西方国家依法行政比较研究——兼论对我国依法行政的启示

西方各国依法行政有着鲜明的个性特色和深层次的共性特征。无论大陆法系国家还是英美法系国家 ,其依法行政既根植于各国深厚的历史渊源和特定的国情基础 ,又遵循着普遍的行政法治规律。本文对法国、德国、英国、美国和日本依法行政的理论和制度进行了深入的内在比较和研究 ,并在此基础上提出了对我国依法行政的四点启示 :(1 )现代行政权管制功能减弱 ,服务功能加强 ,行政权宏观上扩张 ,微观上收缩 ;(2 )行政权的运行规范于行政程序法 ,行政权的行使依托于公务员法 ;(3)自由裁量权的扩大为社会发展所必需 ,加强对自由裁量权的司法审查则是依法行政的必然 ;(4)救济制度的建立是依法行政的内在要求 ,救济体系的完善是依法行政的根本保障。     

行政规范的司法审查

对行政规范进行司法审查是司法权制约行政权的重要方式,也是民主、法治社会的题中应有之义。我国现行的司法审查制度排除了对行政规范的审查,这不利于保护相对人的权益,亦与依法行政的宗旨相悖。故此,应将行政规范纳入司法审查的范围,并从司法审查的方式上进行完善,以期实现司法权对行政权的有效监督。     

以权利制约权力:建立纳税人诉讼的基本思路

本文指出对政府行政权力的制约和监督既是人类文明的体现,也是人类文明进程中的难题。纳税人诉讼是行政诉讼制度的创新。作为一种对行政权运行参与和监督的民众诉求而产生的现代公民权利,纳税人诉讼具有毋容置疑的法理正义和宪政意义。我国有必要借鉴这一制度,以利于加强对行政权行使的司法监督,建设法治政府。     

论我国抽象行政行为的司法审查

对抽象行政行为进行司法审查是各国政治体制中分权制约原则的具体体现,也是司法权监督制约行政权的重要方式。笔者认为,我国现行行政诉讼立法已经确立了中国特色的对抽象行政行为的司法审查制度。然而,我国现行对抽象行政行为的司法审查,只是间接的、附带的和有限的司法审查,并不适应我国民主与法治建设的需要。因此,我们必须从思想观念、法律规范、组织体制、制度程序和人员素质等方面予以健全和发展。     

政府机构改革的宪法性思考

我国政府机构改革的深层原因是计划经济体制下所形成的高度集权的宪政秩序和权力结构特征与社会主义市场经济体制所要求的不相融 ,因此 ,重新界定行政权范围 ,设计出能够保障行政权规范有效运行的权力结构 ,优化宪政秩序是当前政府机构改革的实质所在。行政权的正确定位需要来自立法权、司法权、公民权以及其他社会权利的支持与配合 ,所以应把政府机构改革纳入整个权力结构调整的大系统之中。在推进政府机构改革的过程中要从宪政角度出发 ,加强三个方面的制度建设。     

我国行政诉讼立法的几个问题

自从十一届三中全会以来,我国建设的重点是发展生产力加快经济建设,和健全社会主义民主与法制。这两项建设互相联系,生产力和经济建设的发展只有在健全法制的保障和促进下才能顺利进行。社会主义法制建设,首先要求制定各种必要的法律,使各项活动有法可依。但立法工作只是法制建设的一个侧面,如果有法不依、执法不严、违法不究,立法工作就毫无实际意义。因此,贯彻执行法律,依法办事是法制建设的另一侧面。依法办事首先是政府依法办事,只有政府依法办事才能带动全体公民遵法守纪。政府依法办事的中心是依法行政,而依法行政的有效保障是行政诉讼制度:即公民对于违法的行政行为,可以请求一个独立的司法机关对它进行审查和撤销,使它不能发生效果,而且在受到损害时还可请求赔偿。有了这样一种制度,行政机关不依法办事实际上不可能。因此.一个有效的行政诉讼制度是健全社会主义法制的有力支柱。     

基层政府推进依法行政的成效与问题分析

近年来,基层政府推进依法行政成效显著,但也存在诸多问题,主要体现为:在观念和思想意识上,法治观念虽然有所增强,但是人治观念仍根深蒂固;在行政管理体制上,权与利交易没有从根本上得到遏制,权与责挂钩没有真正实现,依法行政推进工作组织力量薄弱;在行政管理机制上,促进基层政府依法行政的激励机制和惩戒机制均没有完全建立,导致基层政府没有将依法行政真正摆上重要地位;在行政管理制度上,仍存在很大漏洞,给滥用权力提供了条件。这些问题形成的原因在于:行政权力的行使受制于市场经济体制完善和政府职能转变的进程;行政权力的行使直接依赖于行政管理体制改革的进程;对行政机关,特别是对领导干部考核机制和监督制度不健全、不完善,导致行政机关、领导干部依法行政积极性不足;部分行政管理法律制度设计不合理,难以切合我国现实国情,导致实践中难以做到依法行政。     

公务员的内在价值取向直接影响着依法行政的进程

公务员是行政权的行使主体．是一切行政活动的最终实施者：公务员依法行政观念如何，直接影响着依法行政、建设法治政府的进程。因此，提高依法行政水平，实现制度约束下的公务员自觉依法办事，是我国依法行政走上良性发展轨道的根本条件之一。     

中国行政法治的观念与制度走向——基于物权法实施所作的分析

《物权法》的实施不仅具有保护权利人物权的私法意义,而且还对行政法治的观念及制度带来了深刻的影响。在行政法治的观念上,应明确依法行政所依之法不仅指公法也应包括私法,在物权的保护方面不应是公益优先而应是公私益平等,政府在保护公民财产的义务方面应区别不同情形而有所为和有所不为;在行政法治的制度上,应明确新的行政主体并建立统一的不动产确权体制、完善征收征用及补偿制度、建立公务管理及使用制度、健全程序公正及参与机制以及运用综合救济机制保障权利不受侵害。此外,为保证公私法制的协调,还需建立合宪性审查机制。     

行政不作为的生成机制与法律治理

行政不作为与全面推进依法行政和建设服务型政府不符,与依法治国、执法为民的社会主义法治理念相悖。本文从六个方面分析我国行政不作为的生成机制,在此基础上,从行政权的配置、行使程序、责任追究和监督救济等角度探讨行政不作为的法律治理。     

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.