Individual rights vs. social utility: The search for the golden zigzag between conflicting fundamental values

Since Bentham and Kant, there has been an ongoing conflict between utilitarian and rights-based philosophies of government. However, most discussions of either perspective have been in the form of an advocacy that aggrandizes the positive values of one side and denigrates the negative values of the opposing side. There has been very little systematic analysis of the values protected by utility or the values protected by rights. Nor has there been a systematic analysis of the relationship between these values. This article maps the values underlying the two perspectives, analyzes their relationships, and argues that the utility/rights conflict is an essential and potentially productive conflict because both utility and rights protect fundamental, but limited, values that are necessary for the achievement of justice. Therefore, it is imperative to understand the values underlying both utility and rights.     

反读法治——关于法治国在我国的真实语义

对法治国的实践进路解析，对现行的法治作一现实批判，分折西方法治理念、法治建构在中国的法治进路中的困境。探寻法治国在我国的真实语义以及需解决的问题的思路。     

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.     

试论法治与和谐社会的关系

法治作为社会关系和社会利益的调节器,它以公平公正为价值标准,以法律的规范性,强制性为特点,通过立法和法律实施等活动调整社会关系,平衡社会利益,整合社会资源,维护社会秩序,达到构建和谐社会的目标。法治是构建和谐社会的重要保证,和谐社会是法制建设的前提基础,和谐社会应是法制的社会。     

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.     

The no-conflict rule: the acceptance of traditional equitable values?

Boardman v Phipps is a leading authority on the no-conflictrule. The House of Lords maintained the strict rule that historicallyequity has imposed on a fiduciary. This article explores howthe dissenting judgment of Lord Upjohn in Boardman v Phippshas been preferred by the lower courts and why the courts haveadopted such a position. This has fuelled a more general debateas to whether the no-conflict rule should be harsh or more flexible.Recent cases including Bhullar v Bhullar are discussed to illustratethe present approach of the courts to the recurring issues surroundingpossible applications of the no-conflict rule.     

Balancing power through law: The state v. the juvenile in delinquency proceedings

A content analysis of Maryland's juvenile court law spanning 1947–1978 posed two questions: (1) Had the state legislature redefined the juvenile court process in the matter of delinquency such that the juvenile received more power resources relative to those of the state? (2) Did the ratio of the state's and the juvenile's power resources diminish to the point of negligibility? Findings suggest that the court process may have been structurally revised without a significant change in the overall relationship of the parties in the process.     

Automatism: comparison of common law and civil law approaches--a search for the optimal

This article reviews common and civil law approaches to automatism with discussion of legal definitions and the conditions in which automatism occurs. The common law approach to sane (exogenous) and insane (endogenous) automatism is examined. Despite a change in the law, which obviates mandatory incarceration for all persons found not guilty on the basis of insane automatism, the stigma of insanity remains. A number of Continental jurisdictions, though, have adopted an approach divorced from judgmental labels, whereby acts, which result from automatism, are classified under the rubric of unconsciousness. The article draws upon this approach, analyses alternatives to insane automatism and proposes instead an analysis by reference to "cognitive dysfunction", thereby removing all reference to the concept of insanity.     

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.     

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.     

The Rule in Cradock v. Piper (1850): Exception or Principle

In Cradock v. Piper (1850) the court allowed a solicitor-trustee to charge for his professional services in relation to certain litigation This was in the absence of a charging clause, and in apparent violation of a strict and general principle of the law of trusts that trustees had to act without remuneration. The rule still exists today, though it is invariably described as anomalous and lacking any rational basis.This paper examines whether the court did indeed establish an exception to the general no-remuneration rule, or whether it applied legal principle correctly The analysis of the court's judgment, of case law, and of contemporary attitudes to professional trustees, shows that the court was correct in refusing to prohibit remuneration where the connection was too tenuous to give rise to a conflict of interest.