Fair Play, Political Obligation, and Punishment

This paper attempts to establish that, and explain why, the practice of punishing offenders is in principle morally permissible. My account is a nonstandard version of the fair play view, according to which punishment’s permissibility derives from reciprocal obligations shared by members of a political community, understood as a mutually beneficial, cooperative venture. Most fair play views portray punishment as an appropriate means of removing the unfair advantage an offender gains relative to law-abiding members of the community. Such views struggle, however, to provide a plausible account of this unfairly gained benefit. By contrast, on my account punishment’s permissibility follows more straightforwardly from the fair play view of political obligation: specifically, the rule instituting punishment is itself among those rules with which members of the political community are obliged to comply. For criminal offenders, compliance requires submitting to the prospect of punishment.     

政治义务的立与破:基于自愿主义的一种审视逻辑

许多政治义务理论致力于证成公民个体具有服从政治共同体的政治义务,而自愿主义则是其中影响最大的一种。自愿主义政治义务理论的核心主旨在于:对于公民个体而言,政治义务必须是经过其本人同意的一种自愿承担。具体来说,自愿主义政治义务理论的这一理论内核贯穿于它的三个常规版本和两个修正版本之中,常规版本包括明示同意、假然同意与历史性同意,而多数同意与隐然同意则为其修正版本。与此同时,作为修正版本的隐然同意还涉及两个"应用特例":一个是选举中的投票行为;另一个是居住地默许行为。     

Punishment,Fair Play and the Burdens of Citizenship

The fair-play theory of punishment claims that the state is justified in imposing additional burdens on law-breakers, to remove the unfair advantage the latter have enjoyed by disobeying the law. From this perspective, punishment reestablishes a fair distribution of benefits and burdens among all citizens. In this paper, I object to this view by focusing on the case of civil disobedience. I argue that the mere illegality of this conduct is insufficient to establish the agent’s unfair advantage over his lawabiding fellows, hence the imposition of additional burdens upon him through legal punishment. I articulate a broader account of citizens’ fair-play duties, able to capture disobedience as well as obedience to the law. While claiming that some law-breakers may not be treated as free-riders, I also gesture at the fact that some law-obeying citizens may not be ‘playing fair’: in some cases, a failure to engage in civil disobedience represents a failure to do one’s own part within the cooperative scheme of society.

     

关于律师政治素质和社会责任问题的思考

律师是为当事人提供法律服务的执业人员,具备坚实的法律素养是其基本要求,而要成为一名真正合格乃至优秀的律师,就必须同时具备良好的政治素质和政治敏锐性,要勇于承担维护公平正义的社会责任。我国律师业所面临的困境与法治处于发展状态有关,律师的困境就是法治的困境,而解决或缓解律师和律师业困境的首要问题是如何处理好律师政治素质与社会责任的问题。     

刑罚个别化问题再研究

刑罚个别化是一种与保安处分相区别,以刑罚一般化为前提,以犯罪人的人身危险性为核心的刑罚理念,其理论根基在于“报应与刑罚个别化相统一”的刑罚目的说,我国法律应在统一说的基础上对其实事求是的进行评价。     

轻罪重判国家赔偿责任的证立及其类型化

刑事审判实践中,对于轻罪重判是否赔偿,处理结果不一,原因在于对《国家赔偿法》第17条第(三)项以及最高人民法院、最高人民检察院《关于办理刑事赔偿案件适用法律若干问题的解释》第6条的不同理解。轻罪重判是对权利的侵害,在加强人权司法保障、强化权力运行制约监督的时代背景下,应该对《国家赔偿法》立法原意予以检讨,对轻罪重判的被告人予以赔偿。制度操作上,可以将轻罪重判的赔偿分为管制的赔偿、有期徒刑改判较短期限的赔偿、重判死刑且已执行的赔偿以及轻罪重判附加刑的赔偿,在此类型化区分的基础上对赔偿的项目、赔偿的方式以及计算标准进行设计。     

The Particularities of Legitimacy: John Simmons on Political Obligation

In this paper, I examine the terms on which John Simmons rejects all arguments for a moral obligation to obey the law and so defends “philosophical anarchism.” Although I accept his rejection of several criteria on which others might and often do insist, I criticize his reliance on the conditions of “generality” and “particularity.” In doing so, I propose an alternative to his influential conception of legitimacy.     

The Process is the Punishment: Criminal Libel and Political Speech in Canada

The number of U.S. states with criminal libel laws has been steadily declining since the 1960s, and the offense has been struck down in the United Kingdom and several former British colonies. In Canada, however, criminal libel not only continues to exist, but appears to be enjoying a resurgence, albeit one that has flown beneath the radar of Canadian lawyers, judges, and journalists, who frequently assert that criminal libel prosecutions are rare. The research reported in this article found more than 400 prosecutions since the beginning of the twenty-first century. While many of these cases were brought against people who disseminated sexual slurs against former romantic partners, in a substantial number of cases criminal libel law was used to punish citizens’ political speech, particularly speech critical of police or other justice system officials, a use wholly inconsistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.     

罪刑均衡的司法考察

司法中的罪刑均衡原则通过责任要素的介入将报应主义下的罪刑均衡与目的主义下的刑罚个别化原则结合起来 ,表现为责刑均衡 ,实现了量刑原则由一元向二元的转变。在罪刑均衡原则的实践过程中 ,定罪与量刑是两个密切相关的范畴。准确定罪始终是公正量刑的前提 ,但量刑对定罪亦有不可忽视的反作用。当前 ,我国司法实践中存在着量刑趋重与量刑偏差较大等问题 ,制约着罪刑均衡原则的充分实现。对量刑偏差问题 ,比较现实的解决方案是将各地量刑经验汇总至最高人民法院 ,在学者的参与下确立起个罪的量刑基准 ,并逐步建立起适度的遵循先例制度 ,以实现量刑的统一。至于量刑趋重问题 ,它是我国刑法文化形态的外在表现 ,难以在短期内得到改观 ,但司法依旧可以有所作为。     

Review of Enshen Li,Punishment in Contemporary China: Its Evolution,Development and Change

Asian Journal of Criminology -     

行政处罚证据的审查及认定

证据是实施行政处罚的基础,证据不足的直接后果将导致行政处罚决定被撤销或变更。只有事实清楚、证据确凿的行政处罚决定,才能使行政违法人员认识错误,心服口服接受处罚。证据也是对执行活动进行监督和检验的重要途径。     

行政处罚权的相对集中:现实的范围及追问

集中行使行政处罚权的范围,用了"相对集中"表述。如何理解"相对"?要明确和确定哪些行政处罚权需要集中,就必须进一步完善行政处罚权集中的范围和调整配置制度。目前,各地对行政处罚权进行了调整和配置,在城市管理领域和文化等领域集中了有关行政处罚权,并形成了不同的模式。行政处罚权的集中范围和调整配置制度基本符合实际需要,有助于提高行政执法的质量和水平,深化行政管理体制改革。当然,这一制度尚存在一些问题。     

失信联合惩戒措施的合法性检讨与控制

失信联合惩戒措施作为一种新型的复合行政行为,在社会治理的各个领域得到广泛运用,但其有效性与合法性之间存在张力,可能会不当限制公民的人格尊严、隐私权、平等权、财产权等基本权利,所以需要进行合法性控制。通过运用依法行政、职权法定、禁止不当联结、比例原则、平等原则以及生存照顾义务等公法原理加以检讨,可以发现失信联合惩戒措施在...     

单位犯罪之恒定与代罚制之检讨

97《刑法》明确规定了单位犯罪,但是对于单位犯罪的理论争议并未消解于立法的＂一锤定音＂。单位犯罪的立法化使社会存在转化为法律存在,其乃社会发展之必然结果。单位犯罪之肯定首先在于民法上肯定单位的权利能力与行为能力以及法律对这种实在的拟制。但是,单位犯罪单罚制中代罚制所带来的不当后果,乃我们无法回避的现实与理论问题。对此,应当进行深入检讨。     

Punishing Cruelly: Punishment, Cruelty, and Mercy

What is cruelty? How and why does it matter? What do the legal rejection of cruelty and the requirements of mercy entail? This essay asks these questions of Lucius Seneca, who first articulated an agent-based conception of cruelty in the context of punishment. The hypothesis is submitted that the answers to these questions offered in Seneca’s De clementia constitute one of the turning points in the evolution of practical reason in law. I conclude, however, by arguing that even the mainstream punitive practices of contemporary western societies fail to meet the modest imperatives of the rejection of cruelty and the unconditionality of mercy propounded by Seneca.