恢复性司法述议

恢复性司法以恢复原有社会秩序为目的,着重于对被害人所受伤害的补偿以及对犯罪行为人的改造,是对犯罪行为作出的系统性反应。本文结合中外司法实践,探索恢复性司法的模式问题。     

Discretion and corruption: The Chilean judiciary

Corruption in the judiciary and its effects on the budget of that branch of government, the efficiency of justice (prompt or belated) and its quality (biased or impartial) are analyzed. The discretionary powers of the Supreme Court and those granted to judges to manage their courts, calendar and case load, and the hierarchical administrative structures of judiciaries, which function as a queueing system, may be used as a tool to maximize graft. These phenomena reveal links between institutional forms and incentives. Using the case of Chile and the exceptional emergence of corruption within the judiciary during the military dictatorship, the role of democracy as a punishing and preventive mechanism is highlighted.This article was written while the author was a Senior Fellow at the Orville Schell, Center for International Human Rights Law at Yale Law School, and under the auspices of the North-South Center of the University of Miami.     

The glass ceiling at the highest levels of the Spanish judiciary

ABSTRACT

In Spain, the number of female judges at the highest levels of the judiciary is very low, despite the approval of two Strategic Plans for Equality in the Judicial Career (2013 and 2020). This situation does not seem to differ from other European countries, according to the data offered by CEPEJ (2018). It is clear that the end of tokenism has not yet arrived, and for that reason, an analysis of the main probable causes for this glass ceiling is carried out in this paper. A greater effort must be made in order to overcome this situation and achieve a better representation of female judges at the highest levels of the judiciary system.     

The role of the judiciary in combating corruption: aiding and inhibiting factors in Nigeria

Based on empirical facts and research in socio-economic fields, it is consensually agreed among scholars that corruption is one of the greatest hindrances to the development of any country. As part of the efforts to combat the menace of corruption, laws and institutions have been put in place. Consequently, judges, by virtue of their position in society, have an important role to play to ensure the effectiveness of those laws and institutions. However, the Nigerian judiciary has failed to live up to its responsibility in its role of combating corruption in the country and is even itself accused of corruption. This article discusses the factors that are necessary to assist in building an effective, vibrant and corruption-free judiciary. Salient factors that hinder the judiciary in the performance of its role to combat corruption are highlighted. The article finally suggests the need to reform Nigeria’s judicial sector and to set in motion all the machinery necessary for the purpose of creating a formidable judiciary in the country.     

从卫生监督稽查视角审视行刑衔接工作

为了有效打击、震慑违法犯罪分子,保障人民身体健康,维护社会和谐稳定,行刑衔接工作机制在卫生行政执法工作中发挥着越来越重要的作用,本文拟结合日常工作实际,从卫生监督稽查视角审视卫生行政执法与刑事司法相衔接工作。     

司法公信力的意义阐释

司法公信力源于司法的自治力、司法的说服力和司法的确定力。司法公信力是政治国家与市民社会理性沟通的产物,是一种归属于社会资本的制度性资源,是司法在发挥纠纷解决功能、权利救济功能和法律发展功能过程中建构起来的任用和信用关系,是司法权威历史演化的产物。     

Quality of criminal responsibility reports submitted to the Hawaii judiciary

This paper is the third in a series of research reports on quality of forensic mental health evaluations submitted to the Hawaii judiciary. Previous studies examined quality of reports assessing competency to stand trial (CST) and post-acquittal conditional release, in felony defendants undergoing court-ordered examinations. Utilizing a 44-item quality coding instrument, this study examined quality of criminal responsibility reports in a sample of 150 forensic mental health evaluations conducted between 2006 and 2010 by court-appointed panels. Raters attained high levels of agreement in training and quality coding. Similar to the previous studies, overall quality of reports was mediocre, falling below the .80 quality criterion score for report elements, regardless of evaluator professional identification or employment status. Level of agreement between evaluators and judicial sanity determinations was “fair” using Cicchetti's (1994) standards for interpretation of intra-class correlations. Level of agreement was lower than previously published findings for CST reports and better than conditional release reports. Reasons for mediocre report quality and “fair” inter-rater agreement are discussed, including the fact that criminal responsibility evaluations are complex, retrospective in nature, and involve significant degrees of inference. In contrast to CST evaluations, assessment of criminal responsibility involves a mental state at the time of the offense evaluation. Threats to reliability in forensic reports are discussed. Suggestions for improvement of report quality are proffered, including standardization of procedures and report format and use of forensic assessment instruments.     

Women in the Nigerian judiciary: considerable headway or organised progress?

ABSTRACT

Women have made considerable progress in terms of their entrance into the legal profession, such that they are advancing towards parity with men on the High Court benches in Nigeria. This study is a product of qualitative empirical data gathered from interviews with judges and information gleaned from government records and personal files of judges in the Archives of the judiciaries in Mid-Western Nigeria. It identifies reasons for the increase in the number of women on the High Court Bench in the area. Women entering the legal professions in Nigeria from the 1930s opted for a career in government legal service and the Magistracy with less financial remuneration but regular work hours, than in private legal practice that provides higher remunerations and irregular work hours. Findings reveal that the number of women judges increased when it became fairly established to tunnel 90% of appointments to the High Court from these channels. The preliminary conclusion therefore, is that, although women lawyers have made considerable headway as High Court judges, the increase in their numbers on the High Court bench was not as a result of any organised policy to increase the number of women judges in Nigeria.     

Reforming campaign finance in the nineties: a case study of Spain

This paper analyzes the reforms of the Spanish electoral finance regulatory system during the nineties. We present a number of indexes to measure the impact of the reforms on parties and campaign spending. We also suggest a game theoretical model to explain why the two main parties agreed to support the legal changes in the nineties. A principal outcome of the reforms was to establish an effective limit to campaign expenses. In our view this would have not been feasible in the late seventies or eighties. Then the parties were trapped in a prisoner’s dilemma in which each party had to spend more in order to prevent other parties from gaining electoral advantage. But in the nineties the main parties, ridden with problems of soaring electoral debts and disgruntled voters, used the reform of political finance as a coordination device to achieve a Pareto efficient equilibrium.