Law's Legitimacy and 'Democracy-Plus'

Is it the case that the law, in order to be fully legitimate,must not only be adopted in a procedurally correct way but mustalso comply with certain substantive values? In the first partof the article I prepare the ground for the discussion of legitimacyof democratic laws by considering the relationship between law’slegitimacy, its justification and the obligation to obey thelaw. If legitimacy of law is seen as based on the law beingjustified (as in Raz’s ‘service conception’),our duty to obey it does not follow automatically: it must bebased on some additional arguments. Raz’s conception oflegitimate authority does not presuppose, as many critics claim,any unduly deferential attitude towards authorities. Disconnectionof the law’s legitimacy from the absolute duty to obeyit leads to the second part of the article which consists ina critical scrutiny of the claim that the democratically adoptedlaw is legitimate only insofar as it expresses the right moralvalues. This claim is shown to be, under one interpretation(‘motivational’), nearly meaningless or, under anotherinterpretation (‘constitutional’), too strong tosurvive the pressure from moral pluralism. While we cannot hopefor a design of ‘pure procedural democracy’ (byanalogy to Rawlsian ‘pure procedural justice’),democratic procedures express the values which animate the adoptionof a democratic system in the first place.     

税收刑法立法民主化

为了提高税收刑法的自觉遵行度,降低其执法成本,必然要求税收刑事立法反映人民的意志,保护人民的利益,体现人民的民主权利。在税收刑法立法过程中,应当加强税收刑法立法决策,制定民主机制建设,确保税收刑法立法形式的法典化和内容的公正化。     

全球化和中国法制的回应

一90年代以来,随着冷战的结束,全球化已成为经济和社会生活许多领域的一个重要发展趋势。就经济领域而言,全球化起码具有以下几个特征:1.经济的深人一体化80年代以来,无论社会主义国家,还是资本主义国家都发生了市场导向的经济变革:主要资本主义国家为了提高自己的竞争力,开始削减六、七十年代的福利国家政策,重视市场的作用;而大多数社会主义国家或前社会主义国家则发生了从计划经济向市场经济的转轨,这就为整个世界形成统一的市场创造了条件。与此同时,第三世界国家与发达国家之间的关系也发生了变化,它们之间的相互依赖越来越大:一方面发达国家为了获得更大的利润,必须依赖第三世界国家广大市场,发达国家之间加剧了争夺市场的竞争;另一方面,第三世界国家为了获取发展所必要的资金和技术,又依赖发达国家的投资和高科技,并把发达     

Associative Obligation and Law's Authority

Abstract.  Most attempts to explicate the authority of law dismiss the possible analogy of such authority with the less pretentious authority of parents, professional bodies, academic faculties, and other similar groups. This article explores that analogy, drawing on discussions of related themes by Ronald Dworkin and others. If agents are sometimes bound without their consent by such limited authority, the authority of law, though broader, may have similar features. Law's claim to peremptory obedience would fail, but the more modest account could still satisfy some long recognized desiderata.     

English Law's Epistemology of Expert Testimony

The decision whether to believe an expert witness raises difficult epistemological and ethical questions for a lay juror or judge. This article examines the English courts' approach to these questions in the light of a series of cases which endorse the test of admissibility formulated in the Australian case o/R v. Bonython . It argues that, if interpreted more rigorously than it generally has been to date, Bonython could provide the framework for an approach which avoids the pitfalls of either a 'scientistic' or a 'constructivist' epistemology of expert testimony. Such an approach needs to distinguish between different types of expertise and the differing degrees of deference that they call for on the part of a lay fact-finder.     

The Writer's Refusal and Law's Malady

In this piece I want to (re)pose the relation of writing to law and politics, by interrogating the sense of a writing which is simultaneously an unwriting or undoing of legal and political discourse through Maurice Blanchot's involvement in the movement against the French colonial war in Algeria and, in particular, his framing of the Declaration of the Right to Insubordination in the Algerian War in 1960. The piece analyses how the sense of the event of the Declaration continues to call us to acknowledge a 'disastrous responsibility' to a non-community beyond the time of law and politics.     

论财政法是经济法的“龙头法”

关于经济法的"龙头法",不仅是一个理论问题,也不是无关紧要的借喻,它关系到政府在经济中扮演何种角色、发挥什么样的作用,因而具有重要的实践价值,值得反思和探讨。从此次国际金融危机反映的情况看,所谓反垄断法是经济法"龙头法"和"经济宪法"的命题其实不能成立。反垄断法的作用是维护、弘扬市场机制,而市场"劣汰"、力所不能、周期和失控等弊端,需由财政法统领以实现经济的整体布局和统筹协调发展。相对于规划和产业政策法,财政法对经济的调控和主导具有直接、全面及整体性,也最具刚性和力度,而且它是经济法与宪政的衔接,本身即具有宪政暨"经济宪法"的性质。因此,无论中外,财政法都是经济法的"龙头法"。     

民族法制建设的价值取向

民族法研究的任务之一是民族法制建设问题 ,民族法制建设既面临着市场经济建设的挑战 ,又承担着与民族法制传统相链接的使命。找准民族法制建设的价值取向 ,是民族法制建设立于不败之地的重要保证。从历史的对比出发 ,总结出现代民族法制建设的价值取向     

票据法的坚守与发展

与商法的其他部分相比,票据法在世界范围内,太久没有修改了,其原因有经济上的,也有技术上的。但是,以德、日票据法学界为代表,对票据理论的研究异常活跃,他们最关注的部分可能正是票据法需要发展的部分,即作为票据理论两大核心课题之一的非因票据行为而发生票据流转如何解决对第三人的保护问题,现行法是找不到答案的。根据票据理论的成果,以票据行为契约说为前提,辅以权利外观理论是个不错的选择。目前中国没有日内瓦法系诸国国际法义务上的限制,把权利外观理论转化为具体票据制度,完全可能使中国票据法世界领先。     

刍论民间法对法律方法的可能贡献

民间法与国家法的张力由来已久,其紧张关系体现并爆发于法官的办案过程中。作为认识论的民间法依赖并附着于法律方法而生,又为法律方法之鲜活提供养分;而作为方法论的民间法则与法律方法同为方法论,在法学研究方法的博弈中,构成对立统一和互补关系。本文试图从民间法作为国家法之外实存并运行于中国当下社会的规范或秩序的认识出发,探讨民间法与法律方法间的辩证关系,为在司法过程中实现民间法与国家法的有效融合和互动,实现法治原则下和谐社会的宏伟目标,提出有关民间法对司法过程中法律方法的可能性贡献的些许思考。     

论侵权责任法的创权功能

侵权责任法的救济法、法益保护法属性及其开放性,使其具有创权功能。法定权利规定的遗漏、法定权利概念边缘模糊、新的利益不断出现,使得侵权责任法的创权功能至关重要。我们在制定侵权责任法时,应该保障其具有创权功能。然而,赋予侵权责任法创权功能,会面临消极风险。我们又必须通过制度构建对此风险加以防范。     

The Juristic Study of Law's Formal Character

Abstract. The author summarizes the essential elements of a general theory he is developing which he calls “The Formal Character of Law.” He explains that law's formal character is a potentially major branch of legal theory that is still relatively unexplored. In his view, it is possible to identify formal attributes in (1) legal rules, (2) other basic legal constructs such as interpretive method, the principles of stare decisis, legal reasons, and legislative and adjudicative processes, and (3) a legal system viewed as a whole. For example, a legal rule has, in varying degrees, such formal attributes as generality, definiteness, and simplicity. (Other constructs have other formal attributes.) Such attributes are formal in the sense that they apply to or accommodate highly variable content and do not prescribe or proscribe content. Of course, legal phenomena have other characteristics besides their formality. The author's main technique for developing his theory is to address a common set of questions to the varied formal attributes of (l), (2), and (3) above. Among other things, the answers to these questions further explicate how law is formal, demonstrate that law is not merely a means of serving problem-specific policy but also serves formal values (which may sometimes trump or limit policy), treats the relations between form and content—specially how good form begets good content and bad form bad content, explores the design and implementation of appropriate formality—its “anatomy and physiology,” and analyses the “pathology” of legal form including not only the “formalistic” (the overformal), but also the “sub-stantivistic,” and shows how the overall theory is important both jurisprudentially and in practical ways.     

《行政诉讼法》的“变革”与“踟蹰”

我国行政审判面临的现实困境是《行政诉讼法》修改的现实背景和动因.本次修法大体遵循了经验主义为主、制度设计为辅的路径,靶标行政诉讼“立案难”、“审理难”和“执行难”,对相应的制度进行了修正或者增补,并且注重与外部救济制度的协调,具有较强的针对性和解释力.然而,立法理念和路径选择的偏好决定了本次修法仍显保守与踟蹰:宏观上回应国家治理现代化诉求乏力,微观上部分制度存在空白或者仍有缺陷,欲达致“理想的行政诉讼法”尚需要更深刻的变革.     

Law's Polyarchy: A Comment on Cohen and Sabel

This comment links Cohen/Sabels' idea of a 'directly-deliberative polyarchy' to the contemporary debate on the deficit in democratic legitimation of the European Union. Within this constitutional-legal debate the conventional options are either to defend a vision of the EU which separates global economic law from national sovereignty, and thus relies on the legitimising powers of free markets, or to regard the legitimation problem (at least under present conditions) as beyond solution: that is to say that any further progress towards an 'ever closer union' would inevitably increase the legitimation deficit, and to suggest that the capacity for political action of the nation state should be protected or restored. This comment seeks to show that the concept of a 'directly-deliberative polyarchy' offers an attractive alternative to these traditional positions because it breaks the stranglehold of the false dichotomy 'global market vs national democracy' and thus permits an extension of the idea of radical democracy to European Supranationalism.     

反垄断法对产业政策的拾遗补缺作用

中国<反垄断法>第7条规定:"国有经济占控制地位的关系国民经济命脉和国家安全的行业以及实行专营的行业,国家对其经营者的合法经营活动予以保护,并对经营者的经营行为及其商品和服务的价格依法实施监管和调控,维护消费者利益,促进技术进步.""前款规定行业的经营者应当依法经营,诚实守信,严格自律,接受社会公众的监督,不得利用其控制地位或者专营地位损害消费者利益."第7条所说的行业,也就是我们通常所说的管制行业,如通讯、铁路、石油,等等.对这些行业的管制又代表了我国对这些行业的产业政策.从这一角度上,行业管制与产业政策只是一个问题的不同称谓而已,侧重点不同,但实质一样.因此,<反垄断法>第7条提供了处理产业政策与反垄断法关系的原则.