Law's Wars,Law's Trials

The rule of law is a foundation of the liberal state. The US ‘War on Terror’ under Presidents Bush and Obama threatened and violated the rule of law in multiple ways. This article surveys those challenges and analyses how US institutions responded in order to assess the capacity of the legal system to resist political pressure in moments of crisis.     

Time in Law's Domain

Law bends the past of a community's common life towards its future. 1 Precedent is one of law's favored tools for doing the bending, and legal systems that assign precedent a starring role seem especially mindful of time. Yet, mindfulness of time goes far deeper into law's DNA. It is not limited to the doctrine of precedent or unique to common‐law jurisdictions. Recognizing that time is an elemental dimension of human experience and basic ordering principle of practical agency, law utilizes and orders time. Temporality is essential to law's distinctive mode of governance and guidance.     

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。     

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.     

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"。     

Legislative Intent in Law's Empire*

This article considers Dworkin's influential argument against legislative intent in chapter 9 of Law's Empire. The argument proves much less than is often assumed for it fails to address the possibility that the institution of the legislature may form and act on intentions. Indeed, analysis of Dworkin's argument lends support to that possibility. Dworkin aims to refute legislative intent in order to elucidate his own theory of statutory interpretation. That theory fails to explain plausibly legislative action. Dworkin's argument does not refute legislative intent but instead suggests there is reason to think that the legislature is capable of intentional action.     

Melody and Law's Mindfulness of Time

Abstract. A structured awareness of time lies at the core of the law's distinctive normativity. Melody is offered as a rough model of this mindfulness of time, since some important features of this awareness are also present in a hearer's grasp of melody. The model of melody is used, first, to identify some temporal dimensions of intentional action and then to highlight law's mindfulness of time. Its role in the structure of legal thinking, and especially in precedent‐sensitive legal reasoning, is explored. This article argues further that melody‐modeled mindfulness of time is evident also at a deeper and more pervasive level, giving structure to the distinctive mode of law's normative guidance. The article draws one important theoretical consequence from this exploration, namely, that the normative coherence of momentary legal systems depends conceptually on their coherence over time.     

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.     

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。     

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     

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。     

Subjectivity and Law's Fields of Enquiry*

Abstract. Despite some appearances to the contrary, a popular view in jurisprudence is that there is a limited domain which either constitutes the field of enquiry of law or at least delineates the arena from which a particular field of enquiry ought to be selected. This article argues that “law” is comprised of a number of fields of enquiry that may be and are selected subjectively. It is claimed that theories of law may be freed from the perceived need to provide authoritative justification for their field of enquiry, if the role of subjectivity is acknowledged appropriately.     

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.