处在十字路口的法院经费保障体制：困境加剧抑或曙光乍现

我国法院系统的经费来源主要有两个渠道，一个是各级政府财政拨款，一个是地方财政一定比例的诉讼费返还。目前各级财政对于法院收入的诉讼费，实行“收支两条线”，即法院收缴的诉讼费全额上缴给财政专户，财政统筹后再以预算外资金的形式，根据其经济实力与法院的开支预算报告决定拨款数额的多少。因此，不同地区的法院得到的财政拨款各不相同。在经济发达地区的法院，诉讼费收入多，经费相对较充足；在经济不发达地区的法院，诉讼费收入少，财政困难，法院经费保障严重不到位，影响审判工作的正常运行。《诉讼费用交纳办法》的实施则很可能导致法院经费更加捉襟见肘，雪上加霜。同时，这种严重依赖地方财政的法院经费保障体制也是造成法院难以真正独立行使审判权的最主要体制性缺陷之一。改革现行法院经费保障体制，构建符合我国国情的司法预算制度是当前司法体制改革的当务之急。     

美国加利福尼亚州法院制度考察散记

美国是一个联邦制的国家,法院制度采用双轨制,联邦与各州各有独立的法院制度。联邦有联邦的法院制度,各州有各州的法院制度。加利福尼亚(以下简称加州)州法院制度是美国州法院制度中一个比较典型的模式。本文根据作者访美期间对加州法院制度及其法官情况的考察作一些介绍。美国现有人口2亿9千万,加州人口2千9百万。     

澳大利亚的毒品法院

世界上最早的毒品法院于1989年在美国创建。之后英国、加拿大也相继试行。澳大利亚的第一个毒品法院位于新南威尔士州,它根据《毒品法院法案》于1999年2月设立,主要是采纳了美国的经验;在澳大利亚的其他州如西澳大利亚,也有毒品法院,分别设于帕斯的儿童法庭、治安法庭和地区法庭,虽然机构设置不同,但运行机制和工作原理是一致的。     

法院管理体制改革的若干思考

法院管理体制改革是司法改革的重要组成部分，它是一项庞大的系统工程，涉及到国家法制环境、司法观念、审判制度、人事管理、审判设施、经费保障等方方面面。法院管理体制改革的内涵，应包括法院组织管理、法官人事管理、审判方式管理、行政后勤管理、司法监督管理等等内容。外部还包括与立法机构、政党组织、检察机关之间的关系，以及司法制度与国家的人事、干部、财政等制度的关系。目前法院管理体制面临的问题及困境法院管理体制与审判工作的内在要求不相适应。由于地方法院的人、财、物均归属于地方党委、政府领导和管理，加之法院管理…     

浅论我国法院经费保障体制改革

法院经费保障体制改革是司法保障体制改革的一项重要内容,而司法保障体制改革又是司法体制改革的重中之重。在我国现行司法体制下,各级法院的经费保障存在很大的问题,现行法院经费保障体制的弊端导致经济欠发达地区法院经费困难,而《诉讼费用交纳办法》的实施又势必造成作为弥补法院经费不足重要补充的诉讼费收入大幅度减少,由此可能致使法院经费愈发捉襟见肘、雪上加霜。同时,这种严重依赖地方财政的法院经费保障体制也是造成法院难以真正独立行使审判权的最主要体制性缺陷之一。改革现行法院经费保障体制,积极地探索和构建适合于我国国情的人民法院经费保障体制是当前司法体制改革的当务之急,也是使法院逐步摆脱地方干涉,优化司法资源配置,维护司法公平、公正的有力举措。     

美国的法官制度(上)

应美中关系全国委员会的邀请,中国高级法官培训中心考察团一行5人,于1988年10月至11月对美国进行了为期4周的考察、访问,不仅比较全面地了解了美国的法官培训和法官制度,而且广交了朋友,增进了中美两国人民和两国法院、法学家之间的友谊。 美国实行双重政体制,即联邦政府和州政府。因此,美国的法院体系包括联邦法院和州法院体系;每个州又有自己的法院体系。这种双重法院结构以及法院体系的多样性和复杂性,成为美国司法制度的一个     

基于法院审判管理的去行政化研究

我国当前法院审判管理的运行体制是经过漫长的历史时期形成的,法院内部管理框架中存在一部分内容是关于行政管理方面的,这就可能会在一定程度上影响到法院审判管理的公平性,当然,致力于我国法院审判管理体制研究的有关人士也意识到了这个问题,并以建立科学二维度管理体系来削弱法院审判管理的行政效力,进而规范法律体制的合理运作,保证国家及社会各方的和谐发展.本文就基于法院审判管理的去行政化及其有效手段进行深入研究,以期为强化我国法院审判工作的管理效能及其执行效率带来有益的借鉴.     

德意志联邦共和国少年法院的动向

<正> 一、历史的考察1899年美国伊利诺斯州,创建了世界上第一个少年法院。德国于1908年在科隆建立了第一个少年法院,接着在法兰克福也建立了少年法院。1912年按照美国的模式,德国在摩泽尔河畔的威奇托利(音译)建立了第一个少年监狱。然而,本来在汉堡对于少年犯罪的处理方法,是准备采取少年福利委员会的形式。成立少年福利委员会的议案规定,少年福利委员会的组成,除法学家外,还有各种社会科学领域     

建立司法预算制度的思考

司法经费是保证审判工作正常进行的必要物质条件。我国地方法院一直由同级政府提供经费,没有自己独立的司法预算。同级政府则按其下属部门的级别、规格提供经费,很少考虑法院工作的特点。多年来,法院经费一直捉襟见肘,入不敷出,不能满足审判工作的需要。许多法院发生的一些违反政策搞创收、用当事人的钱办案等不正常现象都与此有着直接的关系。改革开放以来,沿海经济发达地区法院经费情况有所好转,但大多数经济不发达地区法院经费仍然得不到足够保证,有些穷困地区的法院干警甚至不能按时领到工资,办案经费更是十分微薄,使审判工作难以为继。…     

法院司法行政事务管理权研究

综观各国司法行政立法和实践,法院司法行政事务有广义和狭义之分。广义的法院司法行政事务主要有:一是与案件审判直接相关的司法行政工作,包括立案登记、诉讼费用、生效判决的执行等。二是对人的管理,如法官人选的考察、推荐以及现任法官的派遣、考评、晋升、福利、保护; 司法考试与法官培训、法官惩戒;法院其他人员包括行政人员、辅助人员的编制、工作分配、考评等。三是对财、物的管理及后勤保障。如法院经费预算与执行、法庭建设设计、自动化办公、工作场所维护、安全保卫、案卷管理、图书资料、课题研究、刊物编辑与发行等。四是外部事…     

四级两审制的发生和演化

司法体制改革的一个重要举措是设立最高人民法院巡回法庭,这一改革举措可能意味着我国法院层级或审级变化的新动向.从建国以来的历史经验看,法院层级和审级变化并非彼此孤立,且都从属于国家政治形态设计.1954年中共中央取消大区分院,促动了法院审级由三审制改为两审制.两审制带来的法院功能和案负变化,导致中级人民法院层级的设立.为了保障四级两审制平滑运作,民事调解制度扩大,基层法院派出法庭普遍设立.这一法院层级和审级制度的设立,契合了扩大省级地方权力的政治目标.1983年以来“地改市”运动、民事调解制度的萎缩以及撤销部分派出法庭,使得四级两审制的基础发生松动,法院层级和审级方面的新变化由此产生.     

Understanding Judicial Hierarchy: Reversals and the Behavior of Intermediate Appellate Judges

One of the central controversies in the judicial behavior literature is the extent to which judges' ability to act according to their ideological preferences is affected by their location in the judicial hierarchy. Judges on intermediate appellate courts have different decisionmaking environments than high court judges. As a result, the goals of lower appellate court judges may differ from those of their superiors: the quest for legal accuracy may compete with the desire to pursue policy preferences. Analysis of the reversal rate of the U.S. circuit courts of appeals offers insight into the extent to which these judges balance the pressures of their own policy preferences with the desire to achieve the legally accurate result in cases they decide.     

Improving the quality of drug court clinical screening: a call for performance measurement policy reform

Despite the widespread use of the drug court model, standardized performance measures for drug courts are not uniformly utilized, and rarely include process measures. To ensure that drug courts are being implemented in the most effective manner, the use of performance measurement tools should be considered for wide scale adoption. Drug court effectiveness is moderated by participant characteristics, and is most effective for individuals with the highest substance use needs. Therefore, having quality clinical screening processes is crucial to ensuring that drug courts are serving the population for which they are effective. This paper examines clinical screening in drug courts, to answer the following 1) what is the current state of screening, 2) what works, and 3) why measurement matters. It also proposes a clinical screening performance measure to improve fidelity and ensure appropriate participant enrollment. The creation of a performance measure would create opportunities to improve drug court outcomes, and leverage pay-for-performance models.     

Constitutional Limitations on State Tax Exportation

The notion that there are constitutional limitations on the power of the states to export their tax burdens to residents of other states has been the predicate of recent court challenges to state taxing schemes. The concept of state tax exportation and its implications for constitutional analysis have not, however, been systematically explored by the courts. The economics of state tax exportation suggest that a judicial inquiry into the extent of state tax exportation would be a formidable if not an insuperable task. And the Supreme Court, when recently confronted with an opportunity to constitutionalize a principle of excessive state tax exportation, flatly declined to do so. It is nevertheless possible that the concept of state tax exportation may have a role to play in constitutional analysis as a vague admonition to the states not to transgress some yet to be defined norms of fiscal balance in our federal system.     

State Courts, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Protection of Civil Liberties

Advocates of federalism, both in the United States and elsewhere, often cite the potential for enhanced protection of individual civil liberties as an emerging rationale for a federal system dividing governmental responsibilities between central and regional governments and central and regional judiciaries. Echoing this, some judicial officials and scholars, confronting an increasingly conservative U.S. Supreme Court, have called for state supreme courts to use the state constitutional grounds to preserve and increase the protections of the Bill of Rights. Using event count analysis, we examine state search-and-seizure cases for 1981 to 1993 to ascertain under what circumstances state courts would use this opportunity to eliminate Supreme Court review. We find that the relative ideological position of the state supreme courts and the U.S. Supreme Court often prevents, or does away with the need for, liberal courts to use the adequate and independent state grounds doctrine to expand the rights of criminal defendants and that state supreme court justices react more predictably in the assertion of constitutional protection law than the general consensus suggests.     

REEVALUATING WHERE WE STAND: A COMPREHENSIVE SURVEY OF AMERICA'S FAMILY JUSTICE SYSTEMS

The call for court reform remains critical in the face of the growing complexity of burgeoning family law cases nationwide. Many states have restructured their court systems using the unified family court model, resolving legal, personal, emotional, and social disputes with the aim of improving the well‐being of families and children. Other states utilize the traditional approach, resulting in cases being handled in a fragmented, time‐consuming and expensive manner. In this article, Professor Barbara A. Babb presents the results of her nationwide survey regarding how each state handles family law matters. The survey is a follow‐up to her comprehensive 1998 survey and her 2002 survey update. The results of the recent analysis reveal that a total of thirty‐eight states now have either statewide family courts, family courts in selected areas of the state, or pilot or planned family courts, representing seventy‐five percent of states. The number of states without a specialized or separate system to handle family law matters has decreased from seventeen states in 1998 to thirteen in 2006. These changes are significant when one considers the complexities involved in court reform. The need for court reform remains an urgent one, as family law cases occupy a significant percentage of court dockets across the country. Families and children deserve a court system where justice is effective and efficient and where their legal, personal, emotional, and social needs are resolved in a therapeutic and holistic manner.     

METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN EVALUATING FAMILY COURT PROGRAMS

Although there has been in recent years a proliferation of court programs, especially divorced parent education programs, evaluations of the effectiveness of these programs lag dangerously behind their inception, perhaps because program developers and courts lack the expertise to perform these evaluations. The present article provides a primer of the methodological considerations for evaluations of court programs. The authors discuss the following topics: formative versus summative evaluations; how to discover program goals by identifying stakeholders; how these goals translate into measures to be assessed; the data sources for these measures (exit questionnaires, archival data, and follow-up surveys); answering the “compared with what?” question through the selection of an appropriate research design; budgeting the evaluation; and disseminating the findings through appropriate write-up(s).     

Court Order No, 4, USSR Supreme Court Plenum,March 18, 1963

A review of the practice in recovering court expenditures [raskhody] in civil cases and court costs [izderzhki] in criminal cases has demonstrated that courts do not always observe the laws in effect with regard to this matter, that they commit significant errors. Frequently, in accepting the filing of suits and appeals in civil cases, courts do not exact payment of the state fee provided by law, or else they determine it inaccurately. They do not always take into consideration the fact that expenditures caused the court in connection with the trial and the state fee, from which a plaintiff has been exempted, are to be recovered from the respondent for the state in proportion to the satisfied portion of the claim in the suit. In violation of Article 45 of the RSFSR Code of Civil Procedure and the corresponding articles of the civil procedural codes of the other union republics, many courts do not demand that the parties make advance payment of the sums needed to meet the costs of calling witnesses and experts, as well as the expenditures involved in on-site examinations.     

Mentally ill offenders eligible for diversion at local court in New South Wales (NSW), Australia: factors associated with initially successful diversion

Diversion away from the criminal justice system and into mental health treatment services is a key strategy for addressing the well-established burden of mental illness suffered by those presenting to court. While mental health courts, court liaison and court diversion services have been developed in many jurisdictions internationally, there is limited research evidence to support their effectiveness in identifying those with mental health need and achieving successful diversion. The Statewide Community and Court Liaison Service in New South Wales, Australia, identifies mentally ill offenders likely to meet legal eligibility criteria for diversion at the busiest local courts across the state. Utilising data collected by mental health clinicians working in the service, 8317 individuals were identified as being eligible for court diversion on at least one occasion during the study period (1 July 2008 and the 30 June 2015) and 57.3% were subsequently diverted by Magistrates. Successful diversion at this first step was associated with being female, older, of non-Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander background, and having a serious mental illness, replicated when stratified by sex and by Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander background. There may be barriers to mental health diversion at court for individuals with particular socio-demographic characteristics which future service developments may need to take into account.     

德国法院体系探析

德国特色法院体系的形成与演变有其深刻的社会历史背景,首先是文化传统,其次是经济体制,第三是工人运动。德国的法院系统由宪法法院、普通法院和专门法院三类组成。宪法法院专门审理违宪案件;普通法院只审理刑事案件和民事案件;专门法院包括(普通)行政法院、财政法院、劳动法院、社会法院、专利法院、军事法院和惩戒法院等。除了(普通)法院和宪法法院具有独立地位外,其他法院均隶属于政府有关部门。德国行政审判权由各级行政法院与劳动法院、社会法院、财政法院等共同行使。专门法院的性质介于行政机关与司法机关之间,但行政机关的性质更多(本质上属于行政司法)。