Public/private information sharing in healthcare fraud investigations

Private insurers have good reason, both in their private interest and in the public interest, for pursuing and rooting out fraud in the healthcare system; moreover, they often have sophisticated data systems, substantial investigative information, and management expertise that can be useful to prosecutors. It makes sense, as a public policy matter, to undertake steps to encourage insurers to be aggressive in pursuing legitimate fraud cases, and to provide a framework for effective cooperation and information sharing with law enforcement. At the same time, prosecutors are responsible for enforcing equal justice under the law; thus, any such relationship must be handled in an appropriate manner, with safeguards to protect privacy and the reputation of investigative subjects. While the courts have not yet explored many of the relevant legal and factual issues in this area, the author surveys existing guidance under governing laws and policies applicable to state and federal prosecutors, and suggests techniques to prevent inappropriate communication or use of such information.     

程序正义视角下“税源联动”法律规制探讨

“税源联动”的建立，能从一定程度上克服我国当前税收征管中存在的痼疾，既节约信息收集成本，简化征管程序，又通过不同部门信息资源共享，使资源利用最大化，阻塞税款流失漏洞。然而，在追求税收征管现代化和税款征收高效率过程中，尚有一系列法律问题需要探讨。因此，在税收程序正义视角下审视“税源联动”，并坚持在税收程序法定、公开等基础上推进“税源联动”，对于“税源联动”规则制度逐步完善，以及实践中得以充分发挥作用具有重要意义。     

治安行政法治的困境与突破

法治社会中奉行“无法律即无行政”的原则,这是严格规则主义对行政行为的要求。然而,在复杂的社会治安秩序管理过程中公安机关一方面往往无法找到具体法律依据来进行有效管理,另一方面又要面对被民众诟议为不作为的困境。治安行政法治首先应该明确行政行为包括法律行为和事实行为,前者依据法律的具体规定,后者依据法律的概括授权;其次是避免出现事实行为中可能的侵权,使之按照类型化的方式对社会产生积极的作用。     

论公共行政中的证据规则

证据是公共行政的事实根据 ,证据规则是公共行政必须遵循的行为准则。离开了证据规则 ,公共行政就会成为野蛮行政。公共行政中的证据规则根本不同于行政诉讼证据规则。通过总结我国现行立法中有关公共行政的证据规则 ,分析了现行规则的缺失与不足 ,提出了完善公共行政证据规则的一些具体措施     

Here comes the ‘cybernators’!

The EU Framework Decision 2005/222/JHA on attacks against information systems addresses the core of computer-related crime by a harmonisation instrument that approximates criminal law rules and facilitates judicial cooperation for illegal access to information systems (hacking), illegal interference with information systems and intentional deletion, damaging, deterioration, alteration, suppression or rendering inaccessible of computer data. The Framework Decision is expected to close existing legal loopholes in some legislation which has allowed criminals, such as hackers, to walk free after causing severe damage. However, the new law is unevenly implemented and will cripple the work of security experts testing the systems as well as stifle online public protest.     

“有奖发票”法律性质之探析

"有奖发票"是我国税收征收管理的一种新方式,因此,"有奖发票"的法律性质尚未明确。"有奖发票"是行政行为,而非民事行为;"有奖发票"不同于行政奖励,是行政指导行为,税务机关的兑奖行为属于行政事实行为。明确其法律性质对于行政相对人权益的保护是重要的。     

Enabling responsible public genomics

As scientific understandings of genetics advance, researchers require increasingly rich datasets that combine genomic data from large numbers of individuals with medical and other personal information. Linking individuals' genetic data and personal information precludes anonymity and produces medically significant information--a result not contemplated by the established legal and ethical conventions governing human genomic research. To pursue the next generation of human genomic research and commerce in a responsible fashion, scientists, lawyers, and regulators must address substantial new issues, including researchers' duties with respect to clinically significant data, the challenges to privacy presented by genomic data, the boundary between genomic research and commerce, and the practice of medicine. This Article presents a new model for understanding and addressing these new challenges--a "public genomics" premised on the idea that ethically, legally, and socially responsible genomics research requires openness, not privacy, as its organizing principle. Responsible public genomics combines the data contributed by informed and fully consenting information altruists and the research potential of rich datasets in a genomic commons that is freely and globally available. This Article examines the risks and benefits of this public genomics model in the context of an ambitious genetic research project currently under way--the Personal Genome Project. This Article also (i) demonstrates that large-scale genomic projects are desirable, (ii) evaluates the risks and challenges presented by public genomics research, and (iii) determines that the current legal and regulatory regimes restrict beneficial and responsible scientific inquiry while failing to adequately protect participants. The Article concludes by proposing a modified normative and legal framework that embraces and enables a future of responsible public genomics.     

事实行为的基础规范

在构成要件的规范意义上,事实行为是产生特定事实效果,并因此导致法律效果法定化的行为,既不同于行为范畴外的自然事实和纯粹人体事实,也与法律行为和准法律行为有本质差异。从意思要素的作用来看,事实行为分为无目的意思、目的意思不独立和目的意思独立三种类型,呈现出体系化的架构。事实行为在与法律行为对立和互斥的同时,在规范关系上还有协力并存和制约并存的形态。     

社会管理概念的法规范分析

作为时下的一个焦点概念,"社会管理"极少在法规范意义上得以解析。通过检索可知,我国现行法规范中有3部法律及8部行政法规直接使用了社会管理概念,最典型的是《刑法》与《治安管理处罚法》。前者用整整一章规定了"妨害社会管理秩序罪",后者用一节规定了"妨害社会管理的行为和处罚"。分析表明,社会管理立法数量少,水平低;法规范中的社会管理概念是在狭义上使用,具有弱经济性、弱政治性乃至非经济性、非政治性的特征;主要是在消极语境中使用,管制色彩浓厚;法规范中的社会管理概念与社会管理创新语境下的社会管理概念有较大差别,不同法规范中的社会管理概念也有差异。社会管理法治化是社会管理创新的必由之路,它呼唤认真对待作为法律概念的社会管理。     

Pain as a fact and heuristic: how pain neuroimaging illuminates moral dimensions of law

In legal domains ranging from tort to torture, pain and its degree do important definitional work by delimiting boundaries of lawfulness and of entitlements. Yet, for all the work done by pain as a term in legal texts and practice, it has a confounding lack of external verifiability. Now, neuroimaging is rendering pain and myriad other subjective states at least partly ascertainable. This emerging ability to ascertain and quantify subjective states is prompting a "hedonic" or a "subjectivist" turn in legal scholarship, which has sparked a vigorous debate as to whether the quantification of subjective states might affect legal theory and practice. Subjectivists contend that much values-talk in law has been a necessary but poor substitute for quantitative determinations of subjective states--determinations that will be possible in the law's "experiential future." This Article argues the converse: that pain discourse in law frequently is a heuristic for values. Drawing on interviews and laboratory visits with neuroimaging researchers, this Article shows current and in-principle limitations of pain quantification through neuroimaging. It then presents case studies on torture-murder, torture, the death penalty, and abortion to show the largely heuristic role of pain discourse in law. Introducing the theory of "embodied morality," the Article describes how moral conceptions of rights and duties are informed by human physicality and constrained by the limits of empathic identification. Pain neuroimaging helps reveal this dual factual and heuristic nature of pain in the law, and thus itself points to the translational work required for neuroimaging to influence, much less transform, legal practice and doctrine.     

Privacy,stigma and public protection: A socio-legal analysis of criminality information practices in the UK

Criminality information practices involve public authorities in the UK (and elsewhere) gathering, retaining and sharing information that connects with an identifiable individual; all with the ostensible aim of upholding and improving standards of public protection. This piece first charts the landscape of contemporary criminality information practices in the UK today. The article then examines recent legal emphases and policy directions for public protection networks. Consideration is then given in the piece to privacy rights and values and the difficulties in providing an exact typology and grounding for these. The piece then outlines a suggested framework for correct legal regulation, as well as a through commentary on the work done by Catherine Bellamy et al. to empirically determine the extent to which public protection information sharing can in fact occur in correct adherence to legal regulation. A socio-legal analysis is undertaken of the nature of public protection networks as variants on Goffman's performance teams within a dramaturgical routine that foregrounds stigmatisation of perceived ‘risky’ individuals as an aspect of that routine. This piece also explores the processes of institutional isomorphism as a reaction to shifting policy directions and legal doctrines, acting as a driving force towards a hierarchical performance of criminality information practices by public protection networks. Three conclusions are offered up for consideration: firstly, that the growing complexity of the law and regulation relating to criminality information practices might improve privacy values in the criminal justice system and help to add precision to necessary processes of stigmatisation in relation to the aim of public protection. Secondly, that these shifts in the law still need ongoing revisions, in order that a hierarchical approach to criminality information practices can be arrived at over time. Thirdly, that if the permanency of potential stigmatisation through the indefinite retention of criminality information cannot change, due to the competing pressure on the criminal justice system from public protection duties, then consultation with ‘risky’ individuals where practicable, before criminality information connected to them is shared across public protection networks becomes essential as a privacy-enhancing value and practice.     

数据安全刑法保护扩张的合理边界

《数据安全法(草案)》的发布是数据安全作为独立法益的立法宣示,基于数据安全对个体利益、公共安全和国家安全的重要价值,刑法有必要将其纳入保护范围。现行刑法对数据安全的保护是通过制裁信息犯罪间接实现的,由于刑法视阈下的信息和数据存在着本质性差异,未来刑法必然要建立新的数据犯罪罪名体系,实现数据安全领域刑法保护的大规模扩张。为了避免刑法扩张演化成违背谦抑性的公权力滥用,必须进行"合边界性审视",确保其不会突破刑法自身的边界。由于数据安全法益自身无法通过"法益原则"实现刑法边界划定功能,有必要引入"广义危害性原则",在数据安全领域的刑法保护扩张之前,划定扩张的合理边界。     

Knowledge management and administration of justice

Legal knowledge management is probably, taking aside legal reasoning, the most important activity in legal systems. Usually only treated as an important support factor, a deeper analysis shows that knowledge management improves efficiency in knowledge handling and offers important support for legal reasoning. In addition, standard cases may be solved using such methods. With knowledge management, the industrialization of the intellect has entered the field of administration of justice. The main applications are legal information systems, electronic registers and electronic communications.     

从危害防止到风险预防:环境治理的风险转身与制度调适

"危害"和"风险"分别是传统秩序行政与当下风险行政的核心概念,语词之分的背后蕴含着制度应对的实质差异。危害防止强调对确定性损害和可预测危险的预防和阻止,是现代环境法应对的重心;但随着风险社会勃兴,对不确定风险的预防也逐渐成为国家应当承担的基本任务。我国环境立法已经对风险预防有所回应,但仍然存在风险预防法律地位不明、风险治理制度体系不够健全等问题,为此需要以预防原则为接口重塑风险预防在环境立法中的表达方式,以公私合作为基础建立环境风险治理的治理框架,并以程序理性为内核建立环境风险治理的裁量控制机制。     

论法学研究的两种视角——兼评“法教义学和社科法学”逻辑之非

法学有两种观察或研究视角,即内部视角和外部视角。简言之,前者是规范(制度)事实视角,后者是社会(事实)视角。因之,法学也可两分为内部视角的法学和外部视角的法学。前者以法律规范为前提和纽带的制度事实为研究对象,以规范分析为基本方法,并强调规范中心和规范决定论;后者则以法律规范与其它社会事实之间的关系为研究对象,并运用其他社会科学,如经济学、政治学、社会学、人类学等的方法作为观察和研究法律现象及运作规律的具体方法。它强调社会(事实)中心和社会决定论。法学(尤其法教义学)是社会"科学"的重要一支,与社会科学之间是种属关系,因之,法教义学与所谓"社科法学"之间,在逻辑上不能以并列关系对待。与其说"法教义学与(和)社科法学",不如说内部视角的法学与(和)外部视角的法学。     

Artificial Intelligence and Law: How to Get There from Here

Abstract. This paper offers a survey of the current state of Artificial Intelligence and Law, and makes recommendations for future research. Two main areas of investigation are discussed: the practical work on intelligent legal information systems, and the theoretical work on computational models of legal reasoning. In both areas, the knowledge representation problem is identified as the most important issue facing this field.     

Some Questions Pertaining to the Study of Government in the System of Legal Education

Courses in government represent different proportions of the curriculum in the system of legal education in various countries. In bourgeois states, it is usually only the public (constitutional) law of their own country and so-called "political science," often amounting to several years in the curriculum (as in Canada, Ethiopia, etc.), that are studied as general disciplines. The object of political science includes, specifically, a comparative study of the political and legal systems of the world (sometimes a number of subdisciplines are combined with constitutional law to comprise a general discipline — constitutional law and political institutions, as is the case in France, for example); but, basically, "political science" goes far beyond the confines of the study of government. In the bourgeois countries, the other subjects in the field of government are handled as special or elective courses, but their scope is very limited. Legal education as such, in the system of training personnel for the administration of justice, is limited essentially to the study of legal institutions. Higher educational institutions and departments of political science are used in the USA, England, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, India, etc., to train higher and middle-rank officials.     

Building sustainable free legal advisory systems: Experiences from the history of AI & law

The enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI) as a source of solutions to problems is not new. In law, from the early 1980s until at least the early 2000s, considerable work was done on developing ‘legal expert systems.’ As the DataLex project, we participated in those developments, through research and publications, commercial and non-commercial systems, and teaching students application development. This paper commences with a brief account of that work to situate our perspective.The main aim of this paper is an assessment of what might be of value from the experience of the DataLex Project to contemporary use of ‘AI and law’ by free legal advice services, who must necessarily work within funding and other constraints in developing and sustaining such systems. We draw fifteen conclusions from this experience, which we consider are relevant to development of systems for free legal advice services. The desired result, we argue, is the development of integrated legal decision-support systems, not ‘expert systems’ or ‘robot lawyers’. We compare our insights with the approach of the leading recent text in the field, and with a critical review of the field over twenty-five years. We conclude that the approach taken by the DataLex Project, and now applied to free legal advice services, remains consistent with leading work in field of AI and law.The paper concludes with brief suggestions of what are the most desirable improvements to tools and platforms to enable development of free legal advice systems. The objectives of free access to legal information services have much in common with those of free legal advice services. The information resources that free access to law providers (including LIIs) can provide will often be those that free legal advice services will need to use to develop and sustain free legal advisory systems. There is therefore strong potential for valuable collaborations between these two types of services providers.     

应急越级行政的法治建构

《突发事件应对法》关于"必要时可以越级上报"的规定、各类应急信息网络直报系统等越级行政实践是应急行政中的行政法新机制。相对于科层制下的层级行政而言,越级行政本质上是为突破层级之间的逐级限制,实现跨级别扁平化行政的方式。应急越级行政难以实行的主要原因在于科层结构的影响及越级行政规范细则的缺失。作为一项例外但必要的制度,应急越级行政亟待条件、内容与效果上的约束和体制基础与具体机制上的保障。在约束层面,应急越级行政需满足"属地政府难以应对危机"与"经批准"等实体和程序条件的限制、客观事实和审慎主观判断的内容限定及报告不豁免其他职责的效果约束。在保障层面,应急越级行政实效保障的基础在于,根据应急法秩序的要求,科层行政的刚性结构在越级行政时被局部悬置。应急越级行政实效保障的具体举措包括越级行政实体与程序内容的规范化、越级行政合法性追认与责任豁免程序的构建、越级行政形式的多样化等。     

顺流而上还是急流勇退:我国事业单位人事关系法律定位的选择

面对事业单位人事制度改革的潮流,我国事业单位人事关系法律定位的选择何去何从,是近年来学者们关注的焦点。聘用制是目前改革中的主要制度类型,但从实际的效用进行分析,现在所推行的聘用制并没有起到预想的目的。更重要的是,统一适用劳动关系有助于改变我国事业单位准政府职能部门的地位,有利于事业单位的健康发展。同时,在法律关系选择的制度设计与适用中,我们应该注重平衡统一适用劳动关系中事业单位工作人员的劳动权益与公共利益、市场机制运营与提供公共产品的利益冲突。