The double helix of rule of law and EU competition law: An appraisal

By discussing the experiences of Hungary and Poland, this article aims to demonstrate that there are three layers of the rule of law which are relevant for EU competition law. The first one is external: it relates to the legal system of EU Member States of which competition law is a part. In national legal systems, rule of law safeguards need to be put in place in order to provide an adequate legal environment for the competition law system to perform its role. The second one is internal: it concerns rule of law safeguards in relation to the Member States' competition authorities, in particular their independence. The third one is consequential: the weakening of the rule of law within the external and internal layers affects the proper functioning of the competition law system. As a result, the effectiveness of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU is endangered, and a vicious circle of mutually reinforcing competition law and rule of law crises unfolds.     

公共危机管理的行政法治现实课题

本文结合"非典"公共危机管理的新实践、新情况,探讨了我国行政法治发展的若干现实课题,提出应加强我国公共应急法制建设,将行政应急性原则纳入我国行政法的基本原则体系,重视行政指导措施在公共危机管理中的适当运用,系统研究解决诸多后"非典"时期的行政法律问题,并提出了相应的对策建议.     

Trading rule of law for recovery? The new EU strategy in the post-Covid era

The ambition of this article is twofold. First, it argues that, in order to enhance respect for the rule of law by its Member States, the EU has launched a new strategy albeit essentially based on mechanisms which were not specifically designed to protect the rule of law. Second, the article aims to clarify the notion of rule of law resulting from this strategy and to subsequently analyse its consequences. In doing so, this article will thereby demonstrate that the instruments used by the new strategy promote a notion of the EU rule of law which implies a constant arbitrage between the rule of law and the economic objectives pursued by the EU. The risk may be, however, that it would subjugate fundamental values (as defined in Article 2 TEU) to the logic of European economic integration, thus inverting the hierarchy between protection for the rule of law and economic values.     

行政法治的经济分析

对行政权力进行制衡是法治建设的重要内容.本文采用成本收益分析法,运用制度经济学的思想,并结合公共选择理论以及博彝论.分析我国如何在法治进程中规制行政权力,平衡行政权与立法权、司法权之间的关系.通过重点研究在行政立法、执法、行政诉讼以及守法过程中,行政主体与相对人之闻、行政主体之间的博弈过程及其结果,表明我国的行政制度正在法治建设的轨道上不断发展和完善.     

Lessons from Roman law: EU law in England and Wales after Brexit

ABSTRACT

The experience of Roman law in legal education in England and Wales may serve as a cautionary tale for EU law post-Brexit. Similarly, past debates as to the position of Roman law in the curriculum may also be instructive in the EU law context. After tracing the history of the teaching of Roman law in England and Wales, this article posits first that the factors that appear to have caused the decline of Roman law could apply equally in the context of EU law. Secondly, based on both pragmatic and liberal education arguments that have historically been proffered for the study of Roman law, it advances arguments for the retention of a compulsory stand-alone EU law module in England and Wales after Brexit. To this end, the paper contends that the arguments for the retention of EU law in legal education are more robust than those asserted traditionally in favour of Roman law.     

Advocacy for a citizen-centric rule of law agenda: How do we bring the rule of law to life?

How do we best defend the rule of law against its attackers, both within the European Union and outside of it? Often, the rule of law has been perceived as a domain belonging to jurists, lawyers, bureaucrats, or politicians. Yet at its most fundamental, the rule of law needs to be thought of from a citizen's perspective. When enforced, it guarantees freedoms and liberties for citizens and enables us to live peacefully. In this article, we propose a citizen-centric rule of law agenda based on a deep conviction that it is if and when it becomes a citizen-based societal principle that its many attackers are best countered. We discuss the challenges and necessities of rule of law promotion and propose an assessment approach called the “living list”. We close with a call for citizen-scholars to fight for the rule of law, the most precious human invention of all time.     

War as a pretext to wave the rule of law goodbye? The case for an EU constitutional awakening

The war in Ukraine triggered significant changes at the European Union level. The speed at which the EU has achieved progress on sanctions, migration and defense is particularly impressive. But the Russian aggression against Ukraine has also served as a pretext for putting aside internal discussions about the rule of law, and provided additional political rationales for inaction against Member State governments responsible for the violation of European values, as well as triggered the deepening of double standards in several fields. Against this background, the paper argues that using this crisis as a justification for further inaction in the context of EU values is not a sustainable course of action. The Union must not delay further the need to act to halt the insidious erosion of democracy and the rule of law within its own borders both at the national and supranational level.     

Strengthening the rule of law through technology

This paper examines the increasing role of technology in strengthening the rule of law and administration of justice. It considers the use of technology for supporting the drafting and public promulgation of laws, for promoting legal certainty and transparency, and for ensuring legal equality and participation. It concludes that technology offers significant potential in these areas. At the same time, careful reflection, research and piloting of the most powerful new technologies is required, in order to ensure that technology always strengthens the rule of law as the overall aim and guiding value.     

The emergence of the rule of law in Russia

This paper challenges an empirical claim about the commercial courts (arbitrazhnye sudy) made by Kathryn Hendley and her co-authors in their paper “Law, Relationships and Private Enforcement: Transactional Strategies of Russian Enterprise” in Vol. 52, No. 4, Europe-Asia Studies in 2000. Basing their case on a quantitative survey of Russian firms, they conclude that economic actors in the 1990s relied on ‘the law and legal institutions’ because the commercial courts were relatively effective. In order to test this claim about the link between individual behaviour and the judiciary, I ask: What type of belief about corruption was held by Russian economic actors who trusted the commercial courts for conflict resolution at the end of the 1990s? The data set is drawn from a survey of 227 Russian firms made in 1997. I use self-reported data on economic actors’ preference for using or not using the commercial court (in case of a hypothetical conflict about a considerable amount of money) as a proxy for trust. A binary logistic regression model shows that economic actors who accepted corruption as a fact of life at the time of market entry were three times more likely to trust the commercial courts for conflict resolution than economic actors who rejected corruption. This finding contradicts any reasonable definition of the rule of law and suggests that the neo-liberal reformers should have paid more attention to the content – rather than merely to the speed – of reform.     

The rule of power in the language of law

Conclusion Thus power appears as both a topic within an already constituted realm of legal analysis, and as one of the motors that drives the constitution of this realm. This second foundational level is only available to reflexive thought that can place its analysis within the world of law it analyses so as to monitor its own possibility-conditions. Power therefore presents itself as shaping the very language employed to articulate it so that the analytic language of legal education can become a resource in its own right. In drawing upon this resource we have found that power and truth are mutually implicated. Contrary to the counter-reflexive and implicit view of legal culture, this means that knowledge of the power/truth relation is also an outcome of this relation. This suggests that power is a positive factor in the determination of any legal meaning and developments within legal disciplines. Through the disowning of legal culture's counter-reflexivity it is possible positively to characterise the character and operation of power across the constituted and constituing levels. At the constituted level it shapes discourse and speakers from the inside as well as externally. At the constituting level — which can no longer be treated separately — it individualises/collectivises those very subjects, their positions and world, and distributes a conceptual and linguistic framework for its self-comprehension.     

实现依法治国对策的法律思考

依法治国,建设社会主义法治国家已成为当代中国法治化的时代强音,成为反映全国人民意志和愿望的一项重要的治国方针,也成为中国人民的必要选择。然而我们对依法治国方略的研究和落实,不应再停留在对其重要意义的泛泛谈论上,而应从我国情况和法治实际出发,认真分析并找准制约和阻碍依法治国的突出问题,揭示问题症结之所在,并有针对性地提出切实可行的对策,以推进依法治国,建设社会主义法治国家的历史进程。 一、依法治国的内涵 依法治国就是指依照表现为法律形式的人民意志来治理国家。其中“依”包含两层意思,其一指依靠,即依靠…     

法治文明的二元权力观解读

在对权力这一现象的研究中,不少人已开始注意到国家权力和社会权力的对立冲突对于法治建设的巨大影响,特别是近年来,社会权力的蓬勃发展更加强了人们对它进行深刻认识的要求。马克思主义的经典理论在讨论权力这一社会现象时,也肯定了权力最初起源于社会,只是当阶级分化、国家出现后,权力才集中于国家手中。因此,在建设法治文明的过程中,必须要以国家权力与社会权力和谐并存的二元权力范式来构建我们的制度。