Human Rights in the Scottish Courts

This article looks at the use made of the human rights legislation in the Scottish courts since the devolution of legislative and executive power to Scotland, based on research undertaken in all the ordinary courts, but excluding tribunals. It concludes that the incorporation of the Convention via the human rights legislation has had significant effects within the Scottish court system and on policy development without amounting to a major upheaval.     

No Job Too Small: Justice Without Bargaining in the lower Criminal Courts

Plea bargaining and other informal disposition devices dominate case processing in the lower criminal courts. Consistently, studies have found such courts characterized by assembly-line procedures, deemphasis or disregard of formal due process rights, and guilty plea rates approaching 100% of all convictions. Caseload pressures, tendencies toward cooperation among courtroom participants and, above all, process costs of litigation that greatly outweigh the stakes in minor cases are widely thought to render informality and high guilty plea rates inevitable.
The study reported here challenges these assumptions. The author finds that in Philadelphia roughly one-fifth of all misdemeanor dispositions and one-half of all determinations of guilt are the result of genuine adversarial trials. He shows that an adversarial trial system need not impose prohibitive resource costs, even when extended to misdemeanor cases involving little likelihood of imprisonment, and that process costs will not deter defendants from invoking formal procedures when the court culture is committed to providing trials. Finally, the author argues that even routine misdemeanor cases benefit from guarantees of fairness and accuracy afforded by trial but unattainable when cases are processed by plea bargaining.     

论刑事司法中的人权保护

2012年人权入法是我国人权保护工作的又一里程碑。但当前我国刑事法学理论界和刑事司法界均存在这样一种认识误区:将刑事法律当成被追诉人的大宪章,过于强调保护被追诉人的人权,有的甚至提出了宁可错放,也不错判的主张。这种观点不但与三大人权公约冲突、自身存在逻辑矛盾,而且有碍司法公正。事实上,无论是从犯罪的本质、刑罚的根据、刑法的调整对象看,还是从两法的目的与任务看,刑事司法中保护的都应当是包括被害人、被追诉人在内的全体公民的人权。保护方式有三种:通过打击犯罪、消除犯罪对全体公民人权的威胁来直接保护;通过限制刑罚权,防止其对犯罪人人权的过度侵害来间接保护;通过限制刑罚权,防止其对无辜者的侵害来间接保护。将刑事司法的目的与任务定位为保护全体公民人权有利于促进司法公正。     

论刑事司法中的人权保障

刑事司法中的人权保障是当前人权保障的首要内容。人权的基本含义是保护个体不受任何外来势力的命令和剥夺,自由体现自己的意愿。但具有抽象人权和具体人权的双重属性。个体人权到集合体人权的发展体现了人权内容的可变性。刑事司法中的人权侵犯现象不仅普遍存在,而且具有多样性。加强刑事司法中的人权保障,要全面树立人权保障观念,正确处理实体正义和程序正义的关系,完善和正确适用刑事程序制度和刑事实体制度。     

美国州法院统一预算体制及其借鉴——以法院预算过程的内部组织为重点

1970年代以来,美国州法院体系逐步确立了理性、集中的预算管理体制.在法院经费管理领域导入科层模型的原因是多元的,既包括一些改革者意识到的优点,也包括一个可能并未充分意识到的制度环境.针对科层化的预算管理体制可能产生的缺陷,美国州法院体系采取了一系列的应对措施,这些措施的核心是创建一个可以吸引法院体系内部和外部的个人和机构共同参与的治理结构.美国州法院统一预算体制对于我国当前正在开展的法院经费保障体制改革具有两个方面的借鉴意义.     

Minority Religions and Social Justice in Russian Courts: An Analysis of Recent Cases

This paper presents a number of important recent cases from Russia involving new and minority faiths. The cases are examined to see how these unpopular groups are dealt within the context of a rapidly changing Russia. Conclusions are drawn about how the legal system in Russia operates concerning minority faiths, using the sociological variables discussed in this issue's introduction.     

美国少年司法状况报告

少年司法是美国法律制度的重要组成部分,有其独立程序和法律理念.自上个世纪六十年代以来,少年法庭受到来自自由主义和保守主义的批评.自由主义认为,少年法庭的法官经常以一种任意的、歧视的、甚至是专制的方式行使着家长式的权威;保守主义则认为少年法庭过于仁慈,尤其是对实施暴力犯罪和反复实施犯罪的违法者.来自两方面的挑战,对美国少年司法制度的改革产生了很大影响,并一直延续到现在.     

少年司法的起源:美国少年矫正机构运动的兴起

美国于19世纪兴起的少年矫正机构运动,是少年司法从普通刑事司法中分离出来的开始。少年矫正机构运动试图改革一元化刑事司法的弊端,为违法少年创造良好的成长环境并矫正其罪错行为。显然,这一改革实际上也完善了对少年,特别是下层贫民、移民和闲散少年的社会控制机能。尽管这一改革充满着争议,但在“少年福利”的名义下,国家亲权成功地凌驾于父母亲权之上,奠定了少年司法干预权的合法化基础。     

Implementation of Human Rights Treaties by Chinese Courts: Problems and Prospects

This article explores the implementation of human rights treatiesby courts in the People's Republic of China. The general applicabilityof treaties in China is not mentioned in its Constitution, whichleaves the status of treaties unclear in Chinese courts, andvarying from area to area. In the human rights area, the applicationof treaties at the domestic level requires incorporation. Thestatus of general comments and concluding observations madeby treaty bodies is unclear, too. On the basis of the currenthuman rights legislation in China, the problems and prospectsof four different kinds of litigation (constitutional, civil,criminal and administrative) in Chinese courts are discussedseparately.     

Criminal Prosecutions: Examining Prosecutorial Discretion and Charge Reductions in U.S. Federal District Courts

The role of the prosecutor in criminal punishments remains a fervent topic of criminal justice discourse, yet it has received limited empirical attention, particularly for U.S. Attorneys in federal district courts. The present study examines charging and sentencing outcomes in federal courts by combining charging data from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts with sentencing data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission. The merger of these data sources overcomes limitations of each and provides for an investigation of the causes and consequences of federal prosecutorial charging decisions. Our investigation focuses on the subtle but important influences that extralegal offender characteristics exert in this process. Results indicate that some extralegal characteristics are intricately tied to the likelihood of charge reductions. Moreover, these effects sometimes interact to produce compound disadvantages for some groups of offenders. Our analyses are guided by contemporary theoretical perspectives on courtroom decision‐making.     

The Role of the Courts in the Devolution and Human Rights Arrangements

Liverpool Law Review -     

WTO协定下美国贸易权利论——以美国对中国实施“双轨制反补贴措施”为视角

美国一方面对中国适用反补贴税法，另一方面通过WTO争端解决机制控告中国的禁止性补贴措施之做法，说明美国正在积极行使WTO协定下的贸易权利。应当从美国联邦宪法与国际法之双重视角把握贸易权利之性质并将其分成实体性市场准入权利与程序性贸易救济权利两大类，唯此才能理解美国对中国实施“双轨制反补贴措施”之实质。对美国正在推行的以贸易权利为导向的对华贸易政策，中国必须用自己的贸易救济权利加以对抗。     

Corporations in Court: Big Business Litigation in U. S. Federal Courts, 1971–1991

This article provides an overview of federal litigation involving the largest 2,000 U. S. corporations over the period 1971–91. Reporting from a unique data set of the authors'construction, it finds that althugh the aggregate volume of business litigation grew during the 1970s and early 1980s, it has actually been declining in recent years in all major categories of cases; business-related litigation is heavily concentrated, with an extremely limited number of business "mega-litigants" accounting for most of the activity; this concentration is particularly evident in tort, with the result that the tort trend line outside the concentration is actually flat or declining; a good deal of the growth in litigation outside the tort area can be attributed to business itself; and big business wins overwhelmingly, as plaintiff and defendant, in cases that involve it. The general applicability of these findings is limited by the data's restriction to federal court litigation and the structure of the Integrated Federal Court Data Base from which the authors'data set was constructed. This granted, the report is by far the most comprehensive treatment of U. S. big business litigation to date, and its findings are strikingly at odds with the premises of much current policy discussion.