反对解释的场景及主体

反对解释是法治社会的一个原则。这一原则强调,对明确的法律规范,尤其是强制性法律规范,法官等法律人应该直接认定其意义并加以贯彻,而不能解释,尤其不能过度解释。反对解释的场景是个审判等活动“语境”的问题,但由于场景都是片断,因而难以从理论上系统叙述,所以,我们只是把场景作为思考的起点和归宿,在法治理念下叙说反对解释的一般要求。我们相信,法制要求人们对法律规范的固有意义保持克制,要求尊重法律的权威。能动主义是一种克服司法机械的思路。司法能动主义者几乎把严格等同于机械。但法制恰恰是因为有了适度严格才显示其魅力,如果到处能见到灵活那就不可能有法制。近百年来,几乎所有的法学都围绕着维护或破除法律的严格(或机械)而展开。但从法制基本教义看,司法克制主义是主流,而能动主义只能在克服法律过于死板,或协调法律与社会正义的严重冲突时才显现其功用。反对解释的主体是所有的适法人员,对不同的主体有不同的要求。     

刑法目的解释的作用、边界及规制

刑法目的解释的存在根据包括理论与实践两个层面。在刑法解释体系中,目的解释不能简单定位为辅助作用或决定作用,应具体问题具体分析。目的解释边界的厘定与文义解释有关,也与历史解释、体系解释有关。目的解释主要局限在法律疑难情况下适用,且目的解释常与非规范因素相联系,所以应从实体规范、司法程序及司法技术等角度对该法律方法进行规制。     

中国能动司法的内在动因

中国能动司法的背后具有特定的动机、目的。能动司法的动机可分为：主导动机与非主导动机、外部动机与内部动机、近景动机与远景动机，其动机特征呈现应急性和特殊性。能动司法的目的可分为：短期目的与长期目的、政治目的与法律目的、初级目的与高级目的，其目的具有短期性和政治性特征。因此，能动司法的意义是有限的。它只是提出了中国司法裁判中能动性或灵活性与确定性之间的关系问题；彰显了法律实用主义的司法观念；成为中国“大立法时代”结束及“大司法时代”到来的一个信号。中国司法的真正希望不仅在于是否能动司法，还在于是否全面、深入的司法制度改革。     

民事法官能动性:权利保障与权力回应——兼析规则与法官能动性共生的民事司法模式之构建

民事法官所享有的依法合理解释、平衡、选择法律以及填补法律缺漏的特有能动性是两大法系国家的一致选择。审视我国法官能动性所经历的严苛限制、悄然使之到日益凸显的过程,揭示了处于经验层面的法官能动性的失范现象及其主要根源。为确保法官能动性应有功效的发挥,我们应着力从核心理念、追求目标、基本原则、明析规则、技术规范和配套措施等方面构建具有中国特色的法律规则与法官能动性共生的民事司法运作模式,以强调法律解释和辩证推理等司法技术在解决法律确定性弱化问题的功用时,克服逻辑推演的局限性,实现民事诉讼之目的。     

Building ties across the Green Line: the Palestinian 15 March youth movement in Israel and occupied Palestinian territory in 2011

In 2011 Palestinian youth joined together across the Green Line, demonstrating grassroots solidarity and a challenge to the elite consensus in favour of the two-state Oslo process. The movement drew inspiration from the concurrent Arab Spring and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, organising joint demonstrations in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. However, the movement struggled to develop as a result of challenges regarding its objectives, strategy and representation, and of external threats from Israel and Palestinian political elites.     

The IHRA Definition of Antisemitism: Defining Antisemitism by Erasing Palestinians

The IHRA definition is one of the most contentious documents in the history of efforts to combat antisemitism. Although it first became well known in the UK as a result of disputes within the Labour Party, the definition reaches well beyond that context, and has been adopted by universities, city councils, and governments. With its intensive focus on the critique of Israel as a marker of antisemitism, the IHRA definition has been heavily implicated in the suppression of Israel-critical speech in recent years. This article is among the first to adopt a global perspective on the definition—both its history and its content—clarifying the political stakes of this definition and broader paratextual apparatus for a general audience, and provides an explanation of why it should be rejected rather than used to censor Israel-critical speech.     

The myth of ‘independent judiciary’: the evolution of judiciary-executive relations in Turkish politics

The position of judiciary in politics is an important area of discussion for both legal and political experts. The issue has particularly been on Turkish political agenda for the past decade with the emergence of a strong single-party government under the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi-JDP) rule. This article aims to analyse the evolution of relations between the judiciary and executive in Turkey from a historical perspective by examining the Republican era until the JDP rule. The struggle over the control of institutions becomes more visible during periods of strong government and the analysis shows that the idea of an independent, apolitical judiciary is a myth that was created by the institutional and legal design of the Republic in the Turkish case and is not peculiar to the JDP government.     

The end of alternatives? Capitalist transformation,rural activism and the politics of possibility in China†

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the politics of possibility for rural activism in reform era China. By periodizing rural reforms from 1990, we explore the political-economic changes that have coalesced in the reform era, and how these changes condition forms and possibilities of activism. We argue that the current modernization–urbanization drive that emerged around 2008 is foreclosing opportunities for the pro-peasant cooperative forms that New Rural Reconstruction activists imagined earlier in the decade. Instead, as the process of capitalist agrarian change deepens in the countryside, food- and farming-related activism now resembles the state’s focus on markets and consumption, to the detriment of addressing social relations of production. Without a focus on distributional politics and power, this shift has the potential to further entrench existing inequalities within and across rural and urban spaces. The contextual work undertaken in this paper is currently absent from the emerging literature on China’s agrifood transformations.     

Issue definition: the neglected foundation of effective issue management

Many issue management models proceed from issue scanning and identification directly to determining an objective, with insufficient attention to the important element of formally defining the issue. Proper definition is a vital foundation for effective issue management, and comprises a sound understanding of the issue itself, choosing exactly the right words to best position the issue and securing agreement on the definition. It also requires a full appreciation of the techniques used by other parties to try to redefine the issue to their competing agenda, and this paper identifies and categorises three such techniques. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications