Reconciliation in Times of Impunity: Challenges for Social Justice

In human history there is no lack of malice, revenge, or savagery. The twentieth century has seen 33 million military deaths. Victimization deaths are estimated at six times that number, at 205 million people. The past decade has seen people enslaved, tortured, raped, and persecuted as members of political, racial, ethnic, or religious groups in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa. Yet we have not seen meaningful prosecution of crimes that have occurred on a massive scale. Former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights José Ayala Lasso has stated that a person stands a better chance of being tried and judged for killing one human being than for killing 100,000. This paper examines reconciliation in the aftermath of protracted, deadly, wide scale conflict characterized by impunity when crimes against individuals, groups, and humanity go unpunished. It describes the relevance of moral exclusion theory to conflicts in which dehumanization and violence are normalized, and it argues that impunity is an urgent matter for psychology and social justice research.     

The Time of Law: Human rights between law and politics

This article discusses the presuppositions and consequences of different forms in which successive Chilean governments have tried to ‚come to terms’ with a legacy of terror usually designated as ‚human rights violations’. Thus a political strategy centred in a body like a truth and reconciliation commission is compared to a judicial strategy of individualising perpetrators and punishing them according to the rules and principles of normal criminal law. Having distinguished these strategies, the article maps them onto two conceptions of human rights: one political (constitutive of the political community) and one legal (grounding actionable claims against others). The thesis is then defended that law cannot grasp the political meaning of human rights, and thus cannot grasp the full political meaning of terror.This paper belongs to a broader research project funded by the Chilean fund for Scientific development, FONDECyT (Projecto 1010461).     

论刑事和解制度存在的合理性

关于我国是否应该引进刑事和解制度,理论界的分歧很大。刑事和解制度有利于人权的保障,也符合诉讼效率和诉讼经济的要求。我们应当在刑事诉讼中积极引进刑事和解制度,在法律中对刑事和解制度的适用条件、范围和操作程序等作出详细规定。     

行政复议和解制度设计

作为一种合意解决纠纷的制度,行政和解已被引入我国的行政复议制度中.行政复议和解是行政复议过程中的一个步骤,又是一个独立的法律行为.行政复议和解是一面双刃剑,必须在适用的范围和条件上严格限制,在适用的程序上严格规范,在适用过程中加强监督和救济.     

刑事和解平衡观

刑事和解是起源于西方国家的一种新的刑事思潮.作为一项刑事替代性司法模式,刑事和解是以人为本、和谐有序理念在刑事司法领域的体现,无疑为我国刑事司法改革和整个刑事法领域的一体化进程提供了一种崭新的思路.从利益、权利保障、诉讼权力与诉讼权利、刑罚的宽严相济及刑事和解制度的实践运作等方面对刑事和解所蕴含的平衡理念进行探讨.     

刑事和解中的风险控制与司法保障

在公诉案件中,刑事和解的合法化体现了刑事诉讼的发展规律和刑事司法的实践需求。许多诉讼内外的因素可能影响刑事和解的法律功能及其实现。在刑事和解中,预防和解决以钱赎刑、漫天要价、权力滥用等风险,不是“一蹴而就”或者“轻而易举”的。办案机关应强化刑事和解的司法保障,依据实体公正、程序公正目标,严格审查和解的自愿性和合法性。     

刑事和解的契约法视角解读

刑事和解制度作为近年来刑事纠纷解决的趋势,已经引起了学者的广泛关注。应就刑 事和解的源流进行初步的考证,并就有关这一制度的理论基础及其契约化问题进行深 入讨论。     

刑事诉讼中的和谐价值初探

刑事诉讼中的和谐价值问题,一直没有人进行研究,但这一概念又常常被刑事诉讼法学者所使用。和谐是中国的本土文化,凝结着中国人的智慧。应当对和谐的内涵、刑事诉讼中和谐价值的概念进行梳理。如果以刑事诉讼中的和谐价值检视刑事诉讼之重大理论问题就会得出以下结论：刑事和解的最主要的价值理念就是和谐价值,在整个刑事诉讼价值体系中应当明确树立和谐价值理论,并依据和谐价值理论凸显伦理道德的要求,从而使刑事诉讼的过程和结果更和谐,实现其真、善、美的统一。     

The Aporia of Collective Violence

From the theoretical perspective of René Girard, Walter Benjamin and Jacques Derrida the Rwanda genocide of 1994 may be interpreted as an instance of foundational violence. Given the constant reference in the Rwanda genocide discourse to the failed revolution of 1959, it is perhaps rather a case of deferred foundational violence. Useful as this notion of ‘foundational violence’ may be, as theoretical category it is also hugely challenging because the implicit claim is not just historical (‘states are routinely founded on violence’) but analytical (‘founding moments are per definition violent’). The result is a profound tension between, on the one hand, the need to understand the event as somehow unexceptional or typical of the founding of new socio-political orders and, on the other hand, the need to judge it as exceptional, an ‘outrage’, a crime against humanity. This paper treats the tension between the unexceptional and exceptional as aporetic, that is, as a profound puzzle consisting of two equally valid imperatives which are nonetheless mutually exclusive. It is also an attempt to find a way beyond the impasse.

论刑事和解中的证明责任和证明标准

刑事和解与刑事审判程序不同,它更加重视当事人双方自由选择的意愿,不能忽视证明责任和证明标准这两个证据法中的基本问题。在实践占主导地位的司法调解模式下的刑事和解作为审判前程序,由检察机关主持,包含加害方自愿认罪和双方达成赔偿协议两个阶段,蕴含着刑事和民事两种不同的证明对象、证明责任和证明标准。应当参照刑事诉讼和民事诉讼的规则,明确刑事和解程序中的证明责任主体、分配规则以及不同阶段的证明标准,这有利于刑事和解顺利开展,达到案结事了。