Judges as satisficers: a law and economics perspective on judicial liability

If judges are guardians of the law, who is to protect the individual member of society from the occasional corrupt, malicious, or reckless judge? The aim of this paper is to provide an answer to the last part of this question, focusing more heavily on cases of negligently inflicted harm. Departing from Simon’s bounded rationality and influenced by other constructs in behavioral law and economics, we view judges as satisficers who make decisions within real-world constraints, such as imperfect information and uncertainty, cognitive limitations and erroneous information. Judges are limited by the commonly observed barriers to the decision making process. Because their goal is not to optimize but to render opinions that are merely satisfactory, they often act as poor agents of their principals’ interests. In this light, it becomes clearer why judges tend to engage in behavior that is “improper”, especially under the circumstances of the currently overloaded judicial caseloads. We first address the differences in judges’ roles in Anglo-American and Continental legal systems. We then present our simple model for judicial misbehavior based on an understanding of judges as “satisficers”. Next we discuss the particularities of judicial errors and introduce a realistic and viable construct of “inexcusable judicial error”. On this basis we evaluate the impact of various incentive schemes on judicial behavior, focusing on the civil liability of judges. We conclude that civil liability for grave judicial errors is the most adequate remedy.     

Class Jurisprudes: Free Labor Ideology and For‐Profit Penal Labor in Gilded Age Courts

For‐profit penal servitude flourished in Gilded Age America. Prisoners produced consumer goods inside factory‐penitentiaries for private enterprise. Regulations protecting free labor encountered litigation by businesses invested in carceral capitalism. Judges who defended “liberty of contract,” maintained “state neutrality,” and condemned “class legislation” exhibited a different approach when evaluating labeling laws. Such statutes were seemingly consonant with the free labor ideology that dominated appellate benches—they remediated markets distorted by state‐created privileges. Yet courts routinely struck them down. This article argues that judges were motivated by a class‐infused framework structuring interpretation of facts and aliening lower‐class Americans. Judges perceived workingmen who sought remedial assistance as seeking class legislation; they saw prison inmates and products as ordinary workers and goods, not as captive manpower and state‐subsidized wares. Jurisprudence bent and bowed from judges’ values and associations. This article thus reintroduces the explanatory power of class to the Lochner era through judicial subjectivity.     

Domestic judicial defiance and the authority of international legal regimes

Tensions and occasional overt defiance of international courts suggest that compliance with international regimes is not a self-evident choice for domestic judges. I develop a formal theory of domestic judicial defiance in which domestic and supranational judges vie for jurisprudential authority in a non-hierarchical setting. The model emphasises the role of domestic non-compliance costs and power asymmetries in determining the conduct of domestic and international judges. I argue that the EU represents a special case of a particularly effective international regime. Weak domestic courts have little to gain from an escalated conflict with the European court of Justice. But even domestic judicial superpowers like the German Federal Constitutional Court have strong incentives to seek mutual accommodation with European judges. The analysis also yields new insights into concepts, such as “judicial dialogue” and “constitutional pluralism” that have featured prominently in the legal literature, and suggests new hypotheses for empirical research.     

Adjudicating Executive Privilege: Federal Administrative Agencies and Deliberative Process Privilege Claims in U.S. District Courts

Government transparency is a key component of democratic accountability. The U.S. Congress and the president have created multiple legislative avenues to facilitate executive branch transparency with the public. However, when the executive branch withholds requested information from the public, the federal judiciary has the power to determine whether agencies must release documents and information to requestors. When enforcing standards of executive branch transparency, judges must balance concerns of executive autonomy and judicial intrusion into administrative decisionmaking. While much judicial scholarship focuses on the decisionmaking on high courts, in the U.S. context, federal district courts play a key role in adjudicating transparency disputes. In this article, I examine case outcomes in disputes involving agency claims of deliberative process privilege over internal agency documents litigated between 1994 and 2004. I find that U.S. federal district courts largely defer to administrative agencies in transparency disputes. However, factors such as agency structure and the congruence between judicial and administrative agency policy preferences influence whether federal judges require executive branch officials to release requested information.     

论行政刑罚

行政刑罚是介于行政法与刑法之间,伴随着行政处罚难以完全满足公共行政制裁需求而产生的。它是指由司法机关对违反行政刑法规范的行政犯罪行为人所依法施加的一种刑罚制裁措施。本文由行政案件防治体制的缺陷引发,认为应建立一套介于行政处罚与传统刑事制裁之间的新的惩罚模式,并主张从立法方式、立法种类上对其进行立法重构,并应在比较外国行政刑罚的基础上,适当借鉴他国优势模式,建立适宜我国国情的行政刑罚法律制度,并从立法、制裁种类、司法层面上做好行政刑罚与行政处罚的衔接。     

Welfare as Wrecking Ball: Constructing Public Responsibility in Legal Encounters Over Public Housing Demolition

Scholarship on welfare privatization illustrates how the process often curtails and undermines public responsibility for the poor. In this article, I examine how recipients, policy makers, and judges participate in the legal process as a means of challenging and defending privatization. I look at cases of litigation initiated by public housing tenants between 1985 and 2012 to fight the demolition of their homes to explore the changing meaning of public responsibility within a shrinking public sector. My findings show that as legislative and administrative reforms steered courts toward a more flexible understanding of public responsibility, courts gave increasing attention to the economic hardships experienced by the state itself, while downplaying the plight of low‐income tenants.     

惩罚性赔偿适用中的实体正义与程序正义

不同于一般损害赔偿旨在实现救济正义,惩罚性赔偿更侧重实现惩罚正义。在实现实体正义方面,惩罚性赔偿的适用需要法官基于权利保障的理念对私人自治理念的运用加以限制,法官在进行司法裁量时,应贯彻惩罚均衡原则,重点运用比例原则的分析方法确定惩罚性赔偿的数额。在实现程序正义方面,基于保障当事人诉讼权利的目的,法官在审理惩罚性赔偿案件时,应当变通适用民事诉讼制度中的处分原则,采用排除合理怀疑的证明标准。同时,在合议庭组成上,应适当限制依据常识作出判断的人民陪审员的数量。     

透过民国时期的法官与律师看司法腐败的生成——以江西地区为例

民国时期江西地区是一个富有多样性的司法实践场域,而司法制度变革成效有赖于法律职业群体的努力推进,其中以法官和律师的作用最为关键。由于狭隘的地域人际圈子,造成具有共同专业背景的法官与律师之间固结勾兑的利益联盟。而日益困窘的生活状况又加剧了司法人员权力寻租的恶习,加上司法人员岗位轮换频繁的体制影响,使得家祠化的司法机关成为任用私人和贪赃枉法的渊薮。备受社会舆论和当事人抨击的法官和律师,同时也频频受到体制内的检控惩戒,寄望于如此消极低效的法律职业群体来推进司法制度变革前行,无异于痴人说梦。腐败不堪的江西地方司法预示着基层民众对法律信仰的彻底丧失,而这些旧法统的操持者注定要为旧法统和旧政权殉葬。     

审判中心主义下的“程序倒逼”机制探析

在审判中心主义的改革背景下,我国刑事诉讼应改变以往的"程序宽容"做法,通过庭审功能的实质性发挥,来强化审判对于侦查、起诉的引导制约作用,严格贯彻落实疑罪从无原则和非法证据排除规则,使法官敢于做出无罪判决、敢于排除非法证据,从而树立审判权威、提高司法公信、保障司法公正,实现从"程序宽容"到"程序倒逼"的转变,并最终逐步实现审判中心主义的改革目标。     

寻求一种温和的司法能动主义——论疑难案件中法官的司法哲学

在面对疑难案件时,法官的司法哲学是案件的最终裁决者。信奉司法能动主义的法官倾向于通过创造性司法来回应社会需求,而司法消极主义则将自己定位为立法者的代理人,反对通过司法途径来解决重大社会问题。在当下的中国法治建设中,基于社会转型的现实,法官在审理疑难案件时应当秉持一种温和的能动主义的司法理念,通过创造性司法来回应社会变迁,实现社会正义。     

国家环境危险防御义务的二元制度结构

环境危险防御义务是国家环境保护义务的主要类型之一，其要求国家公权力采取措施对环境危险因素加以干预和排除。为实现国家环境危险防御义务，在管制行政相对人行为的“外部效力”面向上，应强化立法权对行政权的约束；在约束国家行为的“内部效力”面向上，司法权应对行政权保持必要之谦抑。排除环境危险、维护环境权益是当前中国环境法治的重要任务，需要根据“外部效力/内部效力”的二元制度结构进行有针对性的分析，通过国家公权力的合理配置实现国家环境危险防御义务。     

A COMMENT. The road to court improvement in child protection cases

Judges are the key to court reform in child protection proceedings but legislative mandates cannot guarantee the requisite level of judicial commitment. Lack of full implementation of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 demonstrates that rather than rely on statutory language, court reformers ought to increase judicial understanding of the provisions of federal law through initiatives such as cross-training. From December 1996 to June 1998, Kentucky's Court Improvement Project delivered 11 regional cross-training sessions to more than 550 judges, attorneys, social service personnel and other child advocates. Based on a statewide survey, cross-training increased significantly awareness of federal child protection objectives among the state's judges. Awareness of a policy among those expected to implement it is the first step toward implementation.     

新技术媒介对法官的三重意义——基于“媒介环境学”的省思

随着司法信息化战略的推进,新媒介对法官逐渐具有了三重意义。首先,新媒介是法官的传播手段。法官负有实施和宣传司法公开之职责,新媒介急剧提升了传播的速度和范围,但可能会弱化司法文化价值。其次,新媒介是法官的裁判辅助。以智能化媒介为代表的新媒介逐渐被应用于司法审判之中,提升了司法效率,但可能会改变法官认识过程,影响其个案参与程度、理性能力培育和真理判断标准。最后,新媒介正在成为法官之替代方案。新媒介为审判过程引入了技术要素和科学权威,削弱了法官在审判过程中的主导权、话语权,最终可能会危机法官审判权力资格。这三重意义既是机遇也是挑战,法官应当合理、适度和理性地对待新媒介,以提升司法宣传效果,发展审判能力并捍卫审判主导地位。     

论作为民法法源的“法理”

我国《民法典》第10条未将“法理”规定为第三位阶的法源。在理论上,除少数学者反对设立第三顺位法源外,多数学者赞同规定第三顺位法源,惟对其原因基本未详尽展开。无论是从法源条款的性质、使法源条款真正具有实益、为法律“续造”提供合法性基础的角度来看,还是从《民法典》已赋予法官较广泛司法权、我国民事法官依“法理”填补法律漏洞成为较为普遍的现实来看,抑或从发挥法理的“学科沟通功能”来看,确立第三顺位法源均有其必要性。从立法技术来看,将第三顺位法源表述为“民法基本原则”并非最优,仍以“法理”的表述为宜,因为“法理”的内涵与外延比“(民法)基本原则”更为丰富。除民法基本原则外,“法理”可能是非属民法基本原则范畴的民法基本原理、未明定的民法原则;此外,“法理”也可能是制定法乃至习惯法上的法律原则。     

司法权威·法官规训·制度网络——对法官角色的一种法社会学分析

现代法治社会中,法官充当着社会治理的重要角色,而实现良善的治理效果却是以"治理"法官为基础的.在现代社会对法官的治理主要是通过知识规训、体制规训、道德规训等多个层面来进行的,而我国传统家国式的治理模式,行政与司法合为一体,法官不仅没有获致应有的权威性,而且治理法官的机制也存在着诸多弊端.因此,当前我国应该通过多重规训机制的综合来逐渐调和司法职业化与生活化、法官精英化与法院官僚化之间的现实冲突.     

应急时期司法政策的现实运用及风险规控

在国家处于应急时期时,最高人民法院单独或联合出台司法政策已成为非常态社会治理的重要方式。应急时期的司法政策具有出台快速性、效力临时性、目的明确性、主体联动性和运行政治性特点,并通过“作为裁判依据”和“作为裁判背景”的方式化解社会矛盾、维护社会稳定。鉴于司法政策本身的定位不清,其对秩序的追求和紧急权行使与基本法治原则相抵牾,以及“成本—收益”理论阐释该时期政策与法律选择的非自主性,应急时期的司法政策在实现法治价值的同时也极易被不当运用,如直接将行政政策转化为司法政策,为达成维稳目标致使司法政策“运动式”运行,政策的“短期化”削弱司法公信力,以及笼统地将司法政策用作裁判依据等。针对可能风险,我们应基于法律与社会的“诉求—回应”关系,厘清特殊时期司法政策与公共政策的区别,结合教义学体系明确司法政策运用的具体要求,借助案例指引作用阐释司法政策蕴含的裁判规则,以及通过法律论证增强援引秩序价值说理的可接受性。     

美国行政解释的司法审查标准——谢弗林案之后的发展

1984年,美国联邦最高法院通过判例确立了对行政机关的法律解释予以司法尊重的谢弗林原则。在之后二十多年里,这一原则经历了诸多发展变化,其核心是最高法院的法律解释方法。在对谢弗林案之后的相关判例和法官的法律解释方法进行考察的基础上,分析司法尊重标准对行政机关可能产生的影响以及行政机关和国会对此的回应,可以发现,行政和立法分支应当在法律解释和适用的过程中发挥更大的作用。     

深化改革背景下对司法行政化的遏制

司法行政化,即以行政的目的、构造、方法、机理及效果取代司法自身的内容,形成以行政方式操作的司法。法院司法运作的全过程均带有行政化色彩,表现为司法目的和价值的行政化、案件审判活动的行政化、上下级法院关系的行政化、司法人事制度和法院结构的行政化以及审判管理的行政化等。在给定的约束条件下,司法行政化可以弥补一线司法能力之不足,可以抗制外部干预。但其过度发展会妨碍依法治国,损害办案质量与效率,危及司法权威和公信力,阻碍法院工作的可持续发展。司法行政化的根源在于基本权力结构及其运行机制;司法功能设定的非司法化和资源配置的有限性,统一的人事管理制度和财政供应制度以及国家机能分化不足,亦为重要原因。遏制司法行政化需强化法院的司法审查功能、审判功能以及终局性纠纷解决功能;需阻隔行政性要素介入审判,建立审判独立的"二元模式";需在法院审判管理、司法行政管理、上下级法院业务管理上"去行政化"。     

Judicial Politics on the Ground

This symposium focuses on judicial politics at the micro level. Its aim is to shed light on justice in action, drawing on an ethnographic approach to explore the routine decision‐making practices of judges and other legal actors, and to study their interactions with citizens and politicians. Each article is based on close observation of the interactions between legal professionals and administrative actors who are at the frontline in local and lower courts. By examining a variety of jurisdictions around the globe, the articles in this symposium offer fresh insight into “judicial politics on the ground.”     

Court Orders and County Correctional Expenditures: Power of the Purse?*

Despite much speculation that court orders against correctional facilities have adversely impacted government finances, little empirical investigation has been conducted. Counties, already experiencing severe fiscal crisis, may increasingly allocate more of their budget toward local jails to comply with court-ordered improvements. This hypothesis was tested by examining time series data, case histories, and interviews with government, corrections, and justice officials in three counties. In addition, cross-sectional data from two constructed samples of matched counties compared expenditures in counties under and not under court order. Results suggested that judges were sometimes persistent in seeking reform, even ordering direct expenditures on jails. However, statistical investigation revealed that the effects of judicial intervention were relatively strong in some cases, but weak in others. The effects of court orders on correctional policy are heterogeneous, and the judicial “power of the purse” is limited by various legal and pragmatic constraints.