刘忠：中国法院的分庭管理
2004年底中央司法体制改革领导小组提出关于司法体制和工作机制改革的初步意见，要求改革授权高级法院行使部分死刑案件核准权的作法，将死刑案件核准权统一收归最高法院行使。[1]为此，最高法院增加了三个刑庭。[2]按照最近一次机构改革后的法院编制方案，最高法院此前有内设机构20个。这样最高法院的内设机构成为23个，其中审判业务部门14个[3]。
和行政机关奉行的“上边千根线，下面一根针”的做法相比，中国法院审判庭职能行使上基本是上下对应，高院、中院、基层法院也都有着庞大的内设庭室，所以，在其内部机构职能和设计上表现出一种直筒状的外观。并不从域外制度正当性的倾见出发，也不是当作中国法院改革的摹本，而仅仅以一种底色的形式来映衬中国法院的情况，会注意到中国和美国联邦系统的法院在内部组织上差异巨大，美国法院内不但有权独立审判案件的法官人数少得多，而且没有按照案件类型进行的分庭式管理。[4]
这种不带有任何批判意味的比衬，导出本文关注的话题，就是为什么中国法院内部会有如此多的庭室？这种内部组织－结构，显现于外部行为，给中国的司法审判产生什么影响？
我试图从中国法院文革后恢复发展三十年的历程，细致地描述中国法院内设庭室不断增多、细化的过程，对此现象进行初步解释，进而力图有一些延展性的认识。我认为中国法院内设庭室的剧增，是应对中国社会复杂性、功能分化的产物。此外，中国法院分庭式管理也产生了内部治理上的积极功能，两者存在交互肯定关系，从而为法院扩大编制、增设机构提供了根据，法院利用这些正当性支持，自身有目的地放大这一结果。最终这种情况反而导致中国司法的自主、自立下降，导致一个二律背反的局面。
一、复杂性应对与功能分化 » 继续阅读 刘忠：中国法院的分庭管理 全文
New Book: The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy by Richard Posner
The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy by Richard A. Posner, Harvard University Press (March 31, 2010)
Content
Following up on his timely and well-received book, A Failure of Capitalism, Richard Posner steps back to take a longer view of the continuing crisis of democratic capitalism as the American and world economies crawl gradually back from the depths to which they had fallen in the autumn of 2008 and the winter of 2009.
By means of a lucid narrative of the crisis and a series of analytical chapters pinpointing critical issues of economic collapse and gradual recovery, Posner helps non-technical readers understand business-cycle and financial economics, and financial and governmental institutions, practices, and transactions, while maintaining a neutrality impossible for persons professionally committed to one theory or another. He calls for fresh thinking about the business cycle that would build on the original ideas of Keynes. Central to these ideas is that of uncertainty as opposed to risk. Risk can be quantified and measured. Uncertainty cannot, and in this lies the inherent instability of a capitalist economy.
As we emerge from the financial earthquake, a deficit aftershock rumbles. It is in reference to that potential aftershock, as well as to the government’s stumbling efforts at financial regulatory reform, that Posner raises the question of the adequacy of our democratic institutions to the economic challenges heightened by the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. The crisis and the government’s energetic response to it have enormously increased the national debt at the same time that structural defects in the American political system may make it impossible to pay down the debt by any means other than inflation or devaluation. » 继续阅读 New Book: The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy by Richard Posner 全文
理查德·波斯纳：1937，2010（《新共和》书评）
Richard Posner, “1937, 2010,” The New Republic, February 17, 2010.
评论的书是 Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court, by Jeff Shesol (W.W. Norton, 2010, 656 pp., $27.95)
In 1937 President Roosevelt tried to “pack” the Supreme Court–increase its size so that he could fill the vacancies thus created with liberals, who would shift the balance of power from the conservative majority that had invalidated a number of New Deal laws. Surprisingly–considering the overwhelming margin by which Roosevelt had been re-elected in 1936, the Democrats’ lock on both houses of Congress, and the pertinacity with which he pushed his plan–the Court-packing bill never even came to a vote. » 继续阅读 理查德·波斯纳：1937，2010（《新共和》书评） 全文
奥斯丁·萨拉特等编《法律与人文导论》[Law and the Humanities: An Introduction]
Law and the Humanities: An Introduction, edited by Austin Sarat, Matthew Anderson, Cathrine O. Frank, Cambridge University Press 2009.
Book Description
Law and the Humanities: An Introduction brings together a distinguished group of scholars from law schools and from an array of the disciplines in the humanities. Contributors come from the United States and abroad in recognition of the global reach of this field. This book is, at one and the same time, a stock-taking of different national traditions and of the various modes and subjects of law and humanities scholarship. It is also an effort to chart future directions for the field. By reviewing and analyzing existing scholarship and providing thematic content and distinctive arguments, it offers to its readers both a resource and a provocation. Thus, Law and the Humanities marks the maturation of this “law and” enterprise and will spur its further development.
Table of contents
Contributors / ix
Acknowledgments / xi
Introduction: On the Origins and Prospects of the Humanistic Study of Law / Austin Sarat, Matthew Anderson, and Cathrine O. Frank / 1
I. PERSPECTIVES ON THE HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF SCHOLARSHIP IN LAW AND THE HUMANITIES: THREE VIEWS / 47
1 A Humanities of Resistance: Fragments for a Legal History of Humanity / Costas Douzinas / 49
2 Three Tales of Two Texts: An Introduction to Law and the Humanities / Kathryn Abrams / 73
3 Law, Culture, and Humility / Steven L. Winter / 98
II. IDEAS OF JUSTICE / 123
4 Biblical Justice: The Passion of the God of Justice / Chaya Halberstam / 125
5 Ideas of Justice: Natural and Human / Catherine Kellogg / 141
6 Ideas of Justice: Positive / Matthew Noah Smith / 161
7 Postmodern Justice / Peter Goodrich / 188
III. IMAGINING THE LAW / 211
8 Imagining the Law: The Novel / Susan Sage Heinzelman / 213
9 Imagining Law as Film (Representation without Reference?) / Richard K. Sherwin / 241
10 Law and Television: Screen Phenomena and Captive Audiences / Susanna Lee / 269
11 Imagining the Law: Art / Christine Haight Farley / 292
IV. LINGUISTIC, LITERARY, AND CULTURAL PROCESSES IN LAW / 313
12 Language / Penelope Pether / 315
13 Interpretation / Francis J. Mootz III / 339
14 Narrative and Rhetoric / Ravit Reichman / 377
15 Justice as Translation / Harriet Murav / 398
16 The Constitution of History and Memory / Ariela Gross / 416
V. INSTITUTIONAL PROCESSES / 453 » 继续阅读 奥斯丁·萨拉特等编《法律与人文导论》[Law and the Humanities: An Introduction] 全文
17 Trials / Lindsay Farmer / 455
18 Testimony, Witnessing / Jan-Melissa Schramm / 478
19 Judgment in Law and the Humanities / Desmond Manderson / 496
20 Punishment / Karl Shoemaker / 517
Index / 531
苏力：我和你深深嵌在这个世界之中
——从戴安娜之死说起
一切都四散了，再也保不住中心……
——叶芝《基督重临》
1997年8月30日午夜，备受公众和传媒(或者应改为传媒和公众？这是一个问题)关注的英国王妃戴安娜魂断巴黎；[1]一个星期之后，英国举行了据称是继丘吉尔之后20世纪最隆重的葬礼。备享哀荣之后，戴安娜的灵魂将得到安息。然而她身后的这个世界却仍为她和她的死不安，以至于远在东方的《天涯》杂志为此要编发一个专题，以至于我这个只能算知道戴安娜名字的法律教授也居然开“机”，而不是提笔，为她的死写下这篇并不仅仅关涉法律的短文。
一
许多人将戴安娜之死归罪于传媒；戴安娜之兄查尔斯·斯潘塞更明确指责报界手上有戴安娜的血。但是，这种情绪化语言不应影响我们对这一不幸事件本身的考察，以至于走进了语言构建的迷宫。只要仔细看一看有关报道，就会发现，即使是那几位追逐戴安娜的摄影记者，也没有造成戴安娜的死亡，最多只是引发戴安娜死亡的因素之一。司机体内的过度酒精(超过“正常”范围三倍多)，超高速行车(时速160公里)，以及死者未系安全带(唯一系了安全带的保镖活了下来)，我想，如果不为感情迷惑，任何人都可以判断，这些才是造成车毁人亡的真正的和最根本的原因。酒后驾车和不系安全带与“狗仔队”的追踪毫无关系，却为法律甚或现代公共道德所不容；高速行车也许与试图摆脱记者有关，但这也不足以构成在市区违章超高速行车的一个充分理由或借口；毕竟，可厌的狗仔队的亮闪闪镜头并不是匪徒的黑洞洞枪口。因此，就戴安娜之死而言，我认为，承担主要责任的应当是酗酒的司机，以及要求或至少默许了(对于这一点，我们也许永远无法知晓)高速行车的多迪和戴安娜。说记者杀死了戴安娜，如果不是非常不公平，那也是一种修辞。事实上，法国警方也仅仅宣布对这些记者是否构成“非故意杀人”或“见死不救”进行调查，至于能否提出指控，即使提出指控后能否最后认定，都还是问题。如果事实真的大致如新闻报道所言(我的判断还是将不幸地取决于传媒)，那么，我敢预言，对这些记者将不了了之；他们最多只会受到一些象征性的处罚。[2]
我并不试图为这几位摄影记者开脱责任。就这一事件而言，他们确有“责任”。他们的令戴安娜讨厌但难以逃避和躲藏的镜头；车祸发生后他们没有首先救人(尽管这仍并不一定是他们的法律责任，而只是作为一个普通人的道德责任，因此不是强制性的)，却抢着拍摄可供发表赚钱的照片；他们甚至可能妨碍了救援人员的及时救助；这些也许都是他们应承担的责任，甚至应当受到某种行政和/或职业的惩处。但这都不是对戴安娜之死的法律责任。 » 继续阅读 苏力：我和你深深嵌在这个世界之中 全文
