On Necessity as a Defence to Crime: Possibilities, Problems and the Limits of Justification and Excuse

The article reviews recent developments in England in the law of necessity as a defence to crime and calls for its further extension. It argues that the defence of necessity presents the criminal law with difficult questions of competing values and the ordering of harms. English law has taken a nuanced position on the respective roles of the courts and the legislature in the ordering of harms, although the development of the law has been pragmatic rather than coherently theorised. The law has granted necessity some scope as an exculpatory principle in the law of general defences, but it has also respected the primacy of the legislature as the legitimate arbiter of many of the competitions of value that necessity throws up. The recognition of necessity has not been in the form of a single unified defence of that name. Rather it has taken the form of a number of defences, based on a principle of necessity, but with different nomenclature and different rationales. This approach to necessity is defended as right in terms of principle and policy. Any further development of necessity as a general defence should be restricted to two contexts, namely those of emergencies, and of conflicts of duty, where a danger of death or serious injury is present.

澳大利亚对非法征税返还之诉的解决途径——“分割主义”取代“转嫁抗辩”

在英美法系国家,公司因错交或多交税款而起诉政府税务机关要求返还不当得利时,政府税务机关为逃避责任,往往会提出“损失转嫁”作为抗辩理由。这一抗辩一直得到英美法传统理论的支持,但却受到澳大利亚“分割主义”理论的挑战。     

The AFSP Standard - a lesson for law enforcement agencies

Compliance with the AFSP (Association of Forensic Science Providers) Standard [1] which concerns the formulation of an evaluative opinion requires consideration of the defence case. This can be problematic for forensic scientists working with or for law enforcement agencies. Among the aims of law enforcement agencies is to secure a conviction while in many jurisdictions the forensic scientist owes an overriding duty to the Court. This casework report demonstrates that early consideration of the defence case by a forensic scientist complying with the AFSP Standard may help rather than hinder the prosecution. The dichotomy as to a conflict of interest for the scientist between supporting the police/prosecutors and being scientifically objective is shown to be a false dichotomy. Compliance with the Standard ensures that science is a better servant of justice.     

Necessity and death: lessons from Latimer and the case of the conjoined twins

The availability of the defence of necessity in cases of homicide is a complex issue in both Canadian and British jurisprudence. This article examines the divergent judicial and academic views and argues that, while necessity may be available for certain kinds of homicide, it should be rejected as a legitimate defence to intentional killings. The author looks closely at two recent cases in which the question arose as to whether or not killing a human being is ever justifiable or excusable on the basis of necessity: the Canadian case of R. v. Latimer and the British case of Re A (Children). The author argues that the approach of the Latimer court is preferable, advancing this position from a number of angles. Underlying rationales for the defence of necessity in Anglo-Canadian jurisprudence are examined, as well as the conceptually similar defence of duress, both at common law and in s. 17 of the Criminal Code. Both of these points are reinforced and analyzed via a discussion of the sanctity-of-life principle in Canadian criminal law. The article makes clear the essential nature of the issues raised in both Latimer and Re A (Children), as they engage fundamental questions of value for our society.     

Rights,goals, and hard cases

Rights have two properties which prima facie appear to be inconsistent. The first is that they are conditional in the sense that one some occasions it is always justifiable for someone to act in a way which appears to be inconsistent with someone else's rights, such as when the defence of necessity applies. The second is that rights are indefeasible in the sense that they are not subject to being defeated our outweighed by utilitarian or policy considerations. If we view rules and the rights which they establish as being subject to a ceteris paribus clause, the form of which generates out the exceptions, the conditionality of rights becomes reconcilable with their nondefeasibility. Such a view of rules and rights would entail that the goals of the law and their orderings be considered as a part of the law. When so viewed, propositions about goals and their orderings become legitimate premises for legal reasoning, furnishing solutions to hard cases in the law of torts, without resort to balancing of interests or judicial discretion.     

The misbegotten marriage of soft psychology and bad law

The proposal to justify homicide by psychological self-defense rests on an insecure scientific foundation and would be legally mischievous. The core concepts are unacceptably vague and lack rigorous empirical support. The proposed defense is better characterized as an excuse than as a justification because rational victims of purely psychological abuse do have socially preferrable alternatives to homicide, and the proposal is inconsistent with modern criminal law that limits justifications for homicide. The defense would create substantial administrative problems and would facilitate adoption or expansion of related undesirable doctrines. The best response to abhorrent physical and psychological abuse is not unnecessary further violence, but the creation of adequate deterrents and alternative solutions for victims.     

The greater good?: issues of proportionality and democracy in the doctrine of necessity as applied in Re A

This article examines the criminal law doctrine of necessity as applied in the conjoined twins case (Re A (Children) (Conjoined Twins: Surgical Separation) [2000] 4 All ER 961). It determines that the public law principle of proportionality underlies the doctrine, but identifies the preservation of life as the guiding principle behind the Court of Appeal's use of necessity in Re A. The article is critical of this elevation of the preservation of life under the doctrine of necessity and argues for an alternative conception of necessity based upon fundamental constitutional principles such as human rights and democracy. The principle of democracy has particular pertinence to the issue of necessity because it may be endangered by this common law justificatory defence. This conflict between democracy and necessity, it is argued, further supports the need for the constitutional value of democracy to play a key role in any application of necessity in future cases.     

Sisters in Arms: European Community Law and Sex Equality in the Armed Forces

Abstract: Recently the European Court of Justice has been shedding a new light on the limits of Community competence for defence. This article analyses the rulings in Sirdar, Kreil, and Dory with regards to two interrelated issues. First it discusses the effect of Community law on the equality of men and women in the armed forces of the Member States. Second, it deals with the impact of these decisions on the constitutional order of the European Union. The article argues that Community law has a considerable impact on defence‐related national law. Therefore the analysis ultimately contributes to a narrow aspect of the constitutional debate: the demarcation of competencies between the Member States and the Community in matters related to defence.>     

Liberal battle zones and the study of law and the media

One approach to the study of law and the media is to assume that autonomy of law and legal decisions from media influence is desirable. Reviewing the other articles in this special issue, this Afterword examines the strengths and weaknesses of this approach. Its strength is in the battle zones for liberal values; it contributes to fights against bias and prejudice. Its weakness stems from subjectivity's contributions to justice; it does not explore the necessity and desirability of a legal system embedded in culture. The Afterword suggests areas for research on the interdependencies between law and culture that can complement the research reported in this special issue.     

Laws of Inclusion and Exclusion: Nomos,Nationalism and the Other

This article explores how and why contemporary nationalist ‘defence leagues’ in Australia and the UK invoke fantasies of law. I argue these fantasies articulate with Carl Schmitt’s theory of ‘nomos’, which holds that law functions as a spatial order of reason that both produces and is produced by land qua the territory of the nation. To elucidate the ideological function of law for defence leagues, I outline a theory of law as it relates to (political) subjectivity. Drawing on the work of Foucault, Agamben and Brown, I demonstrate how subjects form and are formed by historically contingent relationships to law in the contemporary neo-liberal moment. Turning to Lacan, I show how nationalistic invocations of law provide nationalists with a fantasy that the nation’s law represents them and holds them together (as the nation itself). Similarly, I argue that nationalists imagine that the other has their own law as well, which not only corresponds to the other, but functions as a legible index of the other’s otherness—a metonym for the threatening uncertainty and radical difference that the other represents. Drawing on Lacan’s concept of the big Other, I ultimately argue that nationalists aggressively (re)assert law not only to defend the nation, but to ensure their own symbolic and ontological security therein.

     

On the integration of public law jurisprudence

After two to three hundred years of development, modern public laws have become more and more important, mature and integrated especially since the 20^th century. Traditionally, the dispersive and overlapping public law researches were grounded on the sectional public laws like constitutional law, administrative law, criminal law, procedural law, international public law, etc. Nevertheless, with all-around emergence of public law, the traditional research method can no longer adapt to the development needs of the modern public law. Therefore, it is quite necessary for us to create a kind of moderate unified public law between the laws and the sectional public laws, so as to do comprehensive, integrated and systematic researches on various sectional public laws. Based on the indepth argumentation about the necessity of developing unified public laws, this paper further puts forward that, to discuss an all-encompassing way about the main problems of creating the unified public laws and expect to fill the gap with it, the unified public law should define its study objectives mainly focused on the contents of integrated public law criteria, common public law features and general public law rules and so on; form its theoretical basis on the line of the relations between public power and the citizen privilege; establish its category structure found on the concept of public power and the derivative core and basic categories; and build up the disciplinary system based on the systematic integrity of the public law research results.     

Provocation and Pluralism

What is the best way to reflect human diversity in the structure of the provocation defence, and similar excusatory defences in the criminal law? The House of Lords recently concluded that the right way is to allow the jury to personalise and thereby qualify the apparently uniform ‘reasonable person’ standard mentioned in section 3 of the Homicide Act 1957. In this paper we argue that this is not the right way at all. We argue that the reasonable person standard, unqualified, already accommodates the only variations between people that the law should want to accommodate in an excusatory defence. To defend this view we revive the common law's tripartite analysis of the ‘objective’ (or impersonal) issues in the provocation defence: first, was there an action capable of constituting a provocation? second, how provocative was it? and third, how much self‐control should have been exhibited in the face of it? We show that these questions each have a built‐in sensitivity to certain variations between different defendants' situations, but that this does not detract from their objectivity (or impersonality). We argue that no more sensitivity is needed in the name of human diversity, and what is more that no more sensitivity is desirable.     

Intoxication as a defence to murder in Seychelles

In Seychelles, the mens rea of murder can be established, as an alternative to an intention to cause death or grievous harm, on the basis of the defendant’s ‘knowledge’ that the act or omission causing death will probably cause death or grievous harm. However, a defendant is only allowed to plead intoxication as a defence where it had become impossible for him to form the necessary ‘intention’ due to intoxication. This article highlights the difficulties in the application of the defence of intoxication to cases where the mens rea for murder is based purely on a defendant’s ‘knowledge’. In analysing the defence of intoxication in Seychelles in cases of murder, the article examines the position under English and Australian law.     

反思正当防卫:来自普通法的经验借鉴

相比于中国正当防卫的理论与实践,普通法的正当防卫制度似乎能更全面、更有效地保护公民合法权益。首先,其防卫必要性要件采主观标准;紧迫性并不是独立于必要性之外的要件,且防卫人没有退避义务。其次,其合理性要件采客观标准,以防卫人主观上认识的事实为基础,引入理性一般人的判断标准。再次,如果起初的受害者使用不相称之武力反击起初的攻击者,以致二人角色反转,那么起初的攻击者可以援引正当防卫。最后,合意互殴的参与者只有在有效退出互殴并且将退出意愿明确传达给对方的情形下,才能重获正当防卫的权利。本文认为,防卫过当可作为部分之可宥辩护事由。     

Causing harm: Criminal law

This paper offers two related things. First, a theory of singular causal statements attributing causal responsibility for a particular harm to a particular agent based on the conjunction of a positive condition (necessitation) and a negative condition (avoidability) which captures the notions of sufficiency and necessity in intuitive ideas about agent causation better than traditional conditio sine qua non based theories. Second, a theory of representation of causal issues in the law. The conceptual framework is that of Game Trees and Games in Extensive Form. Causal conditions are defined set-theoretically over Game Trees; causal issues and fundamental distinctions (dependent versus independent intervening causes, foreseeability or not of harm etc.) arising in legal cases are accommodated by the device of a probability distribution over the game-tree representation of cases.This theory of causing harm, or agent causation is presented in greater detail in L. Aqvist & P Mullock, Causing Harm: a logico-legal study (forthcoming, de Gruyter, Berlin) dealing primarily with causation in tort law.     

私人财产权的双重保障——兼论税法与私法的承接与调整

财产权是公民维持其物质生活的基本权之一,对公民生存权等诸项权利的实现有着重要的意义。在财产权的实现过程中,不仅将面临来自平等主体的权利侵害,更将无法避免以参与财产收益分配为目的的征税权的侵害。为此,必须通过私法与税法的双重制度构建,为私人财产权的实现提供全面的保障。私法通过财产权行使规则的确立,为财产权提供积极的制度保障,而税法则必须通过对国家征税权的自觉约束与规范,防止征税权对财产权造成过度的侵害,为私人财产权提供消极的保障。着重研究私人财产权双重制度保障的必要性与可行性,并以此为基础,分析如何实现两者的相互协调,避免规则的冲突。     

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.     

论中国和平发展与国际法的交互影响和作用

A peaceful and harmonious world is an important social basis for China’s peaceful development, and international law lays a legal foundation and guarantee for building such a world. In the “village of globe” with co-existence and economic globalization, international law provides China a peaceful development with legal certainty in external environment of peace and security, fair and equal international competitive order, and international cooperation; and on the other hand, it puts on an increasing legal restraint on the internal and external strategies of China’s peaceful development. At the same time, the peaceful development of China deems to make a great contribution to the world, which are the main subject of international law in peace and development, as well as to human rights, rule of law and democracy, which are the universal values pursued by international law. Zeng Lingliang, Ph.D of law, is presently a dean and professor in the Faculty of Law in University of Macau. He is an awardee of the Cheung Kong Scholars Award Program and Jean Monnet Chair of European Union Law in Wuhan University, and one of the first three individuals nominated by the China government on the list of panelists in the WTO. He has published many articles on WTO issues, EU law and international law, and his influenced monographs are European Communities and Modern International Law (1992) and its revised edition—European Union and Modern International Law (1994), Law of World Trade Organization (1996), International Law and China in the Early 21 ^st Century (2005) and the Essentials of EU Law—in the New Perspective of the Treaty on the Constitution for Europe (2007).     

公用企业合法垄断之否定

传统的观点认为,公用企业是典型的自然垄断行业,同时也受到了法律的厚爱。但现实中,它不仅没有达到立法者的良好初衷,反而从一个社会福祉的创造者蜕变成了狭隘的经济人,而且是一个有着国家意志和行政权力作掩护的更容易掠夺消费者的经济人,对社会利益造成了极大的损害。本文通过对必要性和可行性分析,肯定了公用企业也应该适用反垄断法,并就此考察了几个特殊问题。