Positivism and Plural Legal Systems

This paper considers whether the positivist account of law is useful in guiding states in how they should deal with religious or customary legal orders followed by minority groups within their jurisdiction. It argues, first, that such orders can be said to exist despite the prevalence of disagreement about the grounds of law. It then argues, contrary to views advanced by Scott Shapiro and Joseph Raz, that there are good reasons for perceiving that the resolution of legal disputes by reference to moral principle involves the application of pre‐existing law. However, the paper concludes by arguing that the Social Thesis has an important role in supplying the basis upon which the application of law can be deemed to be legitimate, and that this has relevance to the way states might respond to minority legal orders.     

Legislative Intentions and Counterfactu-als: Or,What One Can Still Learn from Dworkin's Critique of Legal Positivism

Riggs v. Palmer has become famous since Dworkin used it to show that legal positivism is defective. The debate over the merits of Dworkin's claims is still very lively. Yet not enough attention has been paid to the fact that the content of the statute at issue in Riggs was given by the counterfactual intention of the legislature. According to arguments from legislative intent, a judicial decision is justified if it is based on the lawmaker's intention. But can legislative intentions be determined counterfactually? More generally, what are the discursive commitments undertaken by a lawyer or a judge, in an exchange of legal reasons, when using this interpretive methodology? This paper addresses these issues considering, in particular, David Lewis's “resemblance” condition and “relevant similarity” between possible worlds in the evaluation of counterfactual statements. The analysis sheds some new light on the debate on theoretical disagreements and shows that Dworkin's conception of law as an argumentative practice is not necessarily at odds with legal positivism. It rather allows us to look at it under a better light.     

Legal Advice Privilege and its Relevance to Corporations

This article considers whether the rationale for legal advice privilege applies to corporations. It examines the rationale for legal advice privilege in the aftermath of the disagreement between the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords in the Three Rivers litigation, and argues that the rule of law rationale for advice privilege endorsed by the House of Lords is based largely on the needs and behavior of individuals. The paper examines the case for recognising advice privilege for corporations. Recent developments in corporate law and governance, especially in relation to directors' duties, have arguably reduced the need for a corporate privilege. Public and large private companies in particular already have sufficient incentives to obtain accurate legal advice about their affairs even without a privilege. There are also sound policy reasons for restricting the right of corporations to claim legal advice privilege given its costs to the administration of justice.     

The Allocation of Environmental Investigation Costs between the Defense and Indemnity Obligations under General Liability Policies

For policyholders responding to administrative demands of federal or state environmental agencies, the allocation of environmental consultant costs between a carrier's defense and indemnity obligations is a frequent source of disagreement. Likely due to the fact-sensitive nature of such disagreements, existing case law lacks consistency in the analysis of such issues. This article analyzes different legal standards adopted by courts to analyze this issue. Although each court recognizes the fact-intensive nature of the inquiry, some courts are quite detailed in their analysis while others simply seek to achieve a sense of “rough justice.” As a result, attorneys involved in such disputes must have both an understanding of the specific legal standards employed by the courts as well as an understanding of the specific facts that may ultimately tip the scales.     

论法律解释的融贯性——评德沃金的法律真理观

以融贯性作为检验法律真理的标准,是一种超越真理观上的绝对主义与相对主义立场的尝试。德沃金的法律解释思想以融贯论作为法律真理观,以罗尔斯的"反思性均衡"作为法律解释的方法,以信念之间、信念和经验之间的融贯性作为法律解释的标准,从而为"法律唯一正解"提供了哲学上的正当化根据。但是,原则之间的竞争与冲突是不容否定的事实,并不存在理想意义上的融贯;法官的类推解释只能达致局部融贯而无法形成整体融贯;法律的无穷解释使德沃金的解释理论陷入无法自拔的"明希豪森困境",这些理论上的难题使德沃金的法律真理图景成为一种虚假的幻相。     

Gardner on Legal Reasoning

In Chapters 2, 3 and 7 of his new book, Law as a Leap of Faith, John Gardner provides the elements of an account of legal reasoning. It is on the basis of this account that Gardner defends or supports some of the most important theses of his book, viz. theses pertaining to how law can be made, to the relation between law and morality, and to the legitimacy of judicial law-making. A central element of Gardner’s account is a distinction (suggested originally by Joseph Raz) between two forms of legal reasoning, namely, reasoning about the law and reasoning according to law. In this paper I intend to describe and evaluate Gardner’s account. Among the critical remarks that will appear in the paper is the claim that Gardner’s concept of reasoning according to law is overly inclusive.     

Minimal Semantics and Legal Interpretation

In this paper I will tackle three issues. First, I aim to briefly outline the backbone of semantic minimalism, while focusing on the idea of ‘liberal truth conditions’ developed by Emma Borg in her book ‘Minimal Semantics’. Secondly, I will provide an account of the three principal views in legal interpretation: intentionalism, textualism and purposivism. All of them are based on a common denominator labelled by lawyers ‘literal meaning’. In the paper I suggest a novel way of viewing this common denominator as almost identical to the Borgian ‘liberal truth conditions’, at least at a conceptual level. In the third section I will focus on the conceptual similarities between the two ideas. I intend to depict that, although legal theorists do not admit it explicitly, they treat literal legal meaning as minimal propositional content that can be ascribed liberal truth conditions. There are two main objections to liberal truth conditions: their under-determinacy and unintuitive character. Both objections can be applied to ‘literal meaning’. However, the idea of liberal truth conditions gives an adequate account of what lawyers call literal meaning and is helpful in explaining the mechanism of understanding of provisions and reasons leading to the necessity of statutory interpretation.     

亲权、法定监护、法定代理之界定

亲权作为身份权的一种,是父母基于身份关系对未成年子女所生之权利,原则上不得由他人代为行使,但日本民法第833条和第867条则有例外规定,即父母均为禁治产人时,其亲权应由父母的法定代理人代为行使。法定监护是监护的一种,它归于民事主体制度,是指根据法律的直接规定而进行的监督、保护等民事活动。立法例上,一些国家既规定亲权又规定监护,而另一些国家只规定监护。法定代理是基于法律的直接规定而进行的代理,它兼具民事主体与民事法律行为双重内涵,是各国法律均予规范的内容。民法理论上,亲权、法定监护和法定代理三者之间在诸多方面存在着牵连与叠合,同时又具有严格的界限和适用范围,它们对民事法律制度的协调与完善起着互补作用,是民事法律制度不可或缺的重要组成部分。     

New Legal Moralism: Some Strengths and Challenges

The aim of this paper is to critically discuss the plausibility of legal moralism with an emphasis on some central and recent versions. First, this paper puts forward and defends the thesis that recently developed varieties of legal moralism promoted by Robert P. George, John Kekes and Michael Moore are more plausible than Lord Devlin’s traditional account. The main argument for this thesis is that in its more modern versions legal moralism is immune to some of the forceful challenges made to Devlin by Hart, Dworkin and Feinberg among others. Second, however, the paper challenges the new generation of legal moralists and suggests some areas for further development. Although Devlin’s position has been scrutinized thoroughly in the literature on the philosophy of law, there has, to my knowledge, been no comparable, systematic critique of these different proponents of legal moralism.     

A Suggested Basis for Legal Ontology

Abstract. It is often argued that associations are intelligent organisms with minds and intentional states of their own. It is also argued that groups are merely a plurality of individuals who are related or associated only in a specific and limited sense. This paper draws on both classical and contemporary scholarship to develop an ontological account of persons which has real‐world legal and ethical implications.     

The Limits of Institutionalised Legal Discourse*

Abstract. One of the most powerful accounts of the necessary connection between law and morality grounded on the openness of communication is provided by Robert Alexy, who builds a discourse theory of law on the basis of Habermas’ theory of general practical discourse. In this article I argue that the thesis based on the openness of legal discourse is problematic in that it does not provide a convincing account of the differentiation of legal discourse from other practical discourses. I offer an understanding of the institutionalisation of legal discourse as the tacit commitment of the participants to their shared normative experience and in particular in: 1) the possibility of containing normative force in space, 2) the possibility of transforming word into deed, 3) the possibility of grasping and controlling time and 4) the possibility of transforming deed into word. That commitment of participants in legal discourse is revealed as a set of fundamental assumptions embedded in all legal utterances, which provide the necessary bedrock that makes communication possible. It also provides a basis for the institution of legal discourse, to the effect that their problematisation signifies a departure from the latter.     

Is there only One Correct Legal Answer to a Question of Fact? Three Talmudic Answers to a Jurisprudential Dilemma

This article focuses on questions of pure fact‐of‐the‐matter and asks whether two omniscient judges (or jurists or scholars) may disagree over the legal answer to a straightforward question of a matter of fact. There are approaches to legal theory among some western and Jewish philosophers of law whereby at least superficially it is possible that two or more contradictory legal statements regarding a given reality can be equally correct. The article provides a critical analysis of three different models derived from the Jewish legal literature, and reviews the contributions of Jewish sources to the understanding of the phenomenon of disagreements concerning matters of fact.     

A-Legality: Postnationalism and the Question of Legal Boundaries

This paper critically examines the prevailing assumption that legal boundaries are becoming irrelevant in postnationalism. While the boundaries of the nation-state are forfeiting some of their hold on human behaviour, postnational legal orders are simply not legal orders unless they can in some way draw the spatial, temporal, material and subjective boundaries that make it possible to qualify human behaviour as legal or illegal. This implies that reflexively constituted legal orders – whether national or postnational – must be presented as legal unities. To the extent that boundaries are the necessary condition of national and postnational legal orders, and therewith of legal unity, they also spawn the possibility of political plurality, manifested in behaviour that resists the very distinction between legality and illegality, as drawn by an order of positive law: a-legality. Rather than signalling the demise of legal boundaries, postnationalism ushers in a novel way of dealing therewith – and with a-legality.     

Communicating Dissent in Judicial Opinions: A Comparative,Genre-Based Analysis

To date, there has been surprisingly little research on separate opinions in legal linguistics literature. Scarce attention has been paid to the linguistic and communicative aspects of how judges frame their disagreements. This paper serves as one of the early attempts to examine the institution of votum separatum, or separate opinion, from a comparative, cross-language perspective using a linguistic methodology. The evidence indicates a clear similarity in terms of how separate opinions are integrated within the respective macrostructures of the US SC opinions and the Constitutional Tribunal judgments. This study demonstrates how judges tend to employ highly formulaic expressions to signal their disagreement despite the absence of clear guidelines to communicate such stances. The analysis of their frequent phraseology demonstrates that declaring votum separatum and providing its justification are two different acts, not only legally but also linguistically, especially in terms of their formulaicity. The Polish and American justifications differ in the degree to which the frequent phraseology reveals peculiarities of judicial argumentation in addition to the presence of strong evaluative concerns.

     

Deontic Logic as Logic of Legal Norms: Two Main Sources of Problems

Abstract .
The paper offers a critical survey of two main sorts of problems hindering the possibility of conceiving deontic logic as a suitable account of the logical behaviour of (sentences expressing) legal norms. The notion of "legal norm" is viewed as the main source of the first sort of problems: (a) the typological variety of legal norms requires an account both of the differing logical behaviour of (sentences expressing) differing legal norms, and of the relations which might hold amon them; (b) the ontologic, semantic, and epistemic features of legal norms shed doubt on the very attempt to figure out a logical analysis of (sentences expressing) legal norms. The notion of "systemic legal validity" is viewed as the main source of the second sort of problems: Deontic logic does not provide suitable logical tools to account for legal phenomena like enactment, derogation, and conflicts between legal norms which rely on systemic legal validity.     

初论民间规范对法律方法的可能贡献

民间规范作为一种实际存在的“制度事实”,对法律方法有着什么样的意义?基于此种问题意识,对民间法可能对法律方法的贡献的研究,应该是有益的。由于司法活动中的法律方法多样,这里只对法律方法之于法律渊源、价值(利益)衡量、判例和判例法形成方式、法律论证的可能贡献做出了简要的描述。可以肯定,民间规范对其他法律方法也一样会有可能作用。对此,笔者将在后续研究中逐步探讨。     

Can we believe what we see, if we see what we believe?--expert disagreement.

Forensic experts often disagree. The possible sources of such disagreements are analyzed and possible avenues of resolution indicated. The logic of interpreting scenes, and pattern injuries such as bitemarks, is explained to locate potential sources for interpretive error, and to recommend strategies to avoid compounding such errors when preparing cases. In one sense, two observers may not see the same thing, although their eyesight is normal and they are aware of the same artifact. Cases show that both practical and theoretical investigative expectations affect what count as observations. These expectations confer evidential status on the artifact. When two observers' expectations conflict, they do not see the same thing, so are not presented with the same evidence. Expectations can be either appropriate or inappropriate. These senses are clearly distinguished using illustrative cases. When inappropriate, they cause observational errors of a unique sort supplying one source for disagreement. When inferences are made from these inappropriately sanctioned observations,interpretive errors are compounded and resolutions of disagreement become difficult. These observational and inferential errors are explained, described, and illustrated with cases, along with recommendations for recognizing and avoiding them.     

Following Legal Rules: Visibility and Feasibility

This paper reflects on the idea of ‘visualization’ of legal rules as part of an account of rule following in action. Presenting an alternative to Van Schooten’s (Jurisprudence and communication. Deborah Charles, Liverpool, 2012) account of interpretation, I first distinguish between two modes of interpretation: rehearsing and discursive. I argue that the former is the more basic one, relating to our respecting sources, rather than noticing signs, in action. In other (Wittgensteinian) words, we have to understand how we take guidance from rules. This account can profit from an analysis of what ‘seeing’ amounts to. Taking my cue from Merleau-Ponty, I point to the intertwinement between agent and world in seeing, in rule-following, and eventually in legal rule-following. The proof of the pudding is an alternative account of the time-honoured paradigm of legal interpretation: Hart’s ‘no vehicles in the park’. I show how this example is predicated on detecting ‘depth-clues’ in a rule, which allow an agent to correlate his vantage point to a vanishing point of a rule. The example illustrates a key-feature of rule following: reflexivity. I cannot follow a rule unless I project myself into its picture.