     

Family breakdown and the ‘Welfare Child’ in 19th and 20th century Britain

This article traces new cycles of interest in past children as distinct from past childhood. Recent work highlighting that a conceptualisation of childhood existed even in periods with few written records closes the chapter begun by Philippe Ariès in 1960. Instead, there has been a new surge of interest in children on the edges of family life, as well as children in similarly liminal positions between the worlds of adults and children: runaways, delinquents and orphans. Several themes in the literature are identified, based on the conflicting ideas of ‘body/mind’, ‘victim/threat’, ‘needs/rights’. It is noted that researchers are using more imaginative ways of reaching the lived experience of children than the family or institutional framework, and that an increasing link is drawn between historical and modern concerns such as child abuse and the care of ‘at risk’ children.     

Vedic Language and Vaiṣṇava Theology:Madhva’s Use of Nirukta in his Ṛgbhāṣya

This article explores the way in which Madhva (1238–1317), the founder of the Dvaita Vedānta system of Hindu thought, reformulates the traditional exegetic practice of nirukta or “word derivation” to validate his pluralistic, hierarchical, and Vaiṣṇava reading of the Ṛgvedic hymns. Madhva’s Ṛgbhāṣya (RB) is conspicuous for its heavy reliance on and unique deployment of this exegetical tactic to validate several key features of his distinctive theology. These features include his belief in Viṣṇu’s unique possession of all perfect attributes (guṇaparipūrṇatva) and His related conveyability by all Vedic words (sarvaśabdavācyatva). Such an understanding of Vedic language invokes the basic nirukta presupposition that words are eternally affiliated with the meanings they convey. But it is also based onMadhva’s access to a lexicon entitled Vyāsa’s Nirukti with which his critics and perhaps even his commentators seem to be unfamiliar.While the precise status of this text is the subject of ongoing debate, Madhva’s possession of special insight into the sacred canon is established in part by his unique claim to be an avatāra of the wind god Vāyu and a direct disciple of Viṣṇu Himself in the form of Vyāsa₁. Thus, Madhva’s use of nirukta invokes his personal charisma to challenge not only conventional understandings of the hymns but traditional exegetic norms. Madhva’s provision of an alternative tradition of nirukta provoked sectarian debate throughout the Vijayanagara period over the extent to which one could innovate in established practices of reading the Veda. Articulating the Veda’s precise authority was a key feature of Brahmin debates during this period and reflects both the empire’s concern with promoting a shared religious ideology and the competition among rival Brahman sects for imperial patronage that this concern elicited. By looking at how two of Madhva’s most important commentators (the 14^th-century Jayatīrtha and the 17^th-century Rāghavendra) sought to defend his niruktis, this article will explore how notions of normative nirukta were articulated in response to Madhva’s deviations. At the same time, however, examining Madhva’s commentators’ defense of his niruktis also demonstrates the extent to which Madhva actually adhered to selected exegetic norms. This reveals that discomfort with Madhva’s particular methods for deriving words stemmed, in part, from a more general ambivalence towards this exegetical tactic whose inherent open-endedness threatened to undermine the fixity of the canon’s very substance: its language. Vyāsa’s Nirukti is one of several ”unknown sources” cited in Madhva’s commentaries whose exact status continues to be debated. Some scholars (e.g. Rao, Sharma, Siauve) maintain that these texts are part of a now lost Pāṅcarātra tradition that Madhva is attempting to preserve. This may be true for many of these citations. However, in addition to claiming to be both an avatāra of Vāyu and Viṣṇu-as-Vyāsa’s student, Madhva states in several places (e.g., VTN 42, RB 162) that the canon has suffered loss during transmission and that only Viṣṇu can reveal it in its entirety. Thus, it is possible that Madhva intends texts like Vyāsa’s Nirukti to be viewed as part of an ongoing and corrective revelation, a notion that is compatible with many Vaiṣṇava traditions (Halbfass, 1991: 4).     

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.     

Student mentoring to enhance graduates’ employability potential

This paper considers whether the adoption of a subject-specific, classroom-based, voluntary extra-curricular student mentoring scheme could provide an effective mechanism and andragogic approach to enhance higher education students’ employability potential pre-graduation.Over the three-year pilot, 26 more advanced (second to fourth year) undergraduate students actively mentored nearly 400 first year undergraduate students during workshops delivered annually within forensic and policing focused courses. In total, 17 mentors anonymously completed online, post-scheme surveys. Survey data was quantitatively analysed to evaluate the scheme, establish which skills and attributes mentors had developed and investigate whether mentors could appropriately identify example skills within professional terminology used during employer recruitment. In addition, this paper reflects on the implementation of remote student mentoring during the COVID-19 pandemic and its adoption within a blended learning framework.The results from this research strongly support mentoring as an effective mechanism to develop undergraduate employability skills, significantly developing mentors’ self-confidence and self-efficacy in their interpersonal and communication skills. Although mentors were aware of university graduate attributes and thought they could evidence these with appropriate examples, in practice this was not necessarily the case. As a result, a framework is proposed to enable mentors to identify their skills and how they may align with competencies sought by relevant forensic and policing employers. However, other andragogic practices may need to be implemented to maximise the potential for successful graduate employment.