Should competition policy in banking be amended during crises? Lessons from the EU

This article investigates the nexus of competition and stability in European banking. It analyzes the European legal framework for competition policy in banking and several cases that pertain to anti-cartel policy, merger policy, and state-aid control. It discusses whether and how competition policy should be amended in order to preserve the stability of the banking system during crises. The article argues for increased cooperation between prudential regulators and competition authorities, as well as an enhanced framework for bank regulation, supervision, and resolution that could mitigate the need to change competition policy in crisis times.     

Ethics for Lawyers or Ethics for Citizens? New Directions for Legal Education

The Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Legal Education andConduct (ACLEC) has called for the reconstruction of the ethicalfoundations of legal education. However, it has not justified its premisethat teaching legal values at the initial stage will enhance professionallegal ethics. It is argued that the present system of education, given itstechnocratic, individualistic, and authoritarian tendencies, cannot meetACLEC's challenge. A more ethical legal education can be envisagedwithin a neo-Aristotelian framework. This perspective emphasizes thereflexivity between micro and macro ethics, and utilizes the active andparticipatory learning approaches which should enable students to engagein meaningful moral discourse and problem solving.     

交通运输系统公共安全危机管理法制化研究

公共安全危机管理法制化的实质即是建立和健全动员社会力量协作参与,征调一切可用的人、财、物,以有效应对公共安全危机的法律框架体系。从交通运输系统现有法律框架的角度看,普遍存在着实体上权、责、利划分的不平衡,程序上过度任意性的问题,其后果是在非常态社会秩序下,政府权力的超常行使必然对应公民、企业等社会个体权利的过分压抑。未来公共安全危机管理法制化的进程应该从权力的分配、权力行使的程序规范与及权力运行的监督等方面入手,构建权力控制机制和权利救济途径明确的法律框架。     

From Balance to Conflict: A New Constitution for the EU

As the crisis (and the Union's response to it) further develops, one thing appears clear: the European Union post‐crisis will be a very different animal from the pre‐crisis EU. This article offers an alternative model for the EU's constitutional future. Its objective is to invert the Union's current path‐dependency: changes to the way in which the Union works should serve to question, rather than entrench, its future objectives and trajectory. The paper argues that the post‐crisis EU requires a quite different normative, institutional and juridical framework. Such a framework must focus on reproducing the social and political cleavages that underlie authority on the national level and that allow divisive political choices to be legitimised. This reform project implies reshaping the prerogatives of the European institutions. Rather than seeking to prevent or bracket political conflict, the division of institutional competences and tasks should be rethought in order to allow the EU institutions to internalise within their decision‐making process the conflicts reproduced by social and political cleavages. Finally, a reformed legal order must play an active role as a facilitator and container of conflict over the ends of the integration project.     

Missing Reliance

Book reviewed in this article:
Andrew Burrows, Understanding the Law of Obligations: Essays on Contract,Tort and Restitution     

金融危机的应对:以日本银行业金融机构破产处理法律为例

伴随着泡沫经济崩溃金融系统问题爆发,日本经历了从出台特例措施应对金融机构个别破产事件,到制定和完善法律,以使金融机构破产处理走向制度化的过程。通过完善存款保险金制度,充实资金援助机制,确立金融整顿管财人、继承银行等金融机构破产处理的常规措施和专门的金融危机应对措施,《存款保险法》使金融机构破产处理制度得以恒久化;而《金融机构重组程序特例法》为行政处理手法之外,提供了金融机构破产处理的司法程序。这些制度适应了金融机构破产处理措施所要求的尽早预防、业务继续、保护存款人、集团处理以及责任追及等特性,显示日本金融机构破产处理法制已基本完善。     

调解与仲裁中的状况性因素

调解与仲裁都是以自愿协商为基础的解纷机制。在调解中当事人自始至终控制整个纠纷解决过程和结果;在仲裁中当事人为纠纷的解决设定了整个程序和实体的规则框架。因此,可以说,调解是当事人直接解决纠纷的解纷方式;仲裁是当事人间接解决纠纷的解纷方式。然而它们都是由状况性因素所左右的解纷机制。     

RESEARCH ON DIVERSIFIED FINANCIAL DISPUTE RESOLUTION MECHANISMS IN CHINA

After the US Lehman mini-bonds crisis in 2008, global countries have been exploring the financial consumer protection legislation. This paper mainly focuses on the status quo and problems of China’s current financial mechanism, as well as how to construct a financial dispute resolution system and financial ombudsman system (FOS), how to employ mediation, arbitration and other various dispute resolution mechanisms to deal with financial disputes.     

中国政府食品质量安全管理的分析框架及其治理体系

食品质量安全已成为中国政府和大众关注的焦点,对食品质量安全的管理成效不理想也成为政府治理的一大顽症。其原因在于政府缺乏一个全面、综合、动态的食品质量安全管理分析框架。所以建立在食品质量安全突发事件与食品质量安全风险、食品质量安全危机之间广泛联系、相互链接、动态发展基础之上的中国食品质量安全管理分析框架,对于中国食品质量安全管理就具有十分重要的理论和实践意义。运用此分析框架,构建食品质量安全风险管理、食品质量安全应急管理、食品质量安全危机管理三位一体的治理体系是中国政府对食品质量安全管理的根本之策。     

Reconfiguring the Politics–Law Relationship in the Integration Project through Conflicts–Law Constitutionalism

This paper argues that the relationship between law and politics must be reconfigured within the European Union. Dissecting recent crises in economic, social and political organisation within Europe with reference to the three ‘fictitious’ commodities of Karl Polanyi, we find that law in Europe has contributed to de‐legalisation, de‐socialisation and disenfranchisement. Moving on to review the potential for law to respond to crisis through new paradigms of conflict resolution as suggested by Ralf Dahrendorf, we find that the steering capacity of law is nevertheless limited if it fails to establish a sustaining relationship with politics. Our conclusions are modest: conflict–law constitutionalism cannot solve Europe's many crises. However, it does represent a new paradigm of law within which relations between European law and European politics might be re‐established—a vital step to overcoming crisis.     

A motion detection-based framework for improving image quality of CCTV security systems

Closed-circuit television (CCTV) security systems have been widely used in banks, convenience stores, and other facilities. They are useful to deter crime and depict criminal activity. However, CCTV cameras that provide an overview of a monitored region can be useful for criminal investigation but sometimes can also be used for object identification (e.g., vehicle numbers, persons, etc.). In this paper, we propose a framework for improving the image quality of CCTV security systems. This framework is based upon motion detection technology. There are two cameras in the framework: one camera (camera A) is fixed focus with a zoom lens for moving-object detection, and the other one (camera B) is variable focus with an auto-zoom lens to capture higher resolution images of the objects of interest. When camera A detects a moving object in the monitored area, camera B, driven by an auto-zoom focus control algorithm, will take a higher resolution image of the object of interest. Experimental results show that the proposed framework can improve the likelihood that images obtained from stationary unattended CCTV cameras are sufficient to enable law enforcement officials to identify suspects and other objects of interest.     

REVIEW

Christopher Jones and F. Enrique Gonzalez-Diaz, ed Colin Overbury, The EEC Merger Regulation Joanne Conaghan and Wade Mansell, The Wrongs of Tort E. R. Hardy Ivumy (ed), Mozley & Whiteley's Law Dictionary William McCurthy (ed), Legal Intervention in Industrial Relations Brian W. Harvey, Violin Fraud: Deception, Forgery, Theft and the Law John Bell, French Constitutional Law Peter Birks, Restitution – The Future, Sydney Andrew Burrows, The Law of Restitution Gillian Davies and Michele Hung, Music and Video Private Copying: An International Survey of the Problem and the Law     

Families of Homicide Victims: Service Utilization Patterns of Extra- and Intrafamilial Homicide Survivors

Homicides precipitate numerous problems for victims' families that can be eased, in part, by counseling, case management, and court advocacy services. Guided by a crisis theory framework, the records of 112 homicide victims' family members (or survivors) served by a public victims assistance agency were examined to discern typical service utilization patterns and differences for survivors of intrafamilial homicides (i.e., cases in which the perpetrator was a family member of the victim). Results indicated that survivors of intrafamilial homicides utilized services during the initial 8-week crisis period following the homicide more than other survivors, yet used services less during the subsequent 8-week period. The findings substantiated the application of crisis theory to studying the experiences of survivors and underscored the importance of considering survivors' familial relationships to perpetrators in the provision of services.     

2008 Financial Crisis and Islamic Finance: An Unrealized Opportunity

The Islamic finance industry is relatively new and vibrant. It is becoming a mainstream industry in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa). The industry is based on a number of Sharia’a maxims and in particular the prohibition of Riba. Islamic law scholars’ emphasis on the ethical dimension of this industry and how it can be seen as a solution to existing capitalism. The current financial crisis presented this industry with an unprecedented test and an opportunity to influence and merge into main stream finance. This paper presents an evaluation of Islamic finance industry in the current financial crisis and whether the governance and ethical foundation of Islamic finance institutions distinguished itself from conventional finance. Thus, this paper begins with an overview of Islamic finance, then it discusses the governance framework structure of Islamic finance institutions and the role of its organs. In addition, this paper will compare between the ethical framework of the Islamic finance institutions and the conventional institutions. Finally, this paper will discover the ethical failure of the current global financial system and its relation with the current financial crisis.     

Reviews

Books reviewed:
Skelton Restitution and Contract
Slaughter, Sweet and Weiler (eds) The European Courts and National Courts – Doctrine and Jurisprudence
Tasioulas Law, Values and Social Practices
Macauley Social Power and Legal Culture: Litigation Masters in Late Imperial China
Various Diritto Privato 1997: III L'abuso del diritto
Duff Philosophy and the Criminal Law
Stein Roman Law in European History     

关于恢复原状、返还财产的辨析

恢复原状、返还财产经常被分别适用在若干民法制度中 ,恢复原状在我国现行法上存在着五种类型 ,含义各异 ;返还财产存在着七种类型 ,含义不同。     

STATE AND LEGAL AUTHORITY

The idea of authority lies at the conceptual heart of much legal policy analysis. This essay discusses three perspectives on state and legal authority—the liberal-constitutional, the corporatist, and the technocratic—as a broad political framework for understanding major issues of judicial policy-making in the United States today. The essay examines recent literature on judicial legitimacy and capacity within the context of the three perspectives and raises research questions which derive from this approach to judicial policy. This framework provides a theoretical basis for seeing not only a decline, but changes in patterns of judicial authority and their relationship to any existing crisis of authority in the state in general.     

REVIEW

Zzhak Englurd, The Philosophy of Tort Law Geruint Howells, Comparative Product Liability D. D. Prenfice and P. R. J. Holland (eds), Contemporary Issues in Corporate Governance Restitution Law Review     

人民法院创制司法政策参与社会治理的动力溯源及路径优化——以1071项新冠肺炎疫情防控司法政策文件为中心的分析

以1071项新冠肺炎疫情防控司法政策文件为样本的实证研究发现,人民法院在应对社会治理的司法政策创制活动中存在着重危机治理轻司法规律、重价值求同轻形式多元、重博弈竞争轻多元合作、重压力传导轻制度规控、重司法能动轻司法谦抑等一系列问题。“内驱力”、“压力”、“助成力”三维一体的动力机制模型则进一步解释了风险社会背景下各级法院热衷于通过创制司法政策来参与公共危机治理其背后的原因所在。立足于此,人民法院要想有效应对突发社会危机,应回归现有的制度框架体系。未来进一步优化人民法院创制司法政策活动必须要坚持双管齐下,要以“五个相统一的原则”为指导科学把握司法政策创制的基本方向,同时要树立全流程规控思维,从事前、事中、事后全方位着眼严格规范人民法院的司法政策创制活动。     

人质危机事件战术性谈判处置模式研究

劫持人质事件中警队谈判组与攻击单位是处置的核心力量,现场规范架构中谈判小组与攻击单位的配合是处置的关键所在,在和平谈判无望或情况危机时,谈判小组通过及时转入战术性谈判来提供准确情报与引导攻击行动,在保障多方安全的同时可提高攻击效率,最大可能减少伤亡与降低事件处置成本。