Choosing disability: preimplantation genetic diagnosis and negative enhancement

This article examines the unusual circumstance of what the author has tentatively termed "negative enhancement". This term is used to describe those instances where individuals seek to use preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to achieve outcomes that, commonly, are socially not preferred. In a recent survey by the Genetics and Public Policy Centre, it was found that 3% of IVF-PGD clinics in the United States reported having provided PGD to couples who seek to select an embryo for the presence of a particular disease or disability, such as deafness, in order that the child share the characteristic with the parents. The idea of "negative enhancement" is, therefore, both a paradox and a useful means to describe the hidden assumptions behind claims that enhancement technologies can only lead us in one direction -- towards a race of blond, blue-eyed, able-bodied, intellectually magnificent and athletically superior beings. In Australia there does appear to be a consensus that PGD should only be used to select against serious disability. This inevitably raises the question of how we define disability and who is best placed to make decisions about the kind of kin we want to create.     

“法官不得拒绝裁判”原则的逻辑再造:从绝对性到相对性

作为一项现代司法原则,"法官不得拒绝裁判"已然广泛运用于我国司法实践中。在回应实践发展的理论研究中,"法官不得拒绝裁判"原则的本质界定居于中心位置。实践中,当事人视角下的"唯满意论"解读和裁判者视角下的"唯制定法论"解读,使其陷入了绝对化的陷阱,尤其在司法责任之归责模式上陷入"全有"或"全无"的窘境。"法官不得拒绝裁判"原则应当提倡作相对性解读:就整体层面而言,表现为司法解决纠纷范围的有限性;就具体层面而言,表现为司法裁判的过程性与"拒绝裁判"的多元性、"拒绝裁判"评价标准的客观性与合理性以及"拒绝裁判"受司法责任调整的有限性。唯有如此,"法官不得拒绝裁判"原则的规范意涵才能得以彰显。     

Unwarranted variations in the quality of health care: can the law help medicine provide a remedy/remedies?

This Article reviews the essential findings of studies of variations in quality of care according to three categories of care: effective care, preference-sensitive care, and supply-sensitive care. It argues that malpractice liability and informed consent laws should be based on standards of practice that are appropriate to each category of care. In the case of effective care, the legal standard should be that virtually all of those in need should receive the treatment, whether or not it is currently customary to provide it. In the case of preference-sensitive care, the law should recognize the failure of the doctrine of informed consent to assure that patient preferences are respected in choice of treatment; we suggest that the law adopt a standard of informed patient choice in which patients are invited, not merely to consent to a recommended treatment, but to choose the treatment that best advances their preferences. In the case of supply-sensitive care, we suggest that physicians who seek to adopt more conservative patterns of practice be protected under the "respectable minority" or "two schools of thought" doctrine.     

认罪认罚从宽制度中的协议破裂与程序反转研究

认罪认罚从宽制度的一个显著特征是存在一纸认罪认罚具结书。在法律属性上,该具结书不宜简单理解为保证书或者证明材料,应当视为一种刑事协议。它有破裂的多种可能性:被追诉人的反悔、检察官的变更起诉或者法官的不予采纳。协议破裂是认罪认罚从宽制度中典型的"肥尾风险",发生概率很小但影响很大,处理不当将会引发难以估量的反噬风险。未来的制度完善,应以司法公正、司法公信力与正当预期利益的平衡为原则,构建协议破裂与程序反转的正当规则。被追诉人的反悔权应当有所限制,分为正当反悔与不正当反悔,并适用不同的反转程序;检察官应遵循禁止违反承诺原则;法官不采纳具结书应遵循"事先告知、听取意见与可撤回"的正当程序。唯此,认罪认罚从宽制度才不至于让被追诉人误读为获取有罪供述、打击犯罪的一种精巧安排,该制度才能走得更远。     

“... By a jury of his peers” — The issue of multi-racial juries in a poly-ethnic society

Conclusion Thus the conclusion should be to introduce a wider measure of participation by ethnic minorities in the jury service, in that every jury, regardless of the defendant's race or creed, ought to be composed of an appropriate mixture of racial groups according to the distribution of those quotas in the sampling area. The execution of the selection procedure should be left in the hands of the administration and not given to the individual judge in order to avoid any conceivable misuse of judicial powers and to keep the legal system free from yet another issue which might unnecessarily kindle racially founded suspicion, distrust or even hatred with those members of society whose protection a multi-racial jury is designed to serve in the first place.I would like to thankMr. Geoffrey Mercer, Barrister, Exeter, for reading and commenting upon the first draft of the article, and for checking the English.     

裁判请求权保障与法院审判人员的优化配置

在实行法官员额制改革过程中,必须一并考虑法院审判人员的分类管理和优化配置问题。在民事诉讼中,为保障公民的裁判请求权,对于民事纠纷案件的审理,必须配置入额法官;对于非讼案件的审理、诉前或审前的法院调解以及立案登记等程序事项的处理应交由司法实务官进行,从而让法官专注于民事纠纷案件的审判,以更好地落实公民的裁判请求权保障之宪法理念。司法事务官不同于助理审判员,其不能审理所有的民事案件;司法事务官也不同于法官助理,司法事务官不是法官的助手,其可以依法独立行使职权。司法事务官不是宪法意义上的处理民事纠纷的法官,司法事务官不必进入法官员额。     

论利用影响力受贿罪司法认定中的几个问题

利用影响力受贿罪是《中华人民共和国刑法修正案（七）》中的新增罪名,虽然其在犯罪构成上与斡旋受贿行为有相似性,但在具体理解上却有明显的区别。利用影响力受贿罪的犯罪主体不仅包括了近亲属还包括了“其他”密切关系人,在近亲属的理解上应当采取民事关系认定中的广义概念,在其他密切关系人的认定上要结合客观条件具体判断,做到主客观相统一。在判断行为人是否利用影响力时,应按照一般人的标准进行事前判断,在影响力对象的判断上需要结合具体情况具体分析。     

Do blind people see race? Social, legal, and theoretical considerations

Although the meaning, significance, and definition of race have been debated for centuries, one thread of thought unifies almost all of the many diverging perspectives: a largely unquestioned belief that race is self-evident and visually obvious, defined largely by skin color, facial features, and other visual cues. This suggests that “seeing race” is an experience largely unmediated by broader social forces; we simply know it when we see it. It also suggests that those who cannot see are likely to have a diminished understanding of race. But is this empirically accurate?I examine these questions by interviewing people who have been totally blind since birth about race and compare their responses to sighted individuals. I not only find that blind people have as significant an understanding of race as anyone else and that they understand race visually, but that this visual understanding of race stems from interpersonal and institutional socializations that profoundly shape their racial perceptions. These findings highlight how race and racial thinking are encoded into individuals through iterative social practices that train people to think a certain way about the world around them. In short, these practices are so strong that even blind people, in a conceptual sense, “see” race. Rather than being self-evident, these interviews draw attention to how race becomes visually salient through constitutive social practices that give rise to visual understandings of racial difference for blind and sighted people alike. This article concludes with a discussion of these findings' significance for understanding the role of race in law and society.     

论受贿犯罪司法认定中的几个问题

治理商业贿赂,首先要正确认定商业贿赂犯罪,这不仅是准确打击商业贿赂犯罪之需要,也是保障人权之要求。受贿犯罪自然是商业贿赂犯罪的核心。受贿犯罪在司法实践中存在一些难以认定的情况,如“什么是公务”、“利益正当与否如何判断”、“受贿故意与谋利目的分离如何处理”,等等。对这些问题的解决,应从应然和实然两方面着手。     

法律约束、个案正义与司法论证——对自由法学的另一种解读

19世纪末的自由法学认为,实在法是存有漏洞的,法官的任务便是进行漏洞填补.为解决法官"法律约束"与"个案正义"难题,自由法学将法官裁判区别为"主观动机"与"客观论证"结构,并将法律约束置于"客观论证"层面,通过公开论理使暗含在判决中的法官"主观动机"以客观化的方式展示出来.对此,纯粹法学通过法位阶秩序理论予以批判,然该批判误解了自由法学的理论诉求,同时也就无法洞悉司法过程的真实状态.     

刑事诉讼中的“审辩交易”现象研究

刑事诉讼中的"审辩交易"是一种客观存在的现象,从法官的视角出发,可以将其分为三种类型,即基于事实疑罪、法律疑罪以及案外因素进行的交易。压力驱动与大权在握的法官,在主动与被动之间的被告方,作为旁观者的公诉方以及被和解或者不知情的被害方的理性选择促成了"审辩交易"的达成。审判权力行政化的运行机制、不合理的诉讼真实理念、案件分流机制的匮乏以及不当的绩效考评机制导致法官承担巨大的压力,法官选择进行交易是转移压力的一种方式。目前,"审辩交易"的存在有一定的合理性,但也存在大量的弊端,要改变这种压力后置型的司法模式,需要对导致"审辩交易"现象发生的诸多因素进行改革。     

疫学因果关系及其证明

侵权法有关因果关系的一般理论有助于从总体上理解法律上的因果关系的性质与特征,却很难将其直接适用于对特定侵权类型的因果关系判断.疫学因果关系理论对司法审判实践中如何认定特定类型的环境侵权因果关系具有重要的指导意义,却未受到我国理论界的重视.将疫学型环境侵权的因果关系分为一般因与特定因,不但可以从理论上更为清晰地界定此类侵权因果关系的特征,还可以为在司法审判实践中判断因果关系是否存在提供参考框架.证明一般因存在与否的关键证据为流行病学证据,而证明特定因存在与否的证据则包括暴露学、临床医学、病理学等科学证据以及其他的一般证据.在对科学证据进行司法审查的基础上,结合其他证据和具体案情对因果关系作出司法判断,才有可能对疫学型环境侵权案件作出合理判决.     

自由心证的类型化分析

作为对法定证据制度之辩证否定的自由心证制度，其根本要求是法律对证明力不做具体规定．而交由裁判者自主裁量。在证据能力方面两大法系采取了各不相同的做法，其中英美法系采取的是证明力的自由评价与证据能力的法定主义．大陆法系国家和地区对证据能力和证明力均采取自由评价制度。两大法系在证据能力方面的不同态度。使自由心证表现为两种不同的类型。受诉讼价值目标、审判组织结构等方面的影响．我国自由心证的技术建构应当选择大陆法系的立法模式。     

Blinded by Sight: The Racial Body and the Origins of the Social Construction of Race

Osagie K. Obasogie's Blinded by Sight: Seeing Race through the Eyes of the Blind (2014) makes important contributions to both to the sociology of law and to critical race studies. The book challenges “colorblind” racial ideology by showing empirically that people who are blind from birth nevertheless “see” race, grasping it as a nearly omnipresent feature of social interaction and social organization. These insights, however, do not diminish the importance of the racial body. Beyond refuting colorblindness, Obasogie's book points to a neverending tension, embedded in what we call racial formation, between the social construction of race and the corporeality of race. This tension has been present since the dawn of empire and African slavery. Obasogie's achievement of falsifying colorblindness should not lead us to neglect the importance of the racial body.     

中国“例制”构建中的法院角色和法官作用

我国案例指导制度中的法院角色和法官作用有着鲜明的特色,案件审理阶段法院和办案法官往往并没有参与案例指导的意识,而是在案件裁判后由审判庭之外的综合部门通过遴选的方式确定典型案例,经编辑后报审判委员会研究讨论,再逐级报最高人民法院确定并发布。指导性案例的产生不是按照管辖制度自然地"涌现",而是被人为地"发现",这一点明显不同于国外的做法。相比较,"涌现"方式符合司法经济原则和司法规律,而"发现"方式充满人为因素,成本高而效率相对较低。案例指导制度不应被管辖制度"牵着鼻子走",而应当通过变更管辖制度,与司法规律相适应。     

The effect of race and gender on bail outcomes: A test of an interactive model

This paper responds to suggestions that researchers interested in the relationship between defendant race, defendant gender, and criminal justice outcomes broaden their focus to include pretrial decision making. We used data on defendants charged with violent felonies in Detroit Recorder’s Court to analyze the effect of race and gender on the amount of bail imposed by the judge and on the defendant’s pretrial status. We found that judges take gender, but not race, into account in determining the amount of bail for certain types of cases; more specifically, Black females faced lower bail than Black males in less serious cases. In contrast, we found that both race and gender affected the likelihood of pretrial release. White defendants were more likely than black defendants to be released pending trial and females were more likely than males to be released prior to trial. In fact, white females, white males, and black females all were more likely than black males to be released. An earlier version of this mansucript was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Phoenix, AZ, October, 1993.     

STRATEGIES AND NEED FOR SYSTEMS CHANGE

Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye of New York delivered the following address to the Millennium Conference of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges in Washington, D.C., on November 15, 1999. In it, she describes the development of the philosophy of the family court in the past century. Judge Kaye describes the family court's transition from reliance on social science to the incorporation of procedural due process guarantees in the Gault decision. She suggests that a further transformation is required to meet the needs of children and families in the 21st century. Judge Kaye proposes that in the next millennium the family court abandon the "remote adjudicator" judge who evolved after Gault to a "problem-solving model of judging… a judge who looks at the issues that are driving the caseload, who looks at the results that are being achieved, and who uses a hands-on style to figure out how we might do better both in individual cases and on a systemic level."
The New York Times described Chief Justice Kaye as, "A dedicated and effective reformer of the state's sprawling court system. Each of her hard won changes has had a positive impact." Chief Judge Kaye recently received the National Center for State Courts' William H. Rhenquist Award for Judicial Excellence in November 1999. On the occasion of the award, Roger K. Warren, president of the National Center, observed about her,"There are many who are working hard to better process the many cases that come before the state courts, but there are few working an harder or more successfully to better serve the people who use the state courts."     

司法裁判供给中的利益衡量:一种诉的利益观

任何提交司法机构要求予以审判的民事纠纷都必须具有一种获得本案司法裁判的必要性 ,对于这种必要性 ,大陆法系民事诉讼理论冠之以“诉的利益”。诉的利益概念的出现与利益法学思潮对民事诉讼领域造成的影响密切相关 ,其本质是国家在其司法裁判供给问题上的一种判断。诉的利益的判断过程实际上就是一个利益衡量的过程 ,这种利益衡量又主要在两个层面上进行 :一是原告与其他纳税人之间 ,二是原告与被告之间。在诉的利益问题上所进行的利益衡量存在一定的尺度 ,它要求法官立足于社会需求作出符合基本正义的衡平。     

违法性认识不是故意的要素

要成立犯罪,必须要求行为人具有违法性认识的可能性,但违法性认识不是故意的内容。故意是事实性判断,与作为规范判断的违法性认识并不相同。必须把违法性认识作为与故意不同的责任要素看待,这就要求修正目前通行的犯罪构成理论,对犯罪的成立与否分层次进行判断,在确定(责任)故意存在的前提下,进一步判断违法性认识以及责任是否存在。在违法性认识可能性不存在的场合,故意犯和过失犯都不成立。     

Race, Money and Medicines

Taking notice of race is both risky and inevitable, in medicine no less than in other endeavors. On the one hand, race can be a useful stand-in for unstudied genetic and environmental factors that yield differences in disease expression and therapeutic response. Attention to race can make a therapeutic difference, to the point of saving lives. On the other hand, racial distinctions have social meanings that are often pejorative or worse, especially when these distinctions are cast as culturally or biologically fixed. I argue in this essay that we should start with a presumption against racial categories in medicine, but permit their use when it might prolong lives or meaningfully improve health. Use of racial categories should be understood as an interim step; follow-up inquiry into the factors that underlie race-correlated clinical differences is important both to improve the efficacy of clinical care and to prevent race in itself from being misunderstood as a biological determinant. If we pursue such inquiry with vigor, the pernicious effects of racial categories on public understanding can be managed. But perverse market and regulatory incentives create the danger that use of race will be "locked-in," once drugs or other therapies are approved. These incentives should be revisited.