The Traditionality of Statutes*

Abstract. The author begins by sketching the characteristics or elements of every tradition. Some reasons are then suggested for the propensity of so many authors to contrast statutes with other, allegedly more traditional kinds of law. However, it is argued that statutes are deeply embedded, along with customary and judge-made law, in the highly traditional practices of law and that this matters much more than is commonly suspected. The thesis being defended here is not merely that law includes traditions along with rules, principles, maxims, and so on, but rather that legal systems should be understood as traditions, albeit highly complex ones. Not only are ancient legal systems (the Talmudic, for example) held to be traditional; modem legal positive orders are viewed as being traditional too. Finally, the concept of “communities of interpretation” is applied to the contemporary posited statutes which are believed by many to be a distinguishing feature of modem legal systems.     

Why Interpret?

Abstract. My article is about legal interpretation, but not about the question: how to interpret the law. Rather its aim is to make us consider seriously the question: Why is interpretation central to legal practices? After all not all normative practices assign interpretation such a central role. In this regard the law contrasts with morality. The reason for the contrast has to do with the status of sources in the law. There are no “moral sources” while legal sources are central to the law. Legal interpretation is primarily—I will suggest—the interpretation not of the law, but of its sources. To understand why interpretation is central to legal practices requires understanding the role of sources in the law: the reasons for having them, and hence also the ways in which they should be treated. I will show how reflections about these topics connect with some traditional jurisprudential puzzles, such as the relations between law and morality. Are there gaps in the law? Is the law or its interpretation objective or subjective?     

Human rights and health law

Important statutory and common law developments are changing the landscape of health law in Australia. Human rights considerations are formally included amongst the factors to be applied in the interpretation of statutory provisions and evaluating the lawfulness of actions on the part of government instrumentalities. The Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT) and the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic) create limited bills of rights at State/Territory level in two Australian jurisdictions. Although neither is entrenched, they have the potential to make it more difficult for government to promulgate laws that are inconsistent with human rights, as defined. They will have important repercussions for the evolution of health law in these jurisdictions. The decision of Royal Women's Hospital v Medical Practitioners Board (Vic) [2006] VSCA 85 by the Victorian Court of Appeal has also provided a legitimation for parties to incorporate human rights perspectives in submissions about the interpretation of statutory provisions where health rights are in conflict.     

Iudex in Fabula: Some Reflections on Jackson's Paper

The key issue of this paper is that Professor Jackson's attempt to shednew light on the notion of literal meaning is both stimulating andunconvincing. On the one hand he is perfectly right when he tries todraw attention to the shortcomings which affect most of the longstandingtheories about legal interpretation. In fact, his essay is based on thefooting that interpretation is under-determined by semantic rules andconventions. From such a point of view, as both rule-scepticism and thesemantic conception are old fashioned and unsound, we need acomprehensive theory of textual structures. On the other hand, however,Professor Jackson concedes too much to rule-scepticism with hisnarrative approach. Furthermore, his too sharp opposition between themodern Western model of law, mainly a written law where so-called``literal meaning' is of the greatest importance (at least on anideological ground), and the model of early Biblical law, where themeaning stems from the social context, does not hold completely. It iseasy to find legal systems, for instance the later rabbinic law, whichneither of Jackson's two models can explain, since the reality of law isfar more complex than we believe.     

The law commission and judicial law reform*

This article explores ways in which mooting can provide high school students with insight into life as a law student. In gaining high school students’ insights on their early exposure to a legal research skills environment involving oral argumentation exercises, the authors argue that law schools can incorporate experiential learning pedagogies into student recruitment efforts to ensure that both law school and prospective student are better prepared for each other during the delivery and study of law at university level.     

Legislative Basics of Legal Interpretation

The main purpose of legal interpretation is to create conditions for the effective functioning of law and its components by clarifying their true content, which eliminates any doubts and ambiguities. The purpose of this article is: first, to analyze the provisions of current Ukrainian legislation for identifying the general approaches embodied in it and the principles for the implementation of legal interpretation activities by state power bodies; secondly: presentation on the basis of modern achievements and developments of legal science of the system of measures for standardization of such activity, bringing it in line with the needs of law enforcement practice. The solution of the set tasks was carried out using the method of philosophical dialectics, a system of general scientific and special scientific methods of cognition, which are based on the principles of objectivity, comprehensiveness, complexity. Based on the analysis of the normative material, it is concluded that there is no single harmonized approach in the Ukrainian legislation on the procedure for providing clarifications of the content of normative-legal acts. The authors give arguments on the need to clarify and streamline the legal interpretation activity by state bodies and propose a number of measures to achieve this goal. Based on the conducted analysis of the normative material, the authors outline the main problematic issues of the legislative definition of the basics of legal interpretation and provide specific proposals for improving the current legislation in this area.

     

From Helping Court to Community‐Based Services: The 30‐Year Evolution of Australia's Family Relationship Centres

As a centrepiece of Australia's 2006 family law reforms, the community‐based Family Relationship Centres (FRCs) represented a major development in the Government's commitment to incorporate family relationship services into its family law system. This paper sees FRCs as a logical development of the original conceptualising the Family Court of Australia as a “helping court”. The paper suggests that the aspiration to create a helping court was partially achieved in 1976 via the creation of an in‐house family court counselling service, which was primarily focused not on law and legal principles, but on supporting the ways in which family members were managing the task of redefining relationships. While generally valued by judges and others, this service nonetheless found itself in tension with the Family Court's continued primary commitment to legally informed and adversarially driven negotiation and decision‐making processes. Since 2006, the creation of FRCs has spearheaded a family law system that provides relationship‐focused interventions away from the courts as the default option for most parenting disputes. Consistent with this aim, there is evidence of a diminished percentage of cases now requiring judicial intervention. The 2006 legislation also provides for courts to conduct “less adversarial trials.” Paradoxically, this has occurred alongside unequivocal evidence from the Australian Institute of Family Studies’ evaluation data that judicial officers are dealing mainly with families displaying seriously dysfunctional attitudes and behaviours. The legal challenge in dealing with these cases is for courts to provide child focused, fair and non‐destructive internal processes. In addition, however, it is increasingly clear that to support and help facilitate their decisions, courts also need good working relationships with FRCs and other community based services. FRCs and the 2006 reforms offer the possibility of moving beyond the ideal of a “helping court” to the broader concept of helping family law system.     

法理学还要与部门法学疏离多久——以桑本谦先生的法律解释理论为分析视角

传统的建构型法律解释学和桑本谦先生所主张的解构型法律解释学都面临困境,而从部门法制度和部门法实践的角度来看,法律解释学并非无药可救。法律解释学的发展必然是和法律制度的发展、部门法实践的发展、法律共同体的发展乃至法治的发展联系在一起的。抽象的法理学建构和抽象的法理学解构都具有局限性。法理学视野下法律解释学所面临的困境,其实质是中国法理学所面临的困境,而造成这种困境的原因就在于法理学一直以来对部门法学所采取的疏离态度。     

刑法解释的立场:一元双层形式解释论刍议

我国刑法学界近年来形成了形式解释论与实质解释论之争。通过对形式解释与实质解释的概念及双方的争点进行梳理和辨析,初步认为形式解释与实质解释虽然在表面上争论激烈,但双方在刑法解释论上可能都或多或少地存在一些毕其功于一役的偏执追求,将解释与判断压缩、混淆在一起,从而对刑法解释这一极其复杂精深的学问做了过于简单化的处理。从罪刑法定与构成要件论等刑法根基出发,提倡一元双层形式解释论,即通过将解释与判断分阶层处理,整合形式与实质两方面的资源,使形式与实质因素各得其所,从而完成对构成要件符合性的整体判断。     

论罪刑法定原则两种解释范式的内在统一——兼论罪刑法定原则的程序意义

罪刑法定原则的形式主义解释范式(大陆法系)和实质主义解释范式(英美法系)是两大法系不同制度背景下的产物,各有其存在的合理性,从而有着价值取向上的一致性。将两种不同解释范式理解为是罪刑法定原则蕴涵的价值冲突的结果,实是一种误读。     

司法中的伦理解释及其限度——以美国宪法为分析样本

司法中的伦理解释本质上是一种立基于正当性的价值论解释方法，它要求解释者在法律文本语义的最大化范围内，选择和适用最合乎法的制度伦理的含义。伦理解释具有基础性、历史性、体系性和开放性等基本特征，这些特征都是由它所要表达的法的制度伦理赋予并在具体解释方法中展开与呈现的。伦理解释具有局限性：一方面，对法的制度伦理的辨识往往非常复杂，具有不确定性，这就会导致依托制度伦理来解释法律的客观性、正当性发生危机；另一方面，即或已经明确了法的制度伦理，但对它的维系与坚持也具有相当的难度，特别是当法官的个人正义观与法的制度伦理发生冲突时，难度更大，在极端情况下，甚至会使法律的伦理解释成为不可能完成的任务。     

The legal status of clinical and ethics policies, codes, and guidelines in medical practice and research

This article examines the legal status of "soft law" in the fields of medicine and medical research. Many areas of clinical practice and research involve complex and rapidly changing issues for which the law provides no guidance. Instead, guidance for physicians and researchers comes from what has often been called "soft law"--non-legislative, non-regulatory sources, such as ethics policy statements, codes, and guidelines from professional or quasi-governmental bodies. This article traces the evolution of these "soft law" instruments: how they are created, how they are adopted within the professional community, and how they become accepted by the courts. It studies the relationship between soft law instruments and the courts. It includes an examination of the approaches to judicial analysis used by the courts in theory and in practice. The authors then examine the jurisprudence to see how courts will adopt professional norms as the legal standard of care in some circumstances and not others. They consider the legal concerns and ethical issues surrounding the weight attached to professional practices and norms in law. The authors demonstrate how practices and policies that guide professional conduct may ultimately bear weight as norms recognizable and enforceable within the legal sphere.     

司法刑法学的视域与范式

司法刑法学是一个表征刑法理论体系分化与分工的概念。司法刑法学试图将刑事司法过程纳入刑法学的视域,使刑法思维对经验事实给予应有重视,为此就要将控诉者的刑法学转变为辩护者的刑法学,并使之从寻求科学客观性转向寻求交谈客观性。只有促成这种视域与范式的变化,才有真正的司法刑法学。作为一个例证,对犯罪概念的司法刑法学解读与重述可以显示上述视域与范式转换的意义。     

论刑法适用中道德评价因素的考量

道德评价能否在刑法适用中予以考虑,是刑事司法中的难题。一方面,道德评价在刑事司法中的体现是普遍存在的实然现象;而另一方面,法治原则一般又要求道德评价不应介入司法领域,否则,依法司法的理念将受到冲击。从理论上来看,道德评价可以在刑法适用解释中予以考虑,与其让道德评价潜在地、非理性地影响刑法的解释与适用,不如理性地承认和接受道德评价因素,并对其规范、限制和合理运用。道德评价因素在刑法解释和适用中的考量既是法理的要求,也是刑法原则所许可的,那种绝对排斥道德评价的观点,看似符合法治原则,但实际上并不能成立。从社会学的视角判断,刑法适用中考量道德评价因素是社会和谐的需求,也是社会学解释方法的题中应有之义。当然,对道德评价的考量与运用,应当在法律方法论的范围内,并在对其认真甄别、选择的基础上进行。     

Bentham on the Interpretation of Laws

A widely accepted view is that, for Bentham, legal interpretation was a mechanical or technical matter. This paper reconstructs Bentham’s complex theory of legal interpretation and challenges the above view. It demonstrates that Bentham’s theory of legal interpretation consists of three major theses. First, when there are different interpretations of a law, the authoritative interpreter ought to be the sovereign legislature. Second, strict interpretation attributes to the legislature the will it actually has when making the law. The strict interpretation of a law ought to take the text of the law itself as the standard, and then be guided by its purpose. Third, liberal interpretation attributes to the legislature a will that it would have had if it had been aware of the case before the court, but which it in fact failed to have through inadvertency. Liberal interpretation is a necessary evil, and must be checked: liberal interpretation ought to be made according to the pattern and materials of the old laws, and be subject to the authority of the sovereign legislature.     

西法背景下中国古典法律解释的意义——文化视角的说明

以文化视角认识西法背景下的中国古典法律解释的意义可从以下几个路径展开:从学术角度看,中国古典法律解释为当代中国法学提供了宝贵的法律和法学资源;从立法意义上说,古典法律解释所透射出来的对实质合理性的价值追求是一项重要的法治本土资源;从法治角度看,中国古典法律解释为现代法文化的中国化奠定了基础,法治全球化不能离开自身的法文化传统;从法律实施角度看,法律是在解释中实现的,法律解释通过说明法律和创造法律等具体行为来推进制定法的发展和完善。     

网络黑产链犯罪中帮助行为的刑法评价

网络黑产链犯罪中的帮助行为与传统共同犯罪中的帮助行为有较大的区别,具体表现在行为人的主观故意内容、帮助行为与正犯行为的关联程度及行为的作用效果等方面。然而,目前对网络黑产链犯罪中帮助行为人以共同犯罪论处存在理论障碍,如欠缺共同故意且正犯行为难以认定为犯罪等。司法实践将帮助行为正犯化确实具有现实需要。帮助行为正犯化的论域应当限定在正犯、共犯分离二元参与体系的形式正犯概念之下。在我国刑法分则对实行行为明确定型的立法体制下,司法机关超越解释权限将帮助行为扩张为实行行为的解释与罪刑法定原则有悖。帮助信息网络犯罪活动罪的增设是网络帮助行为正犯化理论的典型立法实践,但成立该罪既不要求帮助行为人对被帮助者实施的具体犯罪内容有明确的认识,也不要求被帮助的犯罪行为在实体上或程序上被认定为犯罪。     

On Legal Inferentialism. Toward a Pragmatics of Semantic Content in Legal Interpretation?

Abstract. In this paper we consider whether a pragmatics of semantic content can be a useful approach to legal interpretation. More broadly speaking, since a pragmatic conception of meaning is a component of inferential semantics, we consider whether an inferentialist approach to legal interpretation can be useful in dealing with some problems of this important aspect of law. In other words, we ask whether Legal Inferentialism is a suitable conception for legal interpretation. In Section 1 we briefly consider the semantics/pragmatics debate in contemporary philosophy of language and in relation to legal interpretation. In Section 2 we discuss the relations between a pragmatics of semantic content and an inferentialist conception of content. In Section 3 we consider how Inferentialism can be applied to legal interpretation. Finally, in Section 4 we consider some possible advantages and drawbacks of Inferentialism applied to legal interpretation and adjudication.     

对“文本”的扬弃：WTO条约解释方法的一种修正——以服务贸易具体承诺表的解释为分析起点

＂文本主义＂是WTO上诉机构所倚重的条约解释方法,这种＂文本主义＂的方法在适用于服务贸易具体承诺表的解释时,可能会产生增加WTO成员在《WTO协定》项下义务的负面效果。因此,服务贸易具体承诺表的解释中有必要引入单个缔约国意图的解释因素。此外,鉴于《WTO协定》文本并不完美,存在着＂空白＂之处,在特定情形中有必要引入《维也纳条约法公约》第31、32条规定之外的条约解释习惯规则,＂遇有疑义,从宽解释＂即为适例。     

Market Processes, Standardisation, and Tort Law

Private standards play a decisive role in tort law and in administrative law. Although they seem to be a perfect tool to achieve the goal of European integration, they tend to substitute democratic legitimacy with uncontrolled private governance. The loss of democratic control is accentuated by the failure of markets to provide sufficient incentives for standardising organisations to behave in a non-opportunistic manner. The dangers of cartelisation and oligopolistic behaviour are obvious. The approach to overcome these deficits is complex: on the one hand, an institutional governance of private organisations is necessary to incorporate third party interests in the process of enacting private standards; on the other hand, the legal effects of private standards have to be restricted to mere assumptions dependent on the democratic quality of their enacting process. The problem of democratic legitimacy is aggravated by the parallel substitution of state authorities' control by means of private certification organisations which control only the management procedures of firms. As these management systems are difficult to be evaluate, the opportunities for opportunistic behaviour amongst firms and certifiers increases. Moreover, markets themselves fail to discipline certifiers by virtue of a lack of observable factors which might indicate the quality of certification. Tort law, too, cannot fulfil that gap by providing liability for damages caused by undue certifications because tort law suffers from a variety of shortcomings such as missing protection of public goods and difficult assessments of causation linkages. In sum, the author argues for a mixture of market incentives, tort law and administrative law. Each sector must fill in the gaps left by the others.