Prima Facie Ought. A Logical and Methodological Enquiry

The pressing problem of prima facie validity must be treated on the basis of a differentiation of types of normative rules. Rules stating principles or purposes are always applied as views determining the decision by weighing (but not by subsumption) so that the problem of prima facie validity does not arise. Neither is there a problem of such a restricted form of validity concerning power-conferring rules. The author shows that prima facie validity of rules of behaviour must not be treated as a different kind of validity and that the notion of prima facie validity can be explained in a logically satisfactory way on the basis of traditional norm-logical considerations.     

法律论证中的权威与正确性——兼论我国指导性案例的效力

法律论证既需要运用权威理由,也需要运用实质理由来证立法律命题。法律渊源是最重要的权威理由,它通过说明法律命题之来源的方式来证明后者的初步有效性。制定法与先例构成了法律论证之权威性框架的主要部分,制定法属于规范权威,而先例属于事实权威,它们在司法裁判中一般只需被指明。同时,法律论证的正确性宣称决定了法律论证也必须运用有效的实质理由,即对法律命题内容的正确性进行证立。这种论证既可以是法律体系内的论证,也可以是超越体系的论证。法律论证旨在于平衡权威与正确性,其中权威论证具有初步的优先性但并非不可推翻,权威性的强度与相关正确性论证的负担成正比。以此来分析,我国的指导性案例介于规范权威与事实权威之间,它的效力是一种"准制度拘束力"。     

BURDEN OF PROOF AND PRIMA FACIE CASE IN WTO DISPUTES SETTLEMENT—A PERSPECTIVE OF CHINESE LAW

This paper discusses the concept of burden of proof and prima facie case,respectively,in WTO dispute settlement based on the legal doctrine on burden of proof in Chinese law.From the perspective of Chinese law,the burden of proof has three implications on two levels,namely the behavior burden of production and the behavior burden of persuasion in the procedural sense,and the result burden of bearing unfavorable consequence in its substantive sense.A prima facie case also includes the weaker account and the stricter account.They do not mean the same in different contexts,but what is the exact meaning thereof in a given context is clear.The real confusion of the burden of proof in WTO dispute settlement is prima facie standard which,in practice,to some extent,relies on the determination by the panel on case-to-case basis.     

民事诉讼当事人行为选择下的诉讼构造及其活化

在民事诉讼中植入当事人行为选择,不仅能有效地构建促进当事人自由选择的诉讼构造,还能在很大程度上化解因自由裁量权而引发的法官道德困境,并能借助"条件优势范式"妥善处理司法能动性所要求的司法技术与权利立法之间的协同问题。同时,行为选择所依托的当事人"第二次机会"的架构,亦能很好地敦促诉讼制度自觉提供备位性程序保障,以减缓行为选择的责任机制对程序整体活化的影响。     

The right,the good and the jurisprude

Legal philosophy must be based on a set of substantive political values about such fundamental matters as the nature of the political community and the meaning of human freedom. This general thesis is illustrated by the analysis of moral discourse about the justification and limits of liberty-rights and equality-rights.The most effective way of arguing about the liberal conception of individual liberties (consistent with the Millian Harm Principle) is by recourse to the priority of the right over the good. But this conception is little more than a restatement of the Harm Principle itself hence, a more fundamental justification for it is required. This can be provided by a substantive conception of equality of individuals as moral agents who are capable of choosing, pursuing and changing their own conceptions of the good, within the parameters of avoiding harm to others.In turn, the basic moral problem about equality-rights concerns the test of the discriminatory character of legal classifications. The insistence that immutable personal characteristics, such as race and sex, are prima facie discriminatory, can only be explained by an appeal to a notion of positive freedom: individuals should not be adversely affected by those characteristics over which they have no control.There is a significant parallelism in the discourse about liberty-rights and equality-rights: one is a mirror image of the other. This indicates that jurisprudence is incomplete without those more fundamental conceptions, such as equality of moral agents and positive freedom, and that a proper discourse about human rights is derivative from the ideal of a just society.I am grateful to Martin Krygier, Grant Lamond and David Mason for their helpful comments.     

Luck, Genes, and Equality

This essay considers principles of distributive justice for access to reproductive biotechnologies which make it possible to enhance the traits of human offspring. The author provides prima facie reason to think that redistributive principles apply to genetic goods and proceed to evaluate the way in which four distributive patterns--egalitarianism, luck egalitarianism, prioritarianism, and suffcientarianism--would implement a just distribution of genetic goods. He argues that the currency of genetic redistribution consists in natural primary goods like health, vision, and rationality as these goods contribute to the biological component of basic capabilities, like being healthy, seeing properly, and being able to reason. The author develops a mixed sufficiency/priority approach to genetic enhancement, and defends this approach against objections.     

The Strictness of Strict Liability

This article conceptualizes what strict liability is in the criminal law. Four properties are found to be individually necessary, only jointly sufficient, for there to be the kind of moral blameworthiness that must underlie any just punishment: prima facie wrongdoing, absence of justification, prima facie culpability, and absence of excuse. Whenever criminal liability is imposed without the presence of one or more of these properties, the liabuility is said to be strict.     

Theories of Criminalization

In this article, I comment on Simester and von Hirsch’s theory of criminalization and discuss general principles of criminalization. After some brief comments on punishment theories and the role of moral wrongdoing, I examine main lines of contemporary criminalization theories which tend to focus on the issues of harm, offense, paternalism and side-constraints. One of the points of disagreement with Simester and von Hirsch concerns the role of the harm principle. I rely on a straightforward normative concept of “rights of others,” not in the sense of rights granted in positive law but in the sense of rights which are to be justified in political philosophy. With a rights-centered rather than a harm-centered approach, a prima facie reason for criminalization is the violation of others’ rights. It is unnecessary to develop a separate category of “offense to others,” and paternalistic interventions can be criticized straightforwardly because rights can be waived.     

What Happened in Hazelwood: Statistics, Employment Discrimination, and the 80% Rule

Tests of statistical significance have increasingly been used in employment discrimination cases since the Supreme Court's decision in Hazelwood. In that case, the United States Supreme Court ruled that "in a proper case" statistical evidence can suffice for a prima facie showing of employment discrimination. The Court also discussed the use of a binomial significance test to assess whether the difference between the proportion of black teachers employed by the Hazelwood School District and the proportion of black teachers in the relevant labor market was substantial enough to indicate discrimination. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has proposed a somewhat stricter standard for evaluating how substantial a difference must be to constitute evidence of discrimination. Under the so-called 80% rule promulgated by the EEOC, the difference must not only be statistically significant, but the hire rate for the allegedly discriminated group must also be less than 80% of the rate for the favored group. This article argues that a binomial statistical significance test standing alone is unsatisfactory for evaluating allegations of discrimination because many of the assumptions on which such tests are based are inapplicable to employment settings; the 80% rule is a more appropriate standard for evaluating whether a difference in hire rates should be treated as a prima facie showing of discrimination.     

The Ancillary-Care Responsibilities of Researchers: Reasonable But Not Great Expectations

This paper argues that, in a community of rights, the prima facie responsibilities of researchers to attend to the ancillary-care needs of their participants would be determined by a four-stage test (relating to placement, capacity, reasonable imposition, and fair demand). This test, it is suggested, sets a standard (and an example) for common law courts that are invited to recognize the ancillary-care responsibilities of researchers, whether as a matter of contract or tort law.     

Undermining Prima Facie Consent in the Criminal Law

Even when a person appears to have consented to another’s interference with her interests, we sometimes treat this apparent consent as ineffective. This may either be because the law does not permit consent to validate the actions concerned, or because the consent is undermined by the presence of additional factors which render it insufficiently autonomous to be effective. In this paper I propose that the project of categorising and systematically analysing the latter set of cases, would be furthered by recognising (1) that prima facie consent is undermined when the prima facie consenter’s autonomy to choose whether or not to consent has been unfairly constrained, and (2) that theoretical and doctrinal clarity can be promoted by analysing the factors that unfairly constrain autonomy in the criminal law using a framework developed in contract law to determine analogous questions arising in relation to assent to a contract.     

Basic Social Rights, Constitutional Justice, and Democracy

Abstract.   The theory of rights is crucial as a means of relieving the tension between basic rights and democracy, and as a means of resolving the problem of allocating competence between the constitutional court and the legislature. To some theorists, no tension between basic rights and democracy exists, for the latter presupposes the former. To others, among whom I include myself, tension does exist, for basic rights, in lending protection to certain persons and groups, limit the possibilities of political decision. In this connection it is important to take up the problem of the necessary conditions for realizing basic rights. One of these conditions concerns the delimiting of the scope of institutional action that is found, so to speak, in the space between the constitutional justices and the legislature, the latter as representative of the popular will.     

知识产权法"利益平衡说"之反思:自然法与功利主义之比较

“利益平衡说”被认为是知识产权法之基本原则或基本精神,旨在平衡权利人个人利益与社会公共利益之冲突,并以此解释知识产权法的制度构成。依自然法理论,知识产权之正当性因其自然获得性,相关权利与限制是确定权利的正当边界,维护以个人权利为基础之社会契约。功利主义理论则认为知识产权保护是实现社会效用之必要工具,经由排他性权利及其限制来达至社会效用最大化。无论限制或保护权利均有可能产生对权利或社会效用的正面或负面作用。由此,利益平衡的二元价值目标论值得商榷。知识产权法的根本问题是以个人权利为导向还是以社会效用为终极价值之选择问题。     

夫妻财产和债务关系的解构与重构——以《民法典》第1062-1065条的解释论为中心

对于夫妻债务问题而言,原《婚姻法解释二》第24条所体现的"推定论"与指导《民法典》第1064条第2款立法的"用途论"均非妥当的应对策略,切合实际的治本之道只能是实现夫妻对外责任财产的有效区隔。为此起见,针对民法典相关规定的解释论应当严格区分作为夫妻内部财产关系的"抽象财产价值"划分问题与作为夫妻外部财产关系的民商财产权归属问题,并以"财产权表面归属原则"所认可的公示和类公示规则充任后一问题的解决指南。唯有首先满足这些前提,并辅之以债权人撤销权等配套制度,夫妻之间方有可能最终达致"共债共签、各债各偿"的理想状态。     

论刑事诉讼中实体公正与程序公正之关系

程序公正近年来在我国法学理论界引起很大争论与探讨,就刑事诉讼中实体公正与程序公正之关系,各种观点百家争鸣,而该问题不仅为诉讼理论问题,且关系到诉讼中人权保障、诉讼模式等一系列实质内容,但有些提法抛开法律文化背景与法制现状,一味强调程序优先或过分坚持实体优先,有失偏颇。     

警察维权困境与出路——基于合法性视角的观察

警察权益受损可以通过合法性视角而得到观察。它是合法性形式规范结构体系不完整和实质指向发生偏差的综合反映,是制度化不力的结果。合法性困境的一面是警察权益受损,另一面则是公民权益受损。社会变迁加剧了这种局面,但也展示了变革的趋向。改变这一困境的出路在于制度化建设,其基本路径是：在价值取向上,公民权具有优先性,警察权威的树立应与公民权的保护相一致;在实践上,秩序具有优先性,公民权只有在秩序之下才能逐步完善,因而,警察权威的树立应先行。在此种格局下,警察权益受损是社会变迁的代价,其救济主要通过警察组织内部途径而予以实现。司法救济只能通过补偿警察作为公民权益受损而实现。作为公权的警察权益只有在公民权得到根本改善的前提下才能在司法渠道上得以实现,而这是一个长期的过程。     

Why a Charter of Fundamental Human Rights in the EU?

Abstract. It has been argued that human rights politics is detrimental to social integration. But human rights are not merely abstract principles which, when positivated, secure negative freedom. When they are constitutionalised and turned into fundamental rights they contain a guarantee for equal freedom to all citizens. A charter of fundamental rights is a means to enhance the legal certainty of the citizens, reduce arbitrariness and moral imperialism and to institutionalise the right to justification. However, as the principle of popular sovereignty points to a particular society, and human rights point to an ideal republic, only with a cosmopolitan order can the problem of human rights politics be resolved.     

庭前会议的功能定位与实践反思--以B市40个刑事案件为样本

按照刑事诉讼法和相关规范性文件的设定,刑事庭前会议主要解决程序性争议,基本功能是归纳控辩争议焦点,确定法庭调查范围;拓展功能衍生为推动案件繁简分流,规范撤回起诉程序,协商确定审判方式。通过对B市40个刑事案件的实证分析发现,庭前会议解决程序性争议的功能有限,庭前会议与庭审程序的关系不明,"大庭前会议、小庭审程序"现象值得警惕,制度设计与实践操作存在一定的紧张关系。未来要谨防庭前会议替代、削弱正式庭审,避免辩护权弱化、庭审虚化等不良倾向,回归庭前会议功能,推动庭审实质化。     

行政过程中相对人程序性权利研究

本文认为,行政过程中相对人的程序性权利是实现程序公正的基本要素。文章首先探讨了实体性权利与程序性权利的内在联系,并以此为基础对行政过程中相对人的程序性权利之具体内容进行分析,明确提出了行政过程中相对人应当享有的旨在保障“最低限度公正”的程序性权利。文章最后从行政程序立法的角度,探讨了程序性权利之保障与救济的法律途径。     

人格权侵害禁令的程序实现

人格权侵害禁令是人格权侵害领域中预防性责任形式的快速实现机制,其独立于先予执行和普通的行为保全,是不必然伴随诉讼程序、具有非暂时性和非保全性的人格权独立保护制度。根据此种实体法功能,禁令的程序模式在价值上要权衡程序的便利高效和当事人的程序利益保障。基于非讼程序法理的发展和现行法,虽然禁令案件是真正的诉讼案件,但仍可将其作为非讼程序的审理对象,并以非讼程序作为禁令的基本程序模式。据此,禁令程序应采用职权探知主义,建立被申请人最低限度的程序保障规则,确立非讼程序和诉讼程序之间的合理转换条件和方式,且禁令程序中的裁定不具有既判力。其他的具体程序规则也应根据非讼程序予以解释构建。