刑事见证及其法律效力研究——诉讼证明中一个被忽视的问题

刑事见证一直被当作一个技术性问题而为我国诉讼法学界所忽视,其所蕴涵的监督制约价值和诉讼证明功能尚未被人们充分认识。我国现有的刑事见证规范不但内容粗疏,而且见证与否对相关的侦查行为及由此所取得的证据材料不产生任何法律效力,从而导致权力滥用和制度变形,这不但与程序正义相背离,而且妨害实体真实的发现。对公权力过分信任的政治哲学、＂重实体、轻程序＂的法律文化以及偏重于惩罚犯罪的诉讼目的等,都影响了制度的精细化设计及其应然功能的发挥。无论是顺应证明模式转型的发展趋势还是基于程序法定原则的内在要求,抑或是保障证据证明力及侦查程序正当性的要求,均需要我们重新审视刑事见证问题。只有把见证人见证作为一项独立的诉讼行为予以制度完善并赋予其一定的法律效力,刑事见证才能实现从技术到制度的转变。     

欧盟法之性质新探——一个比较法观察

二战结束后,基于和平、经济、政治及军事等多重目的在西欧兴起了一种新的区域性国际实体一欧洲联盟,这种实体也有自己的“法律”,随之而来的是这种实体给法学理论与实践带来了新的课题一欧盟法的性质问题。对欧盟法性质的科学界定不仅有益于当代中国的法学借鉴、法学认知,也有利于我国的整体经济建设尤其是与欧盟的对外经贸关系往来。从比较法学的角度探析欧盟法的性质,需弄清关于欧盟法性质争议的不同观．董,欧盟法与其他国际实体、主权和法律传统的关联,以及欧盟法的未来发展趋势。欧盟法之性质认识须理清、细化不同情势而定。     

浅析农村集体资产流失的法律救济——兼论公益诉讼制度的设立

公益诉讼是目前法学界正在讨论的一个热点问题,其对维护社会公共利益具有极其重要的意义。农村集体资产流失也是一个影响农村发展和稳定的重大问题,但是从法学的角度对其进行研究和探讨的文章不多。笔者提出了通过建立公益诉讼制度救济农村集体资产流失的观点,希望能抛砖引玉。     

浅析当前我国法律援助制度的完善

我国处于社会转型期,由于社会法制化逐渐加强,人民群众对法律服务的需求也越来越迫切。以政府责任为基点提供法律援助很难满足社会的需求,所以在当前需要国家与社会加以互动,充分地整合社会资源,如此既可以补充政府法律援助力量的不足,拓宽提供法律援助渠道,又可以使法律援助能够更多地向潜在的受援人延伸,发挥法律援助预防冲突的功能,扩展法律援助的延伸力。     

环境犯罪疑难问题探讨

近些年来,由于环境事故频发,如何借助于刑法对环境犯罪进行规制引起了刑法理论界的日益重视。对照国外环境犯罪的立法状况可以发现,我国的环境犯罪立法有许多方面需要进一步规范和完善。文章从环境犯罪的构成要件、刑事处遇、诉讼程序设计三方面入手,对存在的问题进行了解读,并提出了进一步进行完善的建议。     

中国—东盟合作背景下广西北部湾经济区构建高层次法律人才体系研究

在中国—东盟合作的背景下,广西北部湾经济区的建设和发展需要高层次法律人才提供智力支持和保障。本文对高层次法律人才的概念、种类和特征、中国—东盟合作背景下广西北部湾经济区高层次法律人才应该具备的素质、广西北部湾经济区的建设和发展需要高层次法律人才、广西北部湾经济区构建高层次法律人才体系的举措等方面进行了研究。     

Law Students on Interdisciplinary,Problem‐Solving Teams: An Empirical Evaluation of Educational Outcomes at the University Of Denver's Resource Center for Separating and Divorcing Families

Models of lawyering in separation and divorce disputes are evolving to emphasize interdisciplinary collaboration, problem solving, alternative dispute resolution, and changes in legal education that reflect these changes in practice. At the University of Denver's Resource Center for Separating and Divorcing Families (Center), supervised law and mental health graduate students worked as a team to provide assessment and service planning, mediation, therapy, and agreement drafting to parents. Evaluation results showed client satisfaction, and that students acquired new knowledge, skills, and values in line with a collaborative, problem‐solving orientation. Strengths and weaknesses of the model are considered.     

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.     

An examination of the experience of cryptocurrency use in Russia. In search of better practice

This study concerns the use of crypto-currency with specific reference to the situation in Russia. A variety of such systems exist; Bitcoin, however, is perhaps the best-known example and will be used as synonymous with the concept throughout this article. Our findings not only show how the views of Russian government bodies are formed and developed, but also sheds light on the specific innovative methods which legal entities use for development of the economy. Consideration will be given to recent developments within Russia which has been more active than many countries in seeking to clarify the status of Bitcoin and providing for the regulation of the technology.     

Digital justice

In a period of growing suspicion about the power of digital technology and ‘tech companies’, this short comment aspires to argue that the conditions for the functioning of the constitutional state contain an inherent obligation for the state not only to be sufficiently sensitive to the changes brought about by digitisation, but also to make use of digitisation. A key condition for the functioning of the constitutional state is e.g. that the judiciary is capable of fully implementing its task of affording legal protection. Reinterpreting this condition in the modern age implies that courts should remain explicitly vigilant when it comes to digitisation. Hence, affording protection is not only a question of what makes formal regulation in a digital world different from regulation in the well-known offline world. If the constitutional state is to be ‘capable’ of implementing its task of affording legal protection, it must also be sufficiently sensitive to the changes brought about by digitisation, as well as deploy the potential that digitisation offers.