Courts,Criminal Process,and AIDS: The Institutionalization of Culture in Legal Decision Making*

This study views legal process as part of an interactive web of social and cultural relationships. While law may create public policy, its own creation is part of a complex system of institutional deference and subjective behaviors which reflect a larger cultural context. The fears engendered by AIDS help to highlight the underlying cultural biases and patterns of disease scare management ingrained in legal policymaking. These patterns are again enhanced when placed in a criminal context where the resident focus is one of controlling those who precipitate anxiety. Using a method of qualitative comparative analysis, this study concludes that the historical patterns of bias and institutional deference in disease scare management continues in modern criminal court process.     

社会管理创新:法院的职能定位与实践路径——兼析能动司法的范围和限度

社会管理创新是一项复杂的社会系统工程,人民法院在社会管理创新中具有重要职能。人民法院推进社会管理创新必须根据司法权的本质属性、职能范围、运行规律来进行。司法权是人民性、政治性和法律性的有机统一,其中人民性是其本质属性,政治性是人民性的集中体现,法律性是人民性和政治性的生命形式和实现机制。法院推进社会管理具有三个方面的职能定位,即依法履行司法职能是其基本立足点和出发点,服务大局是其人民性和政治性的本质要求,合法性是其基本要求和根本保障。能动司法应当成为人民法院推进社会管理创新的基本理念和实践导向,只有坚持能动司法才能实现司法的法律效果与司法效果的统一,提升司法的社会公信力。而能动司法必须坚持司法法律性的底线,解决好能与不能的关系问题,针对目前能动司法实践中的突出问题,应着力处理好三对关系。     

Fairness and Ethics in Social Decision Making

Social Justice Research -     

Judging in Place: Architecture,Design, and the Operation of Courts

What can judicial architecture tell us about how courts function? In this essay, I examine Legal Architecture: Justice, Due Process, and the Place of Law (2011) by Linda Mulcahy and Representing Justice: Invention, Controversy, and Rights in City‐States and Democratic Courtrooms (2011) by Judith Resnik and Dennis Curtis. I argue that both books develop an understanding of judicial architecture as a socially contingent form of communication. I relate this expressive theory of architecture to older arguments about design and construction articulated by poet and novelist Victor Hugo and architect Frank Lloyd Wright. I also briefly explore the connections between this developing “jurisprudence of what's real” and more conventional forms of law‐and‐courts scholarship.     

审判权与审判管理权、审判监督权的关系重塑

合理构建审判权与审判管理权、审判监督权的关系,是审判权运行机制改革的关键问题。欲使这三种权力形成合理关系,需要根据审判权运行存在的问题,在客观评价法院科层化组织结构与法院内部复合化权力构造以及院、庭长职权配置的基础上,从制度层面严格区分法院组织的行政逻辑与司法逻辑,进一步明确审判管理权与审判监督权的权限定位,完善其职权范围与行权程序,并构建审判权反向制约审判管理权与审判监督权的相关机制。唯有如此,才可能构建出合理的审判权与审判管理权、审判监督权的关系。     

Social science and the Courts

Social scientists have increasingly become involved in the submission of amicus curiae or friend of the court briefs in legal cases being decided by state and federal courts. This increase has triggered considerable debate about the use of briefs to communicate relevant social science research. This article evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of various methods of summarizing social science research for the courts. It also reviews the procedures for submitting briefs developed by the American Psychology-Law Society which, in collaboration with the American Psychological Association, has submitted its first brief inMaryland v. Craig, a case recently decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.The authors wish to thank James Ogloff, Kathy Roesch, and Claudia Worrell for their comments on an earlier draft     

论赋予法院对行政裁决司法变更权的必要性

行政裁决诉讼的特殊性在于解决裁决自身的合法性不是当事人的最终目的 ,解决平等主体之间原来的民事争议才是其最终目的。现行行政诉讼法没有赋予法院对于行政裁决案件的司法变更权 ,在实践中诱发出不少问题。从行政诉讼法的宗旨、行政裁决的法律定位等方面看 ,极有必要赋予法院对此类案件的司法变更权     

Caution in the Classroom: K-12 Teacher In-Class Speech,The Federal Courts and Garcetti

The federal courts’ approach to regulating K-12 public school teacher speech in the classroom has been split during the past twenty years. Some circuit courts use Pickering v. Board of Education, in which speech is examined to see if it touches on a matter of public concern. Others prefer Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, which focuses on whether speech is school-sponsored and whether the school had a legitimate reason for restricting it. In 2007, Garcetti v. Ceballos offered a new perspective on public employee speech. In that case, speech was examined to determine whether it was related to an employee's professional duties. An examination of federal court treatment of in-class teacher speech before and after Garcetti shows the case has further complicated the issue because it is being embraced by some federal courts as an appropriate precedent when dealing with classroom speech.     

司法成本与司法效率——中国法院的财政保障与法官激励

我国司法改革进程中,法院的财政保障构成了司法成本的主要问题。从长远的观点看应建立中央统一的司法财政与决算制度。此外,为了有效遏制司法腐败和从根本上提高司法公信力,通过渐进和配套的制度改革,将法官从一般公务员系列里独立出来并给予相对高的报酬仍应作为司法改革的一个努力方向。     

在加强和创新社会管理中促进司法行政工作

加强和创新社会管理是党中央提出的重大战略任务。近年来,上海市司法局认真贯彻落实市委、市政府、司法部关于加强和创新社会管理的工作部署,从坚持和拓展中国特色社会主义道路的战略高度,认识加强和创新社会管理的重要性和紧迫性。从司法行政工作是加强和创新社会管理的重要内容和手段的角度,认识司法行政工作与加强和创新社会管理之间的密切关系,注重发挥政府组成部门的重要作用,用加强和创新社会管理来促进司法行政工作。     

Magistrates, Magistrates Courts, and Social Change

Relatively little attention has been paid to lower courts' capacity to bring about social change, despite the fact that most citizens who come into contact with the judicial system will have their case considered (and most likely only considered) by these courts. Often these citizens experience a range of problems that are social in origin, including precarious employment, welfare dependence, financial hardship, and various health problems, including mental health and drug dependency. Magistrates courts must respond to social change and its human fallout and, in so doing, can contribute to progressive social change in a local, personal, and incremental way.     

Less Democracy, More Courts: A Puzzle of Judicial Review in Russia

This article explores why, throughout the 1990s, some Russian regions created their own constitutional courts and others did not. Contrary to current theories that assert that politicians create a strong and independent judiciary to protect them from the tyranny of election-winners in the context of political uncertainty, my analysis finds that constitutional courts emerged only in those regions where governors virtually guaranteed their re-election by consolidating their political power vis-à-vis federal and local governments. The article argues that both federal and regional politicians used the process of creating subnational constitutional courts to legitimize their federalism and judicial reforms. The changes in the balance of power between those governors, who aspired to have their own judicial system, and the federal government that insisted on a single federal judicial system, determined the variation in the process of court-building across Russian regions.     

强化人大对司法权监督的思考

国家权力机关的监督是具有最高法律效力的监督。人大监督具有权力来源的权威性、监督对象的广泛性、监督层次的至上性和监督方式的间接性等特点。人大及其常委会依法行使司法监督权是保障司法机关公正司法的客观需要。目前,人大监督的主要缺陷表现在：监督条款过于原则,不具有可操作性,监督权难以行使;监督刚性不足,监督权虚置;被监督者法律责任不明,监督权威缺失。国家权力机关对司法权的监督完全可以从个案入手,各级人大常委会要严格按照《监督法》规定的监督方式对司法机关办理的案件进行监督。为了提升人大对司法权的实际监督水平,应当进一步完善人大监督制度：转变观念,打破监督权＂休眠＂状态;建立专门的人大监督机构和人大监督员制度;不断完善监督立法,实现人大监督司法权的法制化;进一步细化人大监督程序。     

Federal old-age, survivors, and disability insurance; earnings test: Social Security Administration. Interim regulations

The Social Security Administration is issuing interim regulations to implement sections 1, 3, and 4 of Pub. L. 96-473 (enacted October 19, 1980) that make a number of changes in the application of the earnings test for retirement purposes. The provisions are designed to eliminate some unintended and harsh effects of the limitations on the use of the monthly earnings test imposed by the Social Security Amendments of 1977. Section 1 permits the use of the monthly earnings test by those beneficiaries entitled to child's benefits, young wife's and young husband's benefits (entitled only by reason of having an entitled child in their care) or mother's and father's benefits, in the year that entitlement terminates, if termination is for a reason other than death and the beneficiary is not entitled to another type of Social Security benefit for the month following the month of termination. Section 3 excludes from gross income, for purposes of the annual earnings test, self-employment income which is received in a year after the initial year of entitlement to insurance benefits under title II (other than disability benefits and childhood disability benefits) and is not attributable to services performed after the month of entitlement. Section 4 provides for all beneficiaries the use of the monthly earnings test in the first taxable year after 1977 in which a beneficiary has a non-service month in or after the month of entitlement to benefits.