再论刑法理念——对蔡道通教授论文观点的不同意见之商榷

刑法理念作为一种深层潜隐的价值体系,在刑法规范中占有重要的地位。要明确区分刑法理念和刑法作为一种法规范的性质之间的界限,结合知名学者的学术观点,从而进一步对刑法理念的构造和实现本土化创造坚实的理论知识条件。     

侵犯商业秘密罪的立法定位与司法认定

商业秘密在刑法中与在民商法、经济法中有不同的定位,基于刑法谦抑性,应对刑法中的商业秘密进行严格解释。刑法与民法是站在不同的立场,出于不同的目的看待损失的,在侵犯商业秘密罪中,重大损失认定的依据应以侵权获利额为原则,特殊情况下可参考许可使用费。单位犯罪是侵犯商业秘密罪中常见的犯罪形态,在本罪的行为模式中,个人的侵权行为与单位的行为具有对向性,单位之外的个人也有构成单位犯罪的可能。     

强制性支出责任与地方财政自主权

《宪法》和《预算法》赋予了地方政府一定的财政自主权。以此为基础,地方政府通过调整支出结构、提高支出效率,为地方居民提供符合本行政区域实际情况的公共品与服务,并调控经济运行状况。分税制改革减少了地方的财政自主权,从而导致地方支出效率的降低。法律和中央政府为地方政府设定强制性支出责任,旨在遏制因地方支出效率降低产生的公共支出结构扭曲和区域间支出水平差异等状况。但是,强制性支出责任在客观上却进一步降低了地方的财政自主权,从而陷入新的恶性循环。赋予地方政府充分的财政自主权,是优化地方支出结构、提高地方支出效率的基础性制度依赖;强制性支出责任仅具有辅助性功能。两者不能本末倒置。     

Automated decision-making in the EU Member States: The right to explanation and other “suitable safeguards” in the national legislations

The aim of this paper is to analyse the very recently approved national Member States’ laws that have implemented the GDPR in the field of automated decision-making (prohibition, exceptions, safeguards): all national legislations have been analysed and in particular 9 Member States Law address the case of automated decision making providing specific exemptions and relevant safeguards, as requested by Article 22(2)(b) of the GDPR (Belgium, The Netherlands, France, Germany, Hungary, Slovenia, Austria, the United Kingdom, Ireland).The approaches are very diverse: the scope of the provision can be narrow (just automated decisions producing legal or similarly detrimental effects) or wide (any decision with a significant impact) and even specific safeguards proposed are very diverse.After this overview, this article will also address the following questions: are Member States free to broaden the scope of automated decision-making regulation? Are ‘positive decisions’ allowed under Article 22, GDPR, as some Member States seem to affirm? Which safeguards can better guarantee rights and freedoms of the data subject?In particular, while most Member States refers just to the three safeguards mentioned at Article 22(3) (i.e. subject's right to express one's point of view; right to obtain human intervention; right to contest the decision), three approaches seem very innovative: a) some States guarantee a right to legibility/explanation about the algorithmic decisions (France and Hungary); b) other States (Ireland and United Kingdom) regulate human intervention on algorithmic decisions through an effective accountability mechanism (e.g. notification, explanation of why such contestation has not been accepted, etc.); c) another State (Slovenia) require an innovative form of human rights impact assessments on automated decision-making.     

The Legitimacy of Judicial Responses to Moral Panic: Perceived vs. Normative Legitimacy

In some instances, the criminal justice system is affected by a moral panic; that is, by an exaggerated social reaction to an assumed threat to moral values. When influenced by moral panic, courts demonize defendants and aggravate punishments. Are such responses legitimate? This article argues that by contrast to legitimate condemnation of criminal conduct, demonizing defendants ought never be legitimate. The legitimacy of aggravating punishment requires distinguishing between the sociological concept of legitimacy (“perceived legitimacy”) and the moral concept (“normative legitimacy”). Aggravation of punishment in response to moral panic might be perceived as legitimate since it expresses public perceptions about the severity of the threat to a social value, even when these perceptions are exaggerated; however, punishments that are proportionate to such a perceived, exaggerated, threat to a social value are unjust and unfair, and therefore are normatively illegitimate. When the panic subsides, courts tend to return to lower levels of punishment. The subsidence of the panic enables one to realize that a gap between perceived and normative legitimacy has been created during the panic. Should and can the gap be bridged retroactively in order to gain full legitimacy? One way to bridge the gap is to grant clemency that will reduce the punishment of defendants whose sentences were exaggerated unduly during the panic. The article proposes a more radical mechanism that allows for sentence re-evaluation in cases of moral panic.     

The welfare courts: A socio-legal analysis of risk management through modern strict liability

The aim of the essay is to offer an adequate theoretical framework for a socio-legal analysis of risk management by the legal system. Law and risk are the two most important concepts to be clarified. Unlike the law, whose function consists in the temporal stabilisation of normative expectations, the perspective of risk is characterised by the possibility of changing the criteria for decisions based upon the evaluation of the consequences of those decisions. In the context of a modern society, characterised by an increasing demand for protection for people injured by new technologies, one observes certain difficulties in the attempt to adopt a risk perspective within the legal system. The result of this process is the new law of tort based upon the modern principles of strict liability. While strict liability can be shown to be effective in managing conflicts relating to technological accidents, its most negative effects are the increasing instability of legal structures and interference with the activities of other subsystems of society, such as medicine and the economy.     

‘Demonstrative Evidence’: A Genealogy of the Racial Iconography of Forensic Art and Illustration

This essay stages a critique of the unacknowledged racialising visual regimes that inform forensic pathologys typical body charts. In order to disclose these unacknowledged regimes, I stage a genealogy of the racialising iconography that continues to shape forensic pathologys visual texts. In drawing attention to the racialising visual conventions that constitute the contemporary production of caucacentric forensic body charts, I attempt to disrupt the scientifico-objective status of these visual artefacts in order to underscore their ideological effects. By focusing on the ontological/epistemological split between the corporeality of native informants and white knowledge workers, I underscore the white medico-legal professions historical transmuting of other bodies into objects of knowledge. I conclude by outlining the discursive effects of presenting forensic pathologys caucacentric body charts as demonstrative evidence within the court of law.This is an extended version of an essay first presented at the Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities Conference, Cardozo Law School, New York University, New York, USA, March 2003. My thanks to Peter Goodrich and Penelope Pether for their generous enthusiasm and support.     

刑法信仰的根基

刑法作为一种规范,不论是立法、司法都深深植根于某种特定的文化和社会制度中。它自身会受到该文化和制度的制约。但是,刑法必须体现人的一定欲求。因为,只有刑法的价值真正体现出对公民作为人的本身的价值关怀,才能得到公民的信仰,刑法自身才具有生命力。于是,我们看到刑法的信仰获得就是这样一个互动过程:刑法是保障和发展公民人权的大宪章,寻找到了公民信仰刑法的根基;同时,公民通过遵守刑法和维护刑法的价值坚定对刑法的信仰。刑法信仰的根基就在于刑法必须植根于人的欲求中,体现出人的欲求,不得违背"常情、常识、常理"。因此,我国现行刑法要想获得信仰至少必须做到:刑法价值真正的转变;刑事解释的公正;刑事普法的观念转变。     

我国首例假文凭案探析

近年来假文凭现象有泛滥成灾之势。它严重影响社会公正 ,扰乱人才竞争的正常秩序 ,具有一定的社会危害性。假文凭现象涉及三方主体 :伪造者、贩卖者和购买者。随着最新司法解释的出现对前二者予以刑罚惩处尚有根据 ,但对后者同样绳之以法 ,其合理性与合法性却值得商榷。本文从刑法、司法解释的规定和案例判决的事实出发 ,站在刑法理论高度对此进行了分析。     

深化对“三个代表”重要思想的认识——学习十六大对“三个代表”重要思想的新阐述

党的十六大报告对"三个代表"重要思想的论述,是在更加广阔的时代背景下和更加全面的基础上,对其进行了许多新的阐述,为我们在十六大的基础上,学习、贯彻"三个代表"重要思想指明了方向.