阐明权制度的确立及其适用事项的范围

阐明权是市场经济条件下民事诉讼的一项重要法律制度，而阐明权的行使问题更是诉讼中活的机制和力量。随着我国民事诉讼审判方式改革的推行和民事诉讼理论的发展，主张我国民事诉讼应当由职权主义转向当事人主义成为理论和实践的主流，阐明权制度的有关理论及其行使所针对的诉讼事项的范围问题确需给予更多的关注。本文对法官阐明的理念及阐明权制度的确立过程作了回顾，概括总结了我国关于阐明权的规定和制度运行现状，最后针对我国国情提出法官行使阐明权应适用的具体诉讼事项，并从相反情形划出阐明权应当避免涉足的范围。     

论阐明权在我国民事诉论中的性质界定

阐明权最初规定于大陆法系国家民事诉讼,是在奉行辩论主义和处分权主义的基本原则下,法院为了明确当事人的声明或主张而对当事人的诉讼行为加以引导的一种实质诉讼指挥权,相对于法院指挥诉讼程序进行的纯粹技术程序措施即程序权能而言,法院的阐明权对当事人诉讼主张、提出证据材料和攻击防御方法等提出诉讼资料的行为具有实质促进作用。其中,阐明权性质反映了阐明权的本质属性,是阐明权制度建构的基础。     

论连带责任案件的诉讼形式

连带责任是一个实体和程序紧密结合的问题,实体上的规定如何在诉讼程序中得到充分反映和运用,直接影响到权利人权利的实现及责任人权益的保障。目前连带责任制度实体权利义务的规定与诉讼程序设计之间的冲突与脱节造成了实践中连带责任案件的司法裁判乱象,亦导致了当事人之间权利保护的不公平、整体诉讼效益的低下及司法不公。连带责任案件的诉讼形式,应当立足于诉讼法与实体法的关系,针对连带责任的特质来设计。我国连带责任案件的诉讼形式应确立为固有必要共同诉讼,这是由诉讼法不同于实体法的特有功能、作用方向所决定的,是确保判决的确定效力和权威所要求的,是由保障所有诉讼当事人的诉权所约束的,是提高整体诉讼效率所必须的。     

缺席判决的案件能否适用简易程序审理刍议

缺席判决,是指人民法院在开庭审理案件时,在诉讼当事人一方未参加开庭审理的情况下依法所作出的判决。《民事诉讼法》颁布以来,特别是最高人民法院有关可以缺席判决的案件适用哪种诉讼程序的司法解释在审判实践中实施以来,围绕“缺席判决的案件能否适用简易     

关于诉讼中止的思考简

任何一项民事诉讼程序在设计之初,除了保障案件得到妥当的裁决之外,提高裁决的效率也是诉讼程序设计的目的。诉讼中止则是在妥当与效率的权衡之中作出的偏向案件结果的考量。如果法官在诉讼中适用不当,则裁决案件过程本身不但损害效率,也会损害当事人的实体权益。     

论刑事案件的当事人

刑事案件的当事人不是诉讼参与人,诉讼参与人只是参与诉讼,而当事人却是对诉讼的产生和存在均有决定性影响的人。本文划清了司法主体、诉讼主体和参诉主体这三种主体的界限。当事人不等于诉讼主体,诉讼主体是由诉讼法律关系产生的,而当事人在诉讼发生前早已存在;当事人是实体法律关系的主体,即案件实体中的两方主体。诉讼当事人是指案件实体中的当事人,诉讼并没有创造出新的当事人;程序意义上的当事人应称为当诉人。当事人是身当其事的人;当诉人是身当其诉的人。     

关于诉讼中止的思考

任何一项民事诉讼程序在设计之初,除了保障案件得到妥当的裁决之外,提高裁决的效率也是诉讼程序设计的目的。诉讼中止则是在妥当与效率的权衡之中作出的偏向案件结果的考量。如果法官在诉讼中适用不当,则裁决案件过程本身不但损害效率,也会损害当事人的实体权益。     

跨国民事诉讼规则——(初步草案第二稿)

第1条解释原则 1.1 本规则的解释应促进实体公正和程序公正,并考虑诉讼当事人的法律和文化传统。 1.2 各方当事人有权适当地陈述案件(present its case),当事人诉讼地位对等。     

诉讼实施权配置论——以群体性诉讼中的当事人适格问题为中心

世界各国现存的主流群体性纠纷解决机制揭示着共通的诉讼实施权配置原理。诉讼实施权原则上配置给实体权利义务归属主体,只有存在足够充分且正当事由的情形下方可考虑将其配置给非实体权利义务归属主体。在具体决定向哪些非实体权利义务归属主体以何种方式配置何种诉讼实施权时应当严格遵循比例原则,并通过程序特则确保两造对抗的基本诉讼构造得以维系、实体权利主体最低限度的程序正义得以保护以及双方当事人平等诉讼地位不因诉讼实施权非常态配置而失衡。     

双轨并行模式中在线诉讼的同意规则

在线诉讼是司法制度与网络技术深度融合产生的新型诉讼方式。当在线诉讼与线下诉讼双轨并行时,两种诉讼方式具有同等法律效力,为当事人的程序选择权奠定了制度基础。基于多元诉讼目的,在衡量司法公正与司法效率、当事人诉权与法院审判权、程序选择权与法院审查权关系的基础上,我国的在线诉讼采用当事人主义诉讼模式,赋予当事人程序选择权。在线诉讼程序选择权是一种程序形成权,其行使需经当事人同意。当事人同意是程序选择权的载体,围绕当事人同意设置的程序和制度构成同意规则。法律在赋予当事人程序选择权时,也要求当事人遵循权利保障与自己责任相一致的逻辑。在线诉讼同意规则重构了诉权与审判权之间的法教义学关系,根据二阶构造理论,可以将当事人同意分为选择适用在线诉讼方式的同意和选择在线审理案件之具体程序的同意,两个阶段当事人同意的规则和法律效力既有联系又有区别。     

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.     

Immigration,intermarriage and the changing face of Europe in the post war period

In this article we compare the propensity to intermarry of various migrant groups and their children who settled in Germany, France, England, Belgium and the Netherlands in the post-war period, using a wide range of available statistical data. We try to explain different intermarriage patterns within the framework of Alba and Nee's assimilation theory and pay special attention to the role of religion, colour and colonial background. We therefore compare colonial with non colonial migrants and within these categories between groups with ‘European’ (Christian) and non-European (Islam, Hinduism) religions. First of all, religion appears to be an important variable. Migrants whose faith has no tradition in Western Europe intermarry at a much lower rate than those whose religious backgrounds correspond with those that are common in the country of settlement. The rate of ethnic endogamous marriages in Western Europe are highest in Hindu and Muslim communities, often regardless if they came as guest workers or colonial migrants. Whereas differences in religion diminish the propensity to intermarry, colour or ‘racial’ differences on the other hand seem to be less important. This is largely explained by the pre-migration socialisation. Furthermore, the paper argues that the attention to institutions, as rightly advocated by Richard Alba and Victor Nee, needs a more refined and layered elaboration. Institutions, often as barriers to intermarriage, do not only emanate from the receiving society, but also—be it less formalized—within migrant communities. Especially religions and family systems, but also organized nationalist feelings, can have a profound influence on how migrants think about endogamy. Finally, strong pressures to assimilate, often through institutionalized forms of discrimination and stigmatization, not only produce isolation and frustrate assimilation (with resulting low intermarriage rates), but can also stimulate assimilation by 'passing' mechanisms. These factors, together with a more comparative perspective, are not completely ignored in the new assimilation theory, but—as this study of Western European intermarriage patterns stresses—deserve to be included more systematically in historical and social scientist analyses.     

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.     

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.”     

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.     

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.     

Illumination,Imagination, Creativity: Rājaśekhara,Kuntaka, and Jagannātha on <Emphasis Type="Italic">Pratibhā</Emphasis>

Sanskrit poeticians make the visionary faculty of pratibhā a necessary part of the professional poet’s make-up. The term has a pre-history in Bhartṛhari’s linguistic metaphysics, where it is used to explain the unitary perception of meaning. This essay examines the relation between pratibhā and possible theories of the imagination, with a focus on three unusual theoreticians—Rājaśekhara, Kuntaka, and Jagannātha Paṇḍita. Rājaśekhara offers an analysis of pratibhā that is heavily interactive, requiring the discerning presence of the bhāvaka listener or critic; he also positions pratibhā in relation to Bildung (vyutpatti) and practice. For Kuntaka, pratibhā, never an ex nihilo creation by a poet, serves as the basis for the peculiar forms of intensified insight and experience that constitute poetry; these may also involve the creative scrambling and re-articulation of the object in terms of its systemic composition. At times, Kuntaka’s pratibhā comes close to a strong notion of imaginative process. But the full-fledged thematization of the imagination, and of pratibhā as its support and mechanism, is best seen in the seventeenth-century debates preserved for us by Jagannātha. A link is suggested between the discourse of poetic imagination in Jagannātha and similar themes that turn up in Indo-Persian poets such as Bedil.     

Preventing Homelessness for System‐Involved Youth

Too many youth and young adults find themselves on the streets, couch‐surfing with friends, in emergency shelters or worse, after exiting the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. In some circumstances, youth have had court hearings until their exit from the legal system, but those hearings have not focused on long‐range plans of youth and emergencies youth may encounter. In other circumstances, there has been little or no planning prior to discharge, especially for young people who leave the juvenile justice system. Courts can and should prevent, alleviate or end youth homelessness for youth who appear before them through strategies that are enumerated in the recently‐passed NCJFCJ resolution. This article expounds on three of these strategies – coordinating transition and re‐entry plans, insisting on effective legal representation of youth, and utilizing sound judicial leadership. It also describes the concurrent efforts of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice and the American Bar Association's Homeless Youth Legal Network to remove legal barriers and improve outcomes for youth and young adults experiencing homelessness.     

Best practices for structuring a family court parenting plan evaluation under the 2022 AFCC Guidelines

Evaluation appointment orders provide enforceable scaffolding for conduct of family court parenting plan evaluations, and use of the evaluator's reports, feedback, file, and testimony. Unlike a contract, a stipulated or adjudicated appointment order is directly enforceable by the family court. It unambiguously positions the evaluator as the family court's appointee – answerable directly to the court and, in some jurisdictions, protected by quasi-judicial immunity from damages claims. A well-crafted appointment order governs the roles and expectations of the court, the evaluator, the parties, the lawyers, and the collateral witnesses. An appointment order mandates the legal duties, rights, powers, and responsibilities of the professionals, the parties, and the collateral witnesses. At minimum, an appointment order articulates the legal basis for the appointment, the purpose and scope of the evaluation, compensation of evaluator, and the duty of the parties to participate in the process. A written evaluation protocol or procedures statement discloses in advance the methods of investigation and assessment that the evaluator intends to use. Together, the appointment order and written protocol help the evaluator, lawyers, parents, and judge manage the complexity of the evaluation process.