Expediency,Legitimacy, and the Rule of Law: A Systems Perspective on Civil/Criminal Procedural Hybrids

In recent years an increasing quantity of UK legislation has introduced blended or ‘hybridised’ procedures that blur the previously clear demarcation between civil and criminal legal processes, typically on the grounds of normatively-motivated political expediency. This paper provides a critical perspective on instances of procedural hybridisation in order to illustrate that, first, the reliance upon civil law measures to remedy criminal law infractions can raise human rights issues and, second, that such instrumental criminal justice strategies deliberately circumvent the enhanced procedural protections of the criminal law. By conceptualising the rule of law as a structural coupling between the political and legal systems, and due process rights as necessary and self-imposed limitations upon systemic operations, this paper employs a systems-theoretical approach to critique this balancing act between expediency and principle, and queries the circumstances under which legislation contravening the rule of law can be said to lack legitimacy.     

Restorative Justice,Policing and Insurgency: Learning from Pakistan

Pakistan state law and Taliban rule of Sharia law are at different ends of a politico‐legal spectrum. They share advocacy of one system of law and attraction to eradication of alternatives. Muslahathi Committees in Pakistan are used to explore legal pluralism, hybrid institutions that allow deliberative democracy to seek workable responses to injustice. Formal and traditional systems can show mutual respect and check each other. On the basis of purely qualitative evidence, it is argued that Muslahathi Committees are restorative justice programs that sustainably reduce revenge violence, make a contribution to preventing Pakistan from spiraling into civil war, and assist a police force with low legitimacy to become somewhat more accountable to local civil society. These contributions are limited, but could be more significant with modest investment in human rights and gender awareness training to control abuses and increase accountability. The ruthless, murderous, divisive politics of policing and restorative justice in Pakistan seems a least likely case for deliberative democracy to work. In limited ways it does.     

Access to justice and human rights in Afghanistan

In anthropological and legal literature, the phenomenon termed ‘legal pluralism’ has been interpreted as a co-presence of legal orders which act in relation to their own ‘levels’ of referring ‘fields’. The Afghan normative network is generally described in terms of pluralism, where different normative systems such as customs, shari’a (Islamic law), state laws and principles deriving from international standard of law (e.g., human rights) coexist. In order to address the crucial question of access to justice, in this article, I stress the category of legal pluralism by introducing the hypothesis of an inaccessible normative pluralism as a key concept to capture the structural injustices of which Afghans are victims. Access to justice can be considered a foundational element of every legal project. Globally, the debates concerning the diffusion and application of human rights develop at the same time ideologically, politically, and pragmatically. Today in Afghanistan, these levels are expressed in all their complexity and ambivalence. It is therefore particularly significant to closely observe the work done by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and to discuss the issue of human rights by starting from a reflection on what might be defined a socio-normative condition of inaccessibility.     

反思法治文化：标准、困境与路径

如果说权力的配置是法治的核心,那么对权力具有深远影响的法律文化也在以＂看不见的传承＂方式影响中国法治格局。法律文化多元是一种现实存在,而法治文化的标准则为这样的存在设定了目标。中国历史上铸就的人治传统、礼法文化、法律工具化形成的传统法律文化形成了法治文化构建的传统障碍;对传统资源的过分批判和抛弃及社会信仰危机弥漫社会无形中扮演了法治文化构建的现实困境：面对传统障碍和现实困境,法治文化路径选择从社会主体意识整合的视角出发,即从文化多元、法治意识及社会主体意识方面探究中国法治文化建设的出路。     

Legal Order,Legal Pluralism,Fundamental Principles. Europe and Its Law in Three Concepts

The essay analyses the way in which the concepts of legal order, legal pluralism and fundamental rights have been used to describe (and decide) what European integration is (and what it ought to be) from the perspective of the law. The essay does not provide a legal theory but limits itself to investigating how certain concepts have been employed to justify legal decisions and to construct legal theories. The juridical discourse on Europe is examined to identify some trends in contemporary legal culture: the decline of a tradition of legal thought, ‘legal dogmatics,’ the vanishing of the distinction between internal and external law (between domestic law and international law, and between positive law and morality), the growing importance of fundamental rights discourse, the centrality of balancing test, the widespread criticism of legal science's claim to neutrality and the consequent normative turn affecting legal scholarship.     

Legal Argumentation and Justice in Luhmann’s System Theory of Law

The paper reconstructs Luhmann’s conception of legal argumentation and justice especially focussing on the aspects of contingency and self-referring operative closure. The aim of his conception is to describe/explain in a disenchanted way—from an external, of “second order” point of view—the work on adjudication, which, rather idealistically, lawyers and judges present as being a matter of reason. As a consequence of some surface similarities with Derrida’s deconstructive philosophy of justice, Teubner proposes integrating the supposed reductive image of formal justice described by Luhmann with the ideal conception of justice presented by Derrida. Here this kind of attempt is rejected as epistemologically wrong. In addition, Luhmann’s theory is argued to have other shortcomings, namely: the failure to understand the pragmatic function of principles, and the incapacity to describe the current legal questions linked with cultures and legal pluralism, which characterise our society.     

专业法律知识的媒体供给与社会正义的维护——基于昆山案中舆论、司法、媒体互动的考察

维护社会正义是舆论、媒体与司法实践的共同目标。从系统论看,三者之间的良性互动有助于社会正义的实现。司法案件舆论引导是三者互动的一种常见状态。在司法案件舆论引导中,供给专业法律知识能够促进三者的良性互动。本文以极具代表性的昆山案为例展开案例研究,发现新闻媒体通过法学专家向公众供给专业法律知识、司法机关自媒体向公众供给专业法律知识,能够促进舆论与司法的良性互动,实现司法案件舆论引导效果。社会正义的维护并非仅靠法治实现,司法与舆论、媒体的互动能够更好地落实法治的正义精神。     

Law‐Linked Justice and Existence‐Linked Justice

Abstract. Justice as a manifestation of “the just” is an evasive concept. On the one hand there is the law, an operation run by professionals. On the other hand there are the citizens the law is meant for. Generally speaking the law strives for justice. But the law has to protect many different interests and must work through legal devices. Therefore the justice that emerges from it is necessarily a legal compromise. For the citizens the legal rules are a given reality. Generally they will agree that the law is there to achieve justice but legal arguments that justify a rule or decision cannot have the same value for them. In cases that affect them personally, justice will be a personal, existential experience, which may be incompatible with legal justice. It is hard to keep these two forms of justice under one roof. In order to make this easier this paper proposes a conceptual split between “law‐linked justice” and “existence‐linked justice.” It is argued that the law cannot in truth to its rational origin ignore the citizens’ experience of justice, out of the ordinary as they may be.     

习近平法治思想中涉外法治话语生成与实践逻辑——以“一带一路”倡议为视角

在习近平法治思想中,坚持统筹推进国内法治与涉外法治已成为当前指导中国开展涉外法治工作的重要指针和发展方向。而"一带一路"建设正是这一话语生成的重要实践场所。从其发展演变来看,"一带一路"涉外法治实践不仅体现了习近平法治思想中的规则意识、安全意识以及公平公正意识,而且亦形成了反制、竞争与合作的具体实践路径。更为重要的是,在全球治理上,人类命运共同体、共商共建共享原则都揭示出新的国际法命题。因此,未来"一带一路"涉外法治实践应紧密围绕习近平法治思想,加快涉外法治战略布局,形成强有力的涉外法治保障体系,以期促进"一带一路"高质量发展,重塑国际法治新秩序。     

关于证据排除规则的理性思考

英美法系的法治经验已经证明了证据排除规则是实现形式正义的一项不可或缺的制度。然而,由于我国传统上深受大陆法系的影响,至今关于证据排除的规定还很欠缺,不具有整体性和系统性。因此,确立并完善证据排除规则是凸现在我们面前的迫切任务之一 本文从理论视角系统地诠释了证据排除规则的特点和构建证据排除规则的基本框架。     

Contract Governance in the EU: Conceptualising the Relationship between Investor Protection Regulation and Private Law

The instrumental use of private law, in particular contract law, by the EU raises a complex issue concerning the relationship between contract‐related regulation and traditional private law and underlines the need for conceptualising the interplay between the two from the contract governance perspective. The present article aims to apply this new analytical approach in the investment services field where there is considerable tension between the EU investor protection regulation embodied in the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID I and MiFID II) and national private laws. The article explores various models of relationship between investor protection regulation and traditional private law within a multi‐level EU legal order, considering the strengths and weaknesses of each field in pursuing public and private interests involved in financial contracting. This analysis also offers some lessons for the broader narrative of how European integration in regulated areas dominated by public supervision and enforcement could proceed.     

政治文明、和谐社会与法治理念——法治乃政治文明所需、和谐社会所求

由政治文明与和谐社会思想衍生的法治理念具有丰富的内涵。实践社会主义法治理念,必须建立中国特色的以权力制约与权力统合为内容的分权体制,不断提升执政党的民主能力和法治能力;必须贯彻人本思想、民本精神,尊重和保障人权,实现人民参与,使权力“属于人民、通过人民、为了人民”;必须以宪政与人权为核心价值,改造国家精神和政治价值观,建立和完善全面的权力制约体系,建设有限政府;必须将公平正义视为立法和制度的首要价值,为法制注入人性、人道和人权精神,通过公正司法维护社会正义;必须强化法治思维,将人权和正义价值作为政治社会稳定的内涵,以贯彻法治、保障人权和维护正义为服务大局的指导思想和行动指南;必须构建以正义和良知为基本内涵的政法文化。     

习近平法治思想要义解析

习近平法治思想是一个系统完备、逻辑严密、内在统一的法治理论体系,主要包括法治基本理论、法治推进方略、法治重大关系等三大理论板块。在基本理论板块,明确提出了全面依法治国战略、法治中国命题、中国特色社会主义法治道路、中国特色社会主义法治体系、中国特色社会主义法治理论、在法治轨道上推进国家治理现代化等一系列基本理论。在推进方略板块,明确提出了坚持党的领导、人民当家作主、依法治国有机统一,坚持依宪治国、依宪执政,坚持统筹推进依规治党和依法治国,坚持依法治国和以德治国相结合,坚持依法治国、依法执政、依法行政共同推进和法治国家、法治政府、法治社会一体建设,坚持全面推进科学立法、严格执法、公正司法、全民守法,坚持统筹推进国内法治和涉外法治,坚持专业力量和群众力量相融合,坚持抓关键少数和抓绝大多数相结合。在重大关系板块,明确提出了正确处理政治与法治、改革与法治、政策与法律、发展与安全、活力与秩序、维权与维稳等一系列关系的方法。     

全球化时代的法哲学——第22届IVR世界大会综述

国际法哲学与社会哲学协会(IVR)第22届世界大会的主题是“全球社会中的法律与正义”。大会讨论了全球化与法理学的变革、全球化与法治、全球化与民主、全球化与宪政、全球化与正义、全球化与人权等一系列理论问题,在一定程度上勾勒出了全球化时代的法哲学的轮廓。     

程序正义的中国语境

程序正义在中国的语境中已被曲解,这种曲解不仅与我国传统的法律文化中程序工具主义、纠问式诉讼模式、法治基础薄弱有很大关系,与现实的程序价值理念及立法与司法的严重脱节密切相连。中国语境下的“程序正义”既是我国在迈向法治社会进程中传统文化与制度的缺陷的现实表现,又是我国法治现代化的一种必然产物。中国要走向程序法治,不仅需要相应的人文环境和相关的法律制度作为支撑,还需要在程序法治的实践中不断地加以检验并修正自己。     

论程序正义与现代法律文明——一种基于程序正义理念的法哲学思考

在现代法律文明之中,程序承载着对于法治、自由、人权等价值目标的功能意义;而程序正义作为一种法律理性价值在公共领域的应用,保障着公民的平等自由,同时也是公民诉讼权利实现的前提之一。在这种意义上,程序正义可以说是现代法律文明的理性价值之渊薮。     

中国传统契约中的“契约自由”与“主体平等”——以清水江文书为视角

中国法律传统虽以"公法"为主要特征,强调以身份关系为纽带的"公权力",但在"私法"领域,却并非不重视以自由和平等为基础的"私权利"。在中国传统契约与清水江文书中,均普遍存有关于"契约自由"与"主体平等"这样一种"契约型社会"的私法观念。在契约自由方面,主要通过"二主和同"、"两和立契"等契约语言来体现契约是双方协商一致,达成合意的结果;在主体平等方面,则通过"两共平章"、"平中立约"等用语来表明立约双方具有平等的人格与主体地位。而这样一种注重合意、平等立约的私法观念,以及尊重契约、敬畏契约,通过契约保护自身合法权利的精神,是当今我国法治化建设过程中重要的本土资源与宝贵财富。在提倡尊重契约精神、保护私权利等法治观念的今天,亦能够为我国法治的现代化进程提供历史的和本土的基因。     

法治文化的几个理论问题

党的十七届六中全会强调文化建设,将推进法律文化、法治文化的研究。法治文化是指包含民主、人权、平等、自由、正义、公平等价值在内的人类优秀法律文化类型;法治文化由表层结构和深层结构组成,前者包括法律规范、法律制度、法律组织机构、法律设施等,后者包括法律心理、法律意识、法律思想体系。法治文化就是法律的意识形态和与其相适应的社会制度和组织机构。一般来说,观念支配行为,思想决定行动,而良好的制度和规范又影响和塑造着人们的思想观念体系。法治文化建设就是制度性文化建设与观念性文化建设的结合和互动。法治文化建设既应该高度重视法律制度的建设,也要高度重视对公民观念的塑造和提高。     

Theorising Children's Rights in Youth Justice: The Significance of Autonomy and Foundational Rights

This paper develops a theoretical approach to children's rights in youth justice, located within a wider rights‐based theory of criminal justice which emphasises the centrality of citizens' autonomy. Understanding what is special about children's rights in the youth justice system requires an understanding of how children's autonomy differs from that of adults. One difference is that within the legal system children are not considered to be fully autonomous rights‐holders, because childhood is a time for gathering and developing the assets necessary for full autonomy. These assets should be protected by a category of ‘foundational’ rights. It is argued that an essential component of a rights‐based penal system for children is that it should not irreparably or permanently harm the child's foundational rights. The concept of foundational rights can then underpin and strengthen international children's rights standards, including those relating to the minimum age of criminal responsibility, differential sentencing for children and adults and a rights‐based system of resettlement provision.     

The Limits of Legal Pluralism in the Roman Empire

The Roman empire was legally pluralistic. But what exactly does this entail in concrete terms? With the growth in historical studies of legal pluralism in the Roman empire, some significant differences in approach have emerged. This article tests and clarifies some of the limits in the current ‘legal pluralism’ conceptual landscape, focussing on disputes and dispute resolution. It is argued that a clearer distinction should be drawn between ‘normative’ and ‘jurisdictional’ pluralism, though both approaches still raise certain conceptual problems. The place of disputes within the family within this wider institutional picture is then taken as a case study in the final part of the paper, and it is suggested that while family disputes can evidence ‘legal pluralism’ in the ‘norms’ sense, there is less to suggest that there were a multitude of officially sanctioned legal fora available for resolving family disputes. As a result, many went beyond the law. This has wider implications for the study of legal pluralism in antiquity and the problem of integrating alternative dispute resolution (ADR) into the pluralistic picture.