Using the Wrong Policy Tools: Education,Charity, and Public Benefit

A recent decision on the application of public benefit under the Charities Act 2006 sidestepped the political debate surrounding the charitable status of independent fee‐charging schools. The broader political context nevertheless underscores the legislative reforms, and this article questions whether the new statutory public benefit requirement has utility as a welfare policy tool in the field of education. It examines the public benefit requirement in charity law against the backdrop of government policy towards education and the broader political agenda for a mixed economy of welfare provision, and argues that the difficulties Labour faced in developing its education policies were replicated in the application of the post‐Act public benefit requirement to fee‐charging schools. As a result, achieving broader policy goals for widening educational opportunity through public benefit was almost impossible given the regulatory framework and the principles upon which charity law is founded.     

公法权利的实践——结社现象的法学意义

我国公法权利实践之所以可能,主要是与公法本身的发展分不开的,私法权利实践也起到了积极的推进作用,而思想观念的变化、普法教育的开展以及法律体系的完善和法治原则深入人心,都从不同角度、不同层次为我国公法权利实践提供着可能性。从公民结社权的实践来看,我国公法权利实践的最重要特点是,它是依附于行政权力的权利,是需要行政权力提供保护的权利。约束行政权力,改变依附于权力的现状,并使之成为真正具有法律意义的权利,是我国公法权利实践未来发展的大致方向。     

Review of N. S. Barabasheva,Legal Status of Higher Educational Institutions of the USSR

This book by N. S. Barabasheva is an integrated study of the legal status of higher educational institutions in the unitary system of public education of the Soviet state, a system that is determined by the USSR Constitution and the Principles of USSR and Union Republic Legislation on Education, the Statute on Higher Educational Institutions, and a number of other acts of positive law. The author emphasizes that the status of a higher educational institution as an institution under law is indissolubly associated with the condition, tasks, and prospects of development of higher education. The author offers an opportunity to identify the set of rights and responsibilities of higher educational institutions and the present state of legal regulation of their organization and activity, and to investigate the real opportunities for improving higher educational institutions. The study under review makes it possible to conduct an "inventory" of the provisions of law bearing on the work of higher educational institutions scattered through many legal sources and still inadequately codified, a fact that is important in terms of the drafting of the Legal Code of the USSR.     

论公法在中国的演进

公、私法的划分肇始于西方,因其契合着人的公共性和个体性而得以延续和广泛应用。公法因社会生态的不同而演变出宗教、道德、法律等不同的表现形态。公法在中国是伴随着共同体的形成而生成的。近代以前,由于公共利益遮蔽了个体利益,道德始终占据着社会的主导地位,公法在中国一直以道德的形式存在着。近现代后,社会生态的变化使得利益多元化逐渐生成,公法在中国逐渐由道德向法律转变。当前公、私法之间愈来愈呈现出融合的趋势。宪法的彰显是公、私法划分发展的一个新阶段,它使公、私法的二元对立实现了在更高层次上的统一。公法在宪法整体性的协调下,已呈现出自足与互助的同构。     

论我国公立高等学校行政主体法律地位

公立高等学校的行政主体法律地位自二十世纪90年代以来倍受学者关注,公立高等学校的行政主体法律地位的理论前提是公共行政,而现实中公立高等学校所具有的广泛的管理职能是其成为行政主体的现实依据。公立高等学校除作为行政主体之外,其还具有自治主体的法律地位。行政主体与自治主体这两种不同性质的主体资格常常交错存在。     

Public‐Private Arbitration and the Public Interest under English Law

Together with the increase in the number of public‐private contracts, recent years have seen a marked proliferation in public‐private arbitrations. This article explores the public interest implications which may arise in such arbitrations and examines how public‐private arbitration is treated under English law. We argue that, due to the lack of a developed administrative law sphere in England and the historical development of arbitration as an exclusively private mode of dispute resolution, the current legal framework of arbitration in England has developed around the private law paradigm of a commercial dispute involving private actors. This private law paradigm results in a conceptual and legal void in respect of how public interest is accounted for, and protected, in arbitrations involving public bodies under English law. Therefore, we suggest that English arbitration law needs to be amended to adequately protect the private interest in public‐private arbitration.     

Negligence, Public Bodies, and Ruthlessness

The Law Commission has concluded in a recent consultation paper ('Administrative Redress') that claimants are able to sue public bodies successfully in negligence in an unacceptably wide range of circumstances. For this reason, it has proposed the introduction of a new touchstone of liability: 'serious fault'. The Law Commission regards the liability regime it proposes as superior to the existing law since it would reduce the number of occasions on which claimants deflect public bodies from their core concerns (delivering goods and services that serve the public interest). The Law Commission also finds support for its proposal in a 'principle of modified corrective justice'. On the analysis offered in this essay, the requirement of 'serious fault' is better understood as strengthening a commitment to ruthlessness (in the sense specified by Thomas Nagel) that is present in the existing law. This essay also argues for a reform of negligence law (as it applies to public bodies) that is very different from that proposed by the Law Commission. This is the application of the proportionality principle at the third stage of the duty of care test in Caparo Industries plc v Dickman . More generally, this essay criticises the Law Commission on the ground that it assumes that public bodies have sufficient information to perform a wide range of tasks effectively. This is often not the case. Moreover, negligence law in its existing form is a (non-market) discovery-procedure by means of which public bodies can, when defending novel claims, become better acquainted with the environment in which they operate.     

刑法修正之于社会舆论：尊重更应超越

社会转型时期社会公众基于社会安全和自身安全的考量会对刑法有一定的期待,这种客观现实和合理诉求决定了刑法修正时尊重社会舆论的正当性.而社会舆论的非理性、片面性等特点和刑法的残酷性、谦抑性等特点又共同决定了刑法修正时应当超越社会舆论的正当性.过度尊重和囿于社会舆论会导致情绪性立法,而过度超越社会舆论又可能造成对社会舆论的“傲慢与偏见”.为此,应当从切实坚守刑法发展的理性、坚持危害性原则、揭开社会舆论的面纱等方面实现刑法修正和社会舆论的合理互动.     

The Indirect Influence of Politics on Tort Liability of Public Authorities in English Law

The scope of negligence liability of public authorities in English law has undergone significant changes in the Post‐World War II period, first expanding and then, from the mid‐1980s, retracting. This article tries to explain why this happened not by focusing, as is common in most commentary on this area of law, on changing doctrinal “tests,” but rather by tying it to changes in the background political ideology. My main contention is that political change has brought about a change in the law, but that it did so by affecting the scope of the political domain, and by implication, also the scope of the legal one. More specifically, I argue that Britain's Post‐War consensus on the welfare state has enabled the courts to expand state liability in accordance with emerging notions of the welfare state without seeming to take the law into controversial territory. When Thatcher came to power, the welfare state was no longer in consensus, thus making further development of legal doctrines on welfarist lines appear politically contentious. The courts therefore reverted back to older doctrines that seemed less politically charged in the new political atmosphere of the 1980s.     

Infusing Public Law into Privatized Welfare: Lawyers,Economists, and the Competing Logics of Administrative Reform

Along with the trend toward “New Public Management” (NPM) and replacing the legal culture of public bureaucracies with market logic through privatization, we are also witnessing instances of “publicization,” the application of public law norms and mechanisms to privatized services. The article explores the role of government lawyers and economists in the dynamics of these administrative reforms. Using a detailed case study of welfare‐to‐work reform in Israel, it shows that the reconstruction of decision making and accountability patterns under NPM was the result of competing efforts by these professional groups to appropriate the “privatized state” to accord with their own institutional logics and interests. While economists advanced a “market” logic, lawyers tried to reproduce the logic of “law” in the post‐bureaucratic setting. The study demonstrates how eventually public law norms were re‐infused into privatized welfare as a result of the increasing institutional power of the lawyers in the regulatory space, along with wider political and social support for the entrenched legalistic mechanisms of the administrative state. However, in addition to the “battle of norms” between lawyers and economists, there were also concessions that led to the redrawing of the boundaries of public law along more functional, rather than formal, lines.     

Contesting Legality in Authoritarian Contexts: Food Safety,Rule of Law and China's Networked Public Sphere

Since the introduction of the Internet, China's networked public sphere has become a critical site in which various actors compete to shape public opinion and promote or forestall legal and political change. This paper examines how members of an online public, the Tianya Forum, conceptualized and discussed law in relation to a specific event, the 2008 Sanlu milk scandal. Whereas previous studies suggest the Chinese state effectively controls citizens' legal consciousness via propaganda, this analysis shows that the construction of legality by the Tianya public was not a top‐down process, but a complex negotiation involving multiple parties. The Chinese state had to compete with lawyers and outspoken media to frame and interpret the scandal for the Tianya public and it was not always successful in doing so. Data show further how the online public framed the food safety incident as indicative of fundamental problems rooted in China's political regime and critiqued the state's instrumental use of law.     

依法治国中的公共政策

公共政策乃是承载公共权力的各种组织为处理公私事务、实现公共利益而制定并实施的除法律以外的活动策略和行动准则。法治社会中,公共政策和法律既相互联系又充斥着紧张,对二者在行政执法和司法中的关系必须谨慎对待并积极理顺。     

再论我国公立高等学校之法律地位

我国公立高等学校的法律地位问题日益成为教育法制的焦点。本文认为,高等学校在不同方面具有不同的法律地位:其在行使法律、法规授予的行政管理等职权时,是行政主体;在接受有关行政主体监督、管理时,是行政相对人;在管理有关资产以及进行平权性质的活动时,是民事主体。此外,公立高校与其内部群体如教师、学生等存在多种复杂的法律关系。因此,我们把握公立高等学校的法律地位需要一种综合性的视角,并注意具体区分授权基础、行为类型和事务性质。     

构建公立高等学校二元行政法律地位

从公立高等学校的发展历程及我国司法实践和理论研究的现状人手,通过比较国外高等学校行政法地位的理论实践,提出行政权是确定我国公立高等学校的行政法上地位的动态标准.并进一步从公立高等学校作为行政相对人、行政主体两个纬度进行分析,厘清公立高等学校在行政法的具体司法实践中的二元地位.     

公法研究范式的构造、确立及其变迁

"范式(Paradigm)"这个原本用来表示词形变化的专业术语,在当下的公法学界已经成为一个时尚语词.任何公法研究其实都有意无意地发生于某种范式之中.公法研究范式由一个被假定为有解的公法学难题、一群持有相同学术见解的公法学人、一套获得普遍认同的理论框架、一个或一些得到广泛模仿的代表性范例这四种基本元素共同构成;公法研究范式的确立因遭遇全新公法难题而起,这是一个代表人物全力倡导与其他学者积极响应的过程,往往以权威教科书的问世作为确立标志;为了"追赶"公法实践,公法研究范式需要无休止的变迁,其方式或者是温和的自我修正,或者是"革命性"的转换.     

Corporate Chaos: The Muddled Jurisprudence of Corporate Public Figures

Public-figure determinations in libel law are enormously consequential legal decisions. The divide between public and private status for a defamation plaintiff can be – and frequently is – determinative of whether that plaintiff can succeed. Lower court rulings on how corporate plaintiffs fit into this status determination are inconsistent. Meanwhile, corporations are taking increasingly active roles in political and social controversies. This article explores the sprawling and contradictory law of corporate public figures, analyzing and critiquing lower court jurisprudence on this vital issue. The article also provides a suggested direction for clarifying the state of the law and aligning it more closely with important First Amendment values.     

公共经济学视野中的高等教育公平

高等教育公平的特殊重要性是其在构建和谐社会中所具有的不可替代的基础性推动作用.从公共经济学视角阐述高等教育的公平性问题,收入分层是导致高等教育不公平的一个重要因素.因此,我们的政策思路应是:尽力避免市场经济体制下的一个基本规律,即社会分层体系会通过教育体系去有效地实现自身的阶层封闭与自我循环,导致"富者愈富,穷者愈穷"的"马太效应."     

影响刑事案件起诉质量的侦查思考

目前，随着我国死刑复核权的回收以及律师法的修订，对刑事案件诉讼质量的要求也越来越高，尤其在公安机关的侦查阶段，除了客观体制机制等因素外，侦查主体的法律、程序、证据意识等问题是影响诉讼质量的关键所在。要改变这种意识现状，公安机关就必须在侦查主体的教育、学习和交流监督等环节上加大工作力度，增强实效，确保案件的起诉质量。     

The Regionalisation of Judicial Review: Constitutional Authority,Access to Justice and Specialisation of Legal Services in Public Law

Since April 2009 judicial reviews may be dealt with at regional centres and in Cardiff. This change significantly relaxed the hitherto highly centralised system of judicial review in England and Wales. The main aims were to improve access to public law redress by enabling cases to be listed and heard at the most appropriate regional location. Despite recognition of the need to improve regional access, fears exist that this reform will threaten the standing and authority of judicial review in this jurisdiction; that it will contribute to a fragmentation of judicial review and, in the regions, reduce the quality of public law adjudication, legal advice and representation. Drawing on an empirical study on the regional use of judicial review, this paper assesses these matters and considers the early effects of regionalisation on access to judicial review and the development of regional markets for legal services in public law.     

浅议《治安管理处罚法》对公安机关办理治安案件的影响

《治安管理处罚法》的颁布实现了从“条例”到“法”的重大转变。《治安管理处罚法》补充完善了治安管理处罚制度,对人民警察依法履行职责进行了规范和监督,无论是在实体上还是在程序上,都较《治安管理处罚条例》做了很大的修改,处罚种类的增加、处罚幅度的提高、处罚程序的完善与规范,对公安机关办理治安案件提出了更高的要求。