论反司法审查观的“民主解药”

反对司法审查的学者分别从规范体系、实证经验和因果关系的角度论证司法审查制度的不合时宜。在此基础上,他们提出通过民主来保障人权。虽然民主被官方所认可且有较强的可接受性,并在一定程度上被践行,但以民主观反对司法审查的论者并没有对民主进行清晰的界定,也没有对如何实现民主、如何证明民主的效用、实行民主的成本与收益提出建设性观点。他们理论试错的态度和行为值得肯定,但他们在反对把司法审查当作“最后一根救命稻草”的时候,有意无意地把民主也当作了“最后一根救命稻草”。     

面向司法审查的行政行为说明理由——郴州饭垄堆矿业有限公司与国土资源部等国土资源行政复议决定再审案评析

郴州饭垄堆矿业有限公司与国土资源部等国土资源行政复议决定再审案争点之一是行政行为说明理由。在司法审查中,对于涉及专业性判断理由的审查,法院应当保持对行政必要的尊重。将“程序过程审查”作为一种司法审查的方式导入本案,使得法院审查更具有针对性,审查方法也呈多元化。对于行政行为不说明理由的,可以认定为适用法律、法规错误。     

规范与理由：我国指导性案例的文本价值与功能重构

指导性案例文本的非裁判性、说理性和底层逻辑赋予了指导性案例独特的指导价值。与一般性规范不同，指导性案例是作为理由的规范形态出现的，从而形成以裁判理由、指导理由与法理理由为要素的说理结构。从理由规范论出发，指导性案例既不能被视作一种特殊的裁判规则，也不能被视为一种变相的司法解释形态。从科学说理、规范说理、民主说理等视角增强指导性案例的说理强度，有助于完善我国的案例结构，确立指导意义在指导性案例文本结构中的地位，提升说理民主的功用。要实现指导性案例法理理由的制度转化必须强化司法指导性案例与检察指导性案例、监察指导性案例的说理互动，打造案件全过程统一的说理机制；增加指导性案例规范研究新维度；以社会主义核心价值观为遵循，确立根据真实性、准绳合法性和价值正当性三元素司法原则，推动我国司法说理结构的形成。     

英国行政决定说明理由研究

行政决定说明理由正趋于成为英国行政法上的一般规则,它和自然正义、正当期待及公正等原则相关联。说明理由是良好行政的基本原则之一,有助于行政机关的自我拘束,有助于程序性权利的保障,有助于法院开展有效司法审查。官员在特定情形下必须为行政决定说明理由,但在特定的例外情形下可豁免于说明理由义务。欠缺理由说明可能导致行政决定无效或者被撤销。在中国,应进一步扩大说明理由的适用范围,对法律、事实和裁量问题予以充分说明。     

论行政行为说明理由——以行政过程为视角

行政行为说明理由制度提高了行政机关的政治责任,强化了对行政权的司法审查,使得司法审查从对行政权结果的审查扩展到对整个行政过程的审查。同时,该制度的实践也对传统行政法学理论形成挑战。在我国《行政程序法》制定过程中、在我国行政诉讼法修改过程中有必要对此进行深入研究,以构建我国合理的行政行为说明理由制度。     

论行政裁量理由的说明

理由是将特定事实带入某一法律要件作出决定的原因说明。在行政机关行使裁量权时,不说明裁量理由,就无法让人知晓为何在裁量权的范围内作出该决定。根据行政法治原理,应当将说明裁量理由设定为法定义务,以论证裁量决定合乎法律。公开裁量决定的判断和选择过程,这既有助于抑制行政机关的恣意,也有助于说服行政相对人,也便于私人寻求救济和司法实施审查。裁量理由与裁量决定应当具有同时性和一体性。没有说明或者说明不充分时,因行政机关没有按照要求说明裁量理由,为尊重行政机关的首次判断权起见,法院应撤销裁量决定;如果行政机关在事后以其他理由替换原先已说明的理由,在没有改变主要理由时,法院则可基于诉讼经济原则一并审查,一次性解决纠纷。     

司法最低限度主义——评桑斯坦的《就事论事——美国最高法院的司法最低限度主义》

为证立司法审查制度的正当性,美国学界以往司法审查理论认为,代议制民主过程不可信任,必须由司法权对民主立法进行有效的宪法监督,以保障民主价值目标的实现.桑斯坦则认为,民主过程固然不可信任,但由于司法能力的有限性,最高法院应采取一种最低限度主义的裁决方法,一次一案式地裁决具体案件,避免原则性判决,将社会价值选择问题交由民意机关互动协商解决,以减少错误判决可能导致的严重社会后果,同时培养民意机关的民主协商精神和公民的参政素质,塑造一个健康民主的社会.与其他司法审查理论相比,司法最低限度主义更有效地论证了司法审查制度的正当性.不过,这一理论本身也有其缺陷.     

浅析美国司法审查制度——兼论其对我国司法审查的启示

司法审查制度是现代民主法治国家普遍设立的一项重要的法律制度,如果机构的权力影响到公共利益或个人以及组织的权利或实质利益,那么该机构如何行使该权利就应该接受司法审查.司法审查制度最早起源于美国,是指最高法院对立法机关的法律以及行政机关的行为的合宪性进行审查的制度,此制度在政治体制的不断发展完善中起着非常重要的作用.本文从对美国司法审查制度的初步分析中提出了相关完善我国司法审查的有益对策.     

美国疑难宪法案件司法审查的两种模式及其补充——以“个案宪法权利”的证立为视角

疑难宪法案件的形成有其思想和规范渊源。司法审查必须补充演绎正当的大前提,即证立“个案宪法权利”的正当性。宪法解释学模式通过回溯道德权利的理论渊源重构个案中的宪法权利以支持宪法裁判;恢复性民主商谈司法模式主张将制宪者达成宪法原则的民主过程嵌入宪法裁判之中,寄希望法官间通过协商方式达成低限度的理论共识支持未完全理论化司法协议作为裁判的结果。程序主义宪法观将司法审查的合法性置于民主理论的语境中,使司法审查的合法性问题能够在民主的语境中得到缓解。宪法解释学模式的一元论与恢复性民主商谈司法模式的多元论欲满足司法审查所承载的立法与裁判的双重责任,必须将司法审查视为原则的论坛、公共理性的典范,以弥合重新道德化解释与重新民主化商谈之间的裂痕。     

多数主义的法院:美国联邦最高法院司法审查的性质

长期以来,美国联邦最高法院的司法审查虽被视为法治和人权的捍卫者,却被作为民主的对立面.结果,它在理论上陷入难以自拔的合法性困境,或者说"反多数难题".本文结合法律和政治学者的讨论,考察美国司法审查的现实图景,指出它具有很强的"多数主义"性质.具体表现为,多数司法判决符合当下多数公众的意见,最高法院这一机构和司法审查这一制度获得多数民众的持久认同;不但如此,司法审查能够在一定程度上回应公众意见,从而在较长时段与主流意见的变迁保持一致.这种"多数主义"的性质,是由法官自身对公众意见的关注和尊重、其他部门和公众对宪法含义的争夺以及法官任命体制等外在制衡,共同促成和保障的.美国联邦最高法院在与其他机构的竞争合作中动态地表达民意,它受制于民主过程,也塑造民主过程.在此意义上,司法审查是美国民主体制的一部分,具有民主合法性.对于"反多数难题"的讨论而言,真正的问题不是司法审查是否符合"民主",而是现有的民主理论是否符合政治现实.     

Constitutional democracy and the legitimacy of judicial review

It has long been argued that the institution of judicial review is incompatible with democratic institutions. This criticism usually relies on a procedural conception of democracy, according to which democracy is essentially a form of government defined by equal political rights and majority rule. I argue that if we see democracy not just as a form of government, but more basically as a form of sovereignty, then there is a way to conceive of judicial review as a legitimate democratic institution. The conception of democracy that stems from the social contract tradition of Locke, Rousseau, Kant and Rawls, is based in an ideal of the equality, independence, and original political jurisdiction of all citizens. Certain equal basic rights, in addition to equal political rights, are a part of democratic sovereignty. In exercising their constituent power at the level of constitutional choice, free and equal persons could choose judicial review as one of the constitutional mechanisms for protecting their equal basic rights. As such, judicial review can be seen as a kind of shared precommitment by sovereign citizens to maintaining their equal status in the exercise of their political rights in ordinary legislative procedures. I discuss the conditions under which judicial review is appropriate in a constitutional democracy. This argument is contrasted with Hamilton's traditional argument for judicial review, based in separation of powers and the nature of judicial authority. I conclude with some remarks on the consequences for constitutional interpretation.I am indebted to John Rawls and Burton Dreben for their helpful advice and their comments on an earlier draft of this paper.     

Deliberative Democracy and Liberal Rights

Many liberals cannot help distrusting deliberative democracy theory. In their view, the theory offers no sufficient guarantee that the outcomes of democratic deliberation will be respectful of individual interests generating what they conceive as basic moral rights. The purpose of this text is to provide one argument showing that liberal rights are sufficiently protected within deliberative democracy theory. The argument does not rest on the idea of moral rights or material justice. It rests on the conditions of legitimate law deliberative democracy theory presupposes, namely, the conditions that make concrete the idea of legitimacy as "actual public justification."     

Negative governmentality through fundamental rights: The far side of the European Convention on Human Rights

This essay analyses those statements that mention legal norms in negative terms. Specifically, it analyses those statements that define a legal system by mentioning how legal protection does not work and where legal protection ends, and those statements that identify what rights‐holders do not have to with their legally protected free capacities. This essay argues that these statements address a systemic question. It calls such a dynamic as negative governmentality. The argument proceeds in four steps. It introduces the concept of negative governmentality by arguing that the idea of freedom requires both the positive affirmation of moral agency and the constraining of moral agency (Section 2 ). It then explores how rights constitute freedom by limiting rights or making exceptions to them (Section 3 ). Later, it analyses how rights‐based norms prevent abuse of rights by holders of rights (Section 4 ). Finally, it sees how rights‐based norms constrain the legal guarantor of rights, i.e., a state (Section 5 ). The essay concludes by mentioning the importance of negative governmentality (Section 6 ).     

Dignity, Democracy, Civilisation

This paper contributes to international discussion about the difficulty of defining human dignity as a legal concept by locating it at the heart of (European) democracy and human rights. Focusing on emerging dignity case law in the United Kingdom, the paper explores the connections among dignity, human rights and democracy, and the uses of dignity to enhance and refine democracy. While judges are key actors in the construction of dignity, they operate within the boundaries of a particular democratic ‘civilisation’ anchored in the core prohibitions of art 2, 3 and 4 European Convention on Human Rights, combined with those of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (art. 2, 3, 4 and 5). This normative core, the paper argues, is to be understood in the wider time frame of democracy and dignity, which is equally important for refining and thickening human dignity’s conceptual and normative definition, as well as for reflecting on the legitimacy of its (judicial) uses.     

The Argument from Transnational Effects I: Representing Outsiders through Freedom of Movement

This article and its sequel examine an argument that has become a shibboleth for the European pro‐attitude towards international and supranational legal arrangements. I call it the argument from transnational effects. The argument says that supranational or transnational forms of integration, in particular market integration, are desirable on account of democracy itself. National democracies find themselves thereby forced to confront and to internalise the externalities that they cause for one another. A fortiori, democracy becomes supposedly emancipated from the confines of the nation state. Since the argument favours normative limitations on national political processes it seems to lend strong support to the introduction of transnational constitutional discipline. In this article and its sequel it is claimed that the argument, correctly understood, cannot support the creation of transnational democracy. Rather, in a critically recalibrated form, the argument, paradoxically, provides strong backing for the existence of bounded political communities without, for that reason, succumbing to ontologically questionable beliefs about the essence of national communities. Hence, the argument is really as much about the limits set to transnational integration as it is about their legitimacy. This explains why it is of central relevance to constitutionalism in a global age. The opening sections of this article offer an interpretation of John Hart Ely's constitutional theory. Examining the latter helps to articulate adequately the democratic sensibility expressed in the argument. It is argued that Ely's theory exceeds the scope of a mere theory of judicial review. It presents, indeed, a theory of constitutional authority, which is highly relevant to an analysis of the argument from transnational effects. The article then distinguishes and discusses two different readings of the representation‐reinforcing task that Ely attributes to constitutional legality. According to one reading, representation is secondary and only ancillary to the realisation of equality. According to another reading, equal participation is prerequisite to the success of representative democracy whose aim is to discover common ground. It is concluded that the first reading is easier to accommodate in a transnational setting. It will be seen that Ely's theory—at any rate, the first reading of it—is basically concerned with the problem addressed by the argument from transnational effects. This article's discussion of the argument distinguishes two different types of situation. A third, more general type will be dealt with in a subsequent article. The first situation affects people who realise that they would be better off if they were to benefit from the laws of a different democracy. Hence, they would like to have these laws imported. It is argued that their interests do not find support in the argument from transnational effects. The second situation concerns someone who encounters obstacles when moving from one democracy to another. Such obstacles can emerge either as a result of discrimination against non‐nationals or from the sheer fact that laws between and among bounded societies are different. The antidote against the latter is to submit national legislation to a proportionality test. Even though reinforcing representation prima facie seems to support this conclusion, the article claims that virtual representation, correctly understood, actually restricts the sweep of constitutional control to cases of behavioural discrimination. Extending the scope of control would actually violate the respect that it is owed to national democratic autonomy pursuant to the principle of virtual representation. It is also shown that only by limiting its sweep the argument from transnational effects can be prevented from endorsing neoliberal political goals.     

Argumentative Representation and Democracy: A Critique of Alexy's Defense of Judicial Review of Legislation

Robert Alexy has argued that the democratic objection to judicial review of legislation can be successfully addressed by assuming that judges exercise a special form of argumentative representation. In this article we argue that Alexy does not explain (as he should) under what circumstances judicial review tends to produce better decisions than parliamentary procedure, nor does he explain how judicial review can have a greater intrinsic value than parliamentary procedure. Subsequently, we argue that the intrinsic value of argumentative representation depends on the promotion of citizen deliberation, whereas its instrumental value depends on judges being committed to the rights of discrete and insular minorities in the face of hostile majorities.     

Constitutional Rights and Democracy in the U.S.A.: The Issue -of Judicial Review

Abstract. The first section takes up some main details of American constitutional history. At the end of that section and in section two, we concentrate on one constitutional doctrine in particular, judicial review. We argue that this doctrine rests, traditionally, on the foundational idea of a permanent tension between democratic institutions and basic rights. In section three, we deal with the problem just raised, by suggesting an alternative view of the relationship that exists between these fundamental constitutional elements. Here we attempt to show that there is an essential principled harmony between basic constitutional rights and democratic majority rule. And we try to locate judicial review within this alternative conception. Then in section four and in the conclusion we discuss the institutional arrangements for the practice of judicial review in the light of this alternative conception.     

The Argument from Transnational Effects II: Establishing Transnational Democracy

This article continues with a discussion of what the author calls the argument from transnational effects. It says that supranational or transnational forms of integration, in particular market integration, are desirable on account of democracy itself. National democracies find themselves thereby forced to confront and to internalise the externalities that they cause for each other. A fortiori, democracy becomes supposedly emancipated from the confines of the nation state. This article examines the argument critically at a general level. The situation under consideration concerns all cases in which, regardless of whether there is movement or not, the acts of one democracy adversely impact on the interests of others. The article tries to identify instances where the harm is tied to a failure of representation in a transnational context and not caught by the harm principle, broadly understood. In order to calibrate the argument's scope the article resorts to the principle of universalisation. The guiding intuition is that so long as the act of one democracy is morally justified on the basis of this principle, the argument from transnational effects does not apply. Hence the argument is of no avail where the impact of one democracy on another is perfectly legitimate. This would be the case, for example, when the effects are too insignificant to require any debate. Determining the range of legitimate impact is a core question of transnational constitutional law. Any such determination presupposes mutually shared interest definitions. More often than not, however, the relevant interest definitions underlying universalisation are debatable. Therefore, it appears to be inevitable, at first glance, to have relations of transnational interdependency matched by transnational democratic processes. The article then goes on to identify three different types of universalitation with reference to what can be regarded as their respective anchor. Simple universalisation is based upon shared interest definitions. Reflexive universalisation involves common views of oneself (and others). Self‐transcending universalisation is grounded in the desire to live in a free society. Reflexive universalisation requires to extend mutual sympathy. From this perspective, transnational democratic processes are tantamount to nation‐building. However, one would commit a sentimentalist fallacy if one were to conclude that mutual sympathy in and of itself engenders an expansion of mutual responsibility. The article argues that with regard to the third type of universalisation the institutionalisation of transnational democratic procedures cannot be justified. It would threaten to undermine various conceptions of a free society. It is argued that for the sake of the realisation of equal citizenship the argument from transnational effects actually needs to endorse the existence of bounded democratic communities. Unbounded transnational democracy would exercise an adverse effect on citizenship. It also turns out that the argument from transnational effects, in its uncorrected form, remains haunted by the dilemma that the type of democracy that is envisaged by it becomes easily absorbed by administrative processes. The article concludes that the argument from transnational effects, correctly understood, has a more modest import than its proponents would have us believe. Rather than supporting the release of democracy from its national bounds, it helps to explain why the co‐existence of bounded democratic polities remains essential to equal citizenship. More forceful versions of transnational integration graft onto political societies elements that are not genuinely democratic and strangely reminiscent of different forms of rule. These are forms of rule that Aristotle would not have called ‘political’, for they do not involve the exercise of power by equals over equals.     

Social Justice and Legal Form

Abstract
This essay argues for a conception of law as a normative practice, a conception which departs from traditional, particularly positivist, conceptions. It is argued that Dyzenhaus's book (Dyzenhaus 1991), with its fascinating case study of unjust judicial decisions in South Africa, makes a compelling argument for such a conception. However, the essay takes issue with Dyzenhaus for romanticising the liberal tradition, and inflating the power of law and legal theory. Nonetheless, the essay agrees that positivist accounts tend to downplay the emancipatory promise of law, and ends with some remarks about promise.