秦简廷行事考辨

云梦秦简出土后,整理者将其中的廷行事解释为成例,即判例,这是不准确的。文献典籍中的有关记述表明,行事一词中找不到成例的义项,更没有当年判例的意义。整理者将廷行事释为成例的两个依据不能成立。根据对秦简相关原文的分析,廷行事其实就是官府行事,或称官府的实际做法。这种实际做法和法律规定不一致,则是自由裁量权存在的结果。     

King Wenceslas’ relations with the Teutonic Order in light of the dispute over the Archbishopric of Riga (1392–1397)

King Wenceslas of the Romans (1378–1400) and of Bohemia (1378–1419) supported the Teutonic Knights, but his involvement in the Eastern Baltic region during the 1390s turned him into an enemy of the Knights. This paper argues that the change in Wenceslas’ policy was solely in the interests of his courtier Duke Swantibor of Pomerania-Stettin, who sought to establish his son as Archbishop of Riga. Wenceslas’ support for Swantibor owed to the traditions of courtly favor and instability in Bohemia, not out of any personal grudge against the Knights, as was claimed in earlier historiography.     

浅述令状在英国普通法发展中的作用——从王室司法管辖权的角度阐述

英国的令状在英国普通法的发展历史上起着非常重要的作用,其突出作用表现在促进了王室司法管辖权的扩大,王室法庭通过不同的令状与郡法庭、领主法庭、教会法庭竞争司法管辖权。王室法庭逐步取得对多数案件的司法管辖权时,它通过审理全国范围内的多数案件,对各种案件进行总结,最终形成了通行全国的普通法为英国普通法的形成提供了必不可少的前提条件。     

Les députés de Lyon en cour et l’art des communications de la ville et du pouvoir royal au XVIe siècle*

In the ancien régime, major municipalities in France constantly sent delegates, or deputies and solicitors to the court to make petitions and refer disputes to arbitration seeking favour for the city. Their mission was to defend the interests of the city. The deputies of Lyon were most often urban elites, who were expected to play an active part in negotiations with the royal government. J.P. Gutton ranked the deputies and clarified the activities during the seventeenth century: ‘The agent responsible for the affairs of the city’ resides permanently in Paris, ‘the ordinary deputy’ resides normally in Lyon and travels with instructions made by the consulate, and the ‘extraordinary envoys’ accompany ordinary deputies. However, in the sixteenth century, the deputies were not yet specialized and the consulate decided which deputy to send to court if necessary. This article aims to clarify the appointment of deputies, their relations with the royal officers in the government, as well as the contents of their business. To this end, the correspondence exchanged between the deputies and the consulate in series AA of the archives municipales de Lyon will be analysed, especially the consular deliberations in series BB, on the selection of deputies and the purpose of dispatch. Finally, this article will focus on understanding the negotiations that were held between the important city, Lyon, and the monarchy through the intermediary of the deputies. An analysis of the deputies of the city would also suggest where they went to get decisions in the royal administration and how consensus was formed in sixteenth-century France.     

Monarchy and Democracy: A Progressive Agenda

The Blair governments since 1997 have seen the single most significant period of constitutional reform in Britain for over a century. However, they leave the monarchy, the institution at the apex of the unwritten constitution, untouched. It is argued that neither inaction nor abolition is advisable, but that reform should be undertaken, with particular attention to the rules of succession and to the royal prerogative powers, notable examples being the powers to declare war, to dismiss parliament, to assent to legislation and to appoint the Prime Minister. Those powers now exercised by the executive should be formally and linguistically separated from the office of head of state, and put on a statutory basis. The achievement of these reforms depends, however, on political will and cannot be initiated by the monarchy itself.     

A Reaction to Popular Hysteria: The Titles Deprivation Act 1917

The Titles Deprivation Act represents the `other side of the coin' of King George V's decision in 1917 to divest the Royal Family of its appearance of German-ness and adopt an outwardEnglishness by renouncing the German titles of its members and adopting the surname of Windsor. The Act created a mechanism by which German holders of British royal titles and peerages could be deprived of those honours on grounds which had no precedent in earlier law and practice, this mechanism being used for the first and only time in an Order in Council of 28th March 1919 to deprive three German princes and one Austrian, two of them first cousins of George V and a third an uncle by marriage, of the British titles which they held. This paper considers, first, the background to the Act and, in particular, the reason why legislation on this highly controversial issue was introduced in Parliament only after theFirst World War had been going on for two-and-a-half years. It identifies the reason for this delay as the reluctance of the Asquith Government to involve the King as the `fountain of honour' with a course of action which he personally considered to be petty and undignified and of no importance to the war effort, and hypothesises that the Government's change of heart resulted from the trial and execution of Roger Casement for treason, with which there is an exact coincidence in time. Second, the paper considers the manner in which the Bill was drafted, identifies its distinctive features and follows its passage through Parliament. Third, it considers the manner in which the provisions of the Act were put into effect, in particular the manner in which evidence was gathered to create a case against the persons affected by it. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Public Outrage,Media Spectacle and the Kapunda Road Royal Commission

The article focuses on the relationship between the executive and the judiciary in respect of a legal case that provoked public outrage. This outrage entered into the media spectacle and was channelled by the executive into calling a royal commission. The royal commission was charged with re‐examining the police actions and the legal case. However, hidden behind its narrow terms of reference was the larger question of justice being ‘blind’ to a network of privilege. As such, the royal commission had the potential to threaten the independence of the judiciary.     

The Queensland Health Royal Commissions

Utilisation of public inquiries and royal commissions in Westminster systems of government is a source of continuing interest. That royal commissions continue to be appointed when there is an increasing array of other institutions governments can now employ and given that royal commission reports often have very adverse impacts on the appointing governments, remains a key issue. So the appointment by the Queensland government of not one, but two royal commissions in 2005 into the same topic – the recruitment and performance of doctors recruited abroad working in Queensland public hospitals – provides a special opportunity to analyse the circumstances in which a royal commission mechanism is activated. That one of these royal commissions had to be disbanded because of legal action taken by several of those being investigated is another reason to assess these royal commissions. This is almost without precedent in Australia and has implications for the future conduct of such bodies. Lastly, how the Queensland government was able to minimise the blame from the subsequent royal commission's highly critical report, is also instructive and worthy of assessment .     

“Children in a Terrible State”: Understandings of Trauma and Child Sexual Assault in 1970s and 1980s Australia*

ABSTRACT

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has shown us the multitude of ways that children were vulnerable to sexual violence. This article explores child sexual abuse outside of institutions, and the development of concepts of trauma in Australia in the 1970s and 1980s. From the mid-1970s, there was increased social, medical and legal focus on child abuse. Driven originally by feminists, there was a new interest in the psychological impacts of abuse, including analysis of the grief, despair, fear and anger experienced by survivors. The explosion of interest in child sexual abuse was mainstreamed in the Royal Commission into Human Relationships (1974–1978) and in discussion leading up to the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (1989). Across the 1980s, public recognition grew concerning the dangers of sexual violence against children, and, in particular, the increased knowledge and interest in intra-familial assaults. This article will chart the dramatic shifts in public consciousness around sexual abuse, particularly around ideas of harm and trauma. It will also suggest that despite a substantial change in cultural views on sexual assault, improvements for child victims were slow to filter through to the criminal justice system.     

“Soul Murder”: Investigating Spiritual Trauma at the Royal Commission

ABSTRACT

During its five-year tenure, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse established that faith organisations, with inadequate practices of organisational transparency and accountability, hierarchical structures of power, and patriarchal cultures, have poor track records in child protection and high levels of child abuse. Evidence from the Royal Commission hearings identified spiritual trauma as an outcome of child sexual abuse across several religious organisations including the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, the Salvation Army, the Yeshiva Jewish School in Melbourne and Sydney and the Satyananda Ashram in NSW. The Catholic Church had the highest levels of institutional child sexual assault and was the site of most of the narratives of spiritual suffering. This article examines existing research on spiritual trauma with regard to child sexual abuse, applies a five-point classification model developed by Kenneth Pargament and colleagues for identifying and analysing spiritual damage, and examines the evidence from both survivors and expert witnesses that was heard during relevant public hearings involving the Catholic Church at the Royal Commission. Institutional responses to spiritual injury will be considered and it will be argued that the Catholic Church is a distinctive institution that has produced a powerful culture of spiritual identity and belonging, where the impact of child sexual abuse has resulted in a loss of faith for many survivors, families and communities.