Private Interests Seeking Punishment: Prosecution Brought by Private Individuals and Groups in Spain

This article centers on the study of the Spanish private prosecution system. It is an attempt to highlight both its theoretical potential and its practical dysfunctions. This type of lay participation in criminal matters is often seen as a way to strengthen democracy or to legitimate justice, opinions that the author rejects. Although private prosecution may work as a safety valve against the public prosecutor's inactivity, the introduction of private interests in the penal process may distort its true significance and function. Private prosecution can become a Trojan horse within the system.     

法治视野下的电子民主

互联网时代的到来,催生了电子民主的发展。电子民主属于直接民主、纵向民主、大众民主、分散与集中相结合的民主。电子民主可以促进公民的政治参与,强化对公权力的监督,促进精英法治与大众法治的沟通,使政治生活更加民主。但电子民主也具有虚拟性、欺骗性、非理性、缺乏客观性等不足,容易陷人无政府状态。电子民主对中国法治建设具有重大的价值。但就司法而言,司法虽然应当倾听公众的声音、尊重电子民主,但同时应当注意与网络民意保持一定的距离,以避免“民意”绑架了司法、沦落为大众非理性的帮凶。     

我国城市规划环评公众参与的法律价值探讨——以环境正义为视角

环境正义注重社会成员之间环境利益和负担的公平分配。城市规划环境影响评价的公众参与制度从实体正义和程序正义两个方面实现了环境正义价值。由于当前我国环境保护价值观念的滞后。公众参与并没有得到应有的重视。法律实践还存在立法模糊、配套制度不完善、公众与行政机关之间地位不平等等缺陷。因此,公众参与制度应当建立以环境正义价值为主导的价值体系,并在此基础之上转变法律价值观念,提高立法层次,完善参与要素,搭建配套的法律制度。以推动环境民主时代的到来。     

协商民主理念下加拿大公众参与环境法律实施的路径选择及对我国的启示

协商民主相对于参与民主而言,通过理性的协商对话消除冲突等不和谐因素,实现公共利益,更强调参与的深度。加拿大特有的国情为协商民主的实现提供了良好的氛围,公众参与环境法律实施是其环境法制革新的民主化方向,公众以政府与公民社会新型关系的参与路径确保协商主体的平等性;公众以环保专业知识、传统生态知识参与路径促进理性协商;公众以环保社团参与路径为主确保协商的团体优势;公众的全方位救济途径确保协商民主的有效性。当前我国在协商民主大环境下,公众参与环境法律实施路径应该变"被动参与"为"主动实施";变"松散参与"为"社团参与";变"无为参与"为"专业参与";变"单一救济"为"多元救济",从而实现积极、有序和有效的公众参与环境法律实施。     

Crafting public security: demilitarisation,penal state reform and security policy-making in post-authoritarian Chile

ABSTRACT

Here I dissect the institutionalisation of ‘citizen security’ as a category and sector of public policy in post-authoritarian Chile. Deploying a Bourdieusian field theory approach and questioning narratives of security policies as responses to criminality or adaptations to democratic values, I argue that the construction of a new security policy sector – with a new consensus (distinct from that of National Security), with reformed police and courts in its core, leaving aside the military and extending beyond traditional agencies – derives from (i) struggles over policing and criminal justice reforms, (ii) tensions between the military and democratic authorities in democracy and (iii) performative integrations of the new policy components. These mechanisms explain the evolution of the security problem and the progressive aggregation of bureaucratic agencies and methods to the ‘public security policy’ – policing, judiciary, urban design, prisons and prevention plans. I close discussing alternative accounts of institutional variations in security governance in the region.     

Two paradigms of justice: criminal vs survivor justice in Africa

African countries continue to experience civil wars and other low-level violent conflicts. An issue relating to the intractable nature of postcolonial violence and how it should be resolved, is what is the potential for advancing contemporary peace processes and negotiated agreements through the notion of survivor justice? Two paradigms of justice have emerged in Africa in response to mass violence: criminal justice based on the example of the Nuremberg trials; and survivor justice based on political reform and exemplified by the cases of South Africa and Sudan. These two paradigms of justice are compared, with the context undergirding the debate and assumptions of each explored, and how this related to the issues of building peace in Africa. The guiding question is whether civil wars can be ended in courts. I argue that where a decisive military victory is untenable, survivor justice, that is political reform combined with judicial reconciliation, is the best way to resolve Africa’s conflicts. The example of South Africa’s political settlement and the reconciliation process in Rwanda offer examples of solutions for conflict transition to peace. Criminal justice processes – absent a decisive military victory – can act to delay and prevent peace and resolution.     

Criminal justice response to human trafficking in Nigeria and South Africa: suggestions for better performance

This article evaluates the response of the criminal justice system of Nigeria and South Africa in relation to human trafficking, and offer suggestions on pragmatic steps that can be taken to combat its scourge. Over the years, concerted efforts have been made to develop effective, and internationally coordinated approaches to combat the phenomenon at the national, regional and continental levels, but unfortunately, such conscientious have not yielded the desired results. Nigeria and South Africa have criminalised the menace by enacting anti-trafficking laws, but these regulations have not been able to adequately stem the tides of the crime, considering its rising profile in recent times. The reason (among others) is essentially due to the fact that these laws are selective, and not all-inclusive. Policy makers in both countries are merely formulating and adjusting strategies on an experimental basis. Though there is improvement in inter-agency cooperation within each country, but there is a wide gap in cross-national cooperation. The author draws on evolving international standards to propose six fundamentals of an effective criminal justice response to human trafficking that can be adopted by these two countries.     

论南非法律体系的混合特性

南非的法律体系具有混合性特征。除宪法、制定法、普通法外,习惯法也是南非重要的法律渊源。在公法领域,南非法主要受普通法系的影响,而私法领域则主要体现了罗马-荷兰法、习惯法的痕迹。在司法制度上,南非主要沿袭英国的做法。     

网络表达的民主考量

网络表达具有增进民主和诱致秩序失范的双重属性。一方面,它具有民主塑造功能,对催生公民意识、拓展民主广度、增进民主深度具有启迪意义;另一方面,网络表达在开启言论自由新时代的同时也创造了一个政府治理缺失的公共空间,产生了一些民主性隐忧,它可能引起公共秩序的紊乱、诱发多数暴政并导致政府在网络语境下的行为失态。为实现网络表达的当下治理进而推进有序民主,加强网民自律和完善网络法治成为必然选择。     

Building a nation: religion and values in the public schools of the USA,Australia, and South Africa

Although the systems of public schools differ among Australia, South Africa and the USA, all three countries recognize that religion plays a significant role in determining values. All three countries have written constitutions but only South Africa and the USA have a Bill of Rights that protects persons’ exercise of religious beliefs. In Australia, the place of religion in education has largely been shaped by state legislatures, administrative regulations and interpretations of the national constitution. In the USA, the long tradition of religious values being represented in public education has been severely restricted over the past 60 years, resulting in artificial judicial lines being drawn between private religious expression and government expression. However, even private expression can be prohibited if it interferes with the educational mission of a school. South Africa had a long tradition of Christian religious practices in government schools under apartheid. However, the post-apartheid 1996 Constitution and 1996 South African Schools Act still give these schools considerable latitude in investing religious values into the educational process. In Australia, values, religion and education have always been a preoccupation of those providing education, although the blurring of public and private education in Australia has resulted in a different direction for the role of religion than in the USA.     

论社会权的可裁判性

社会权是否可以交由司法判断,这在各国理论界都存在种种争议。大体上,反对司法裁判社会权主要出自于分权考量、民主考量、公共政策考量以及社会权的不确定性等。尽管如此,在以南非为代表的很多国家开始了司法裁判社会权的积极尝试。这些初步经验,可以为我国社会权的保障提供若干借鉴意义。     

What goes around,comes around? Access and allocation problems in Global North–South waste trade

Infamous cases of toxic waste trade and research on its health and environmental implications have made the global waste trade a prominent environmental and social justice issue. Recently, such trade has shifted towards extracting resources from waste as recyclable components and used goods which could create income-generating opportunities and reduce the environmental burdens of waste trade from Global North to Global South countries. Nevertheless, studies highlight persistent problems in the access to these resources and allocation of responsibilities, risks and burdens from processing and disposal of traded waste in Global South countries. This article aims to contribute to the lessons learnt on access and allocation with respect to waste trade by focusing on issues of equity, fairness and distributive justice. Two cases are analysed: trade in discarded electronic and electric equipment (EEE) between the EU and Africa and trade in plastic materials between the UK and China. This study shows that exports of used EEE and recyclable plastic materials exacerbate the environmental burdens of Global South countries while also exporting new environmental risks and social burdens. At the same time, new demands for justice have emerged from Global South countries through waste ship back initiatives, and new international measures have also been adopted. While the access and allocation lens enabled the identification of persistent problems in Global North–South waste trade, directing future Earth System Governance research to the demands emerging from the Global South countries could offer insights into how to better address these problems and deal with growing global inequalities.

     

Some Reflections on the Relationship between Citizenship, Access to Justice, and the Reform of Legal Aid

The reflexive, reciprocally constitutive relationship between law and society makes a substantive right of access to justice pivotal to the content of citizenship. It is therefore arguable that the establishment of legal aid, however limited in practice, was fundamental to the expanded citizenship which the post-war settlement sought to achieve. However this social form of citizenship has been attenuated by the reconfiguration of the state and the neo-liberal reconstruction of the public sector. Yet at the same time, the concepts of citizenship and social exclusion have become key discursive mechanisms in this reconstruction, including in the New Labour reform of the legal aid sector. This paper considers the various meanings attributed to the concepts of citizenship, social exclusion, and access to justice through the optic of the history of policy changes in legal aid. The impact of globalization and economic restructuring on social citizenship is explored, both in terms of the experience of recipients of public goods like legal services, and the professionals who supply them. The commensurability of the New Labour Community Legal Service (CLS) model with other models of justice is discussed. The conclusion briefly returns to the theme of law's 'citizen-constitutive' role and considers the potential of the CLS for combating social exclusion.     

The Idea of “Free Public Reason”

Abstract. In this paper the nature and the role of Rawls's idea of a “free public reason” are examined with an emphasis on the divide between the private and the public spheres, a divide which is the hallmark of a liberal democracy. Criticisms from both the so-called Continental tradition and the Communitarian opponents to liberalism insist on the ineffectiveness of such a conception, on its inability to establish a political consensus on democracy. But it would be a mistake to see a contractarian theory of justice, such as Rawls's justice as fairness, as grounding the social contract in a public use of reason. Such a contract would indeed be susceptible to endless conflicts and renegotiations and would never achieve consensus. Therefore, a distinction must be made between the values of justice that are present in and through the “original” contractual position and the that regulate the public sphere and guarantee its stability.     

南非法院对外国仲裁裁决的承认和执行

南非法院对外国仲裁裁决的承认和执行既可根据南非的普通法,也可根据南非的《承认与执行外国仲裁裁决法》进行。根据南非普通法,如果外国仲裁裁决不是终局的,或缺乏有有效的仲裁协议或自然公正,或裁决是通过欺诈方式获得的,或裁决的承认和执行违反南非的公共政策,南非法院就不会承认和执行该裁决;而南非的《承认与执行外国仲裁裁决法》是为实施《纽约公约》而制定的,不过,二者在内容上存在着不同。     

Law in South Africa and the Legitimacy Crisis

South Africa is presently confronting the possibility of a fundamental change in its political structure. In this context it is useful to consider the special character of the South African legal system and its role in the on-going legitimacy crisis in that country. This article attempts to delineate some of the principal dimensions of law and the types of legitimation issues in South Africa. It suggests that students of law and criminal justice have much to learn from the study of the South African case.     

Balancing International Police Cooperation: INTERPOL and the Undesirable Trade-off Between Rights of Individuals and Global Security

With 194 members, INTERPOL is the most influential actor in matters of transnational policing. Regrettably, the organisation is vulnerable against cases of misuse. Certain states manage to exploit the tools of the organisation, to persecute and track political dissidents or non-aligned members of the media outside their borders. As such, INTERPOL has become a prime example on how non-democratic countries can exert their influence and expand their reach well beyond their domestic jurisdictions via their participation in international organisations. Not wanting to allow the proliferation of criminal havens in certain regions, the organisation has opted to connect with and bring together as many police forces of different states as possible. Evidently, such connections are created with little or no consideration of the state of criminal justice systems and forms of government of the countries involved, as well as any subsequent risks. Such a complex state of affairs demands a thorough reflection on whether it is acceptable to compromise between the need for security and the rights of individuals and procedural justice. The issue has vast legal and practical ramifications, and it is ultimately a question pertaining to the realm of global constitutionalism. Does INTERPOL have the legal authority to be in charge of finding a balance between security and procedural justice? If so, on what legal basis, and to what extent?

     

Citizenship and social justice

Discussions on the problems of the welfare state are increasingly framed in terms of citizenship rather than social justice. The popularity of the concept of citizenship raises the question of its implications for social justice theory and research. In this article it is argued that whereas the dominant approach in social justice is essentially individualistic, the concept of citizenship focuses rather on individuals as members of a societal community, from which both rights and obligations are derived. This focus on communal membership suggests three important topics for social justice theory and research: (i) the need to distinguish between a civic and a justice motive for human behavior, (ii) the need to specify the frame of reference respondents should use when they make their justice judgments, and (iii) the need to recognize the fact that justice judgments may result from both adhering to criteria of justice and considering the consequences of their application.     

公众参与与行政法治

The public participation and the system of the People’s Congress constitute a basic mode of China’s modern democracy. This article first analyzes the lessons from the development of public participatory democracy since the founding of People’s Republic of China, especially those related to the promotion of public participation and the establishment of rule of law in administration and constitutionalism, then, and study the strategic value and potential risks of public participation to the development of human society, the necessity and channels of law protection on public participation. At last, it discusses the trend of public participatory democracy in the environment of globalization and informationization, and its impact on the reconstruction in respect of administrative rule of law and constitutionalism.     

民众参与审判的案件类型学分析

民众参与审判主要包括治安法官、参审法官和陪审法官三种制度类型,其案件分布呈现趋同性和差异性两种规律。前者是指各国通过各种形式吸收具有相关知识和经验的民众参与专门案件审判。就后者而言,治安法官主要审理涉及私人纷争、社会影响不大的案件,陪审法官和参审法官主要审理涉及公共利益、社会影响较大的案件。究其原因,案件类型不同,民众参与审判的意义、制度设计及实践运作亦有所差异。当前我国人民陪审员主要参与轻微案件审判,与法律规定及上述规律均发生明显背离。这种背离有其客观原因和现实意义,但在充分发挥民众参与审判的作用方面仍有很大的改革空间。