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12楼
发表于 2010-2-24 18:09
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The courts of justice are the most visible organs by which the legal profession is enabled to control the democracy. The judge is a lawyer, who, independently of the taste for regularity and order which he has contracted in the study of legislation, derives an additional love of stability from his own inalienable functions. His legal attainments have already raised him to a distinguished rank amongst his fellow-citizens; his political power completes the distinction of his station, and gives him the inclinations natural to privileged classes.
审判法庭是法律职业能够控制民主的最明显机构。法官也是律师,在立法的研习中他感染了对规则性和秩序的喜好,而且从他自己不可转让的工作中获得了一种额外的对稳定的热爱。他的法律知识已经使他在他的同胞中成为了特别的阶层;他的政治权力又使他的特别地位更加完整,从而给与他成为拥有特殊权利群体的自然倾向。
Armed with the power of declaring the laws to be unconstitutional, the American magistrate perpetually interferes in political affairs. He cannot force the people to make laws, but at least he can oblige it not to disobey its own enactments; or to act inconsistently with its own principles. I am aware that a secret tendency to diminish the judicial power exists in the United States, and by most of the constitutions of the several States the Government can, upon the demand of the two houses of the legislature, remove the judges from their station. By some other constitutions the members of the tribunals are elected, and they are even subjected to frequent re-elections. I venture to predict that these innovations will sooner or later be attended with fatal consequences, and that it will be found out at some future period that the attack which is made upon the judicial power has affected the democratic republic itself.
拥有宣布法律违宪的权力的美国管理者,终身可以干预政治事务。他不能强制人们制定法律,但是至少他能够强制人们不得违反他们自己制定的法令;或者不得制定与他们自己的原则相违背的法律。我注意到了有一种隐秘的趋势在削弱合众国既存的审判权力,在各州多数的宪法中规定政府可以基于立法机构的两院的要求,免去法官的职务。在其它某些州中法官由选举产生,甚至还可能频繁的重选(法官有限任期制)。我冒昧的预言,这些革新迟早会产生致命的后果,而且在未来的某个时期会发现这种对审判权力的攻击也将攻击民主共和制本身。
It must not, however, be supposed that the legal spirit of which I have been speaking has been confined, in the United States, to the courts of justice; it extends far beyond them. As the lawyers constitute the only enlightened class which the people does not mistrust, they are naturally called upon to occupy most of the public stations. They fill the legislative assemblies, and they conduct the administration; they consequently exercise a powerful influence upon the formation of the law, and upon its execution. The lawyers are, however, obliged to yield to the current of public opinion, which is too strong for them to resist it, but it is easy to find indications of what their conduct would be if they were free to act as they chose. The Americans, who have made such innovations in their political legislation, have introduced very sparing alterations in their civil laws, and that with great difficulty, although those laws are frequently repugnant to their social condition. The reason of this is, that in matters of civil law the majority is obliged to defer to the authority of the legal profession, and that the American lawyers are disinclined to innovate when they are left to their own choice.
然而,不要认为我所说的法律精神在合众国仅限于审判的法庭;它远远超出了法庭。因为律师组成了人们不会不信任的唯一的启蒙阶层,他们自然的被呼请担任了大部分的公共职位。他们填满了立法议会,并且指导管理;于是他们对法律的制定行使了强大的影响,对法律的执行也产生了强大的影响。不过,律师们不得不屈服于当下的公众意见,他们抗拒这种公众意见实在太困难了,而如果他们想依他们自己的选择而自由行动时,总是很容易发现他们这种行为的迹象。在政治立法方面做了这么多革新的美国人,在他们的世俗法律方面所进行的变更却非常保守,而且这些微小的变更还经历了巨大的困难,虽然那些法律常常与他们的社会条件相冲突。这里的原因在于,在世俗法律的事务中多数不得不将权力委托给法律职业,而美国的律师们在由他们自由处理时却又不愿去革新。
It is curious for a Frenchman, accustomed to a very different state of things, to hear the perpetual complaints which are made in the United States against the stationary propensities of legal men, and their prejudices in favor of existing institutions.
对于一个习惯了事物无常变化莫测的法国人而言,在合众国听到人们对法律人士的稳定习性和他们支持既存体系的没完没了的抱怨时,一定非常好奇。
The influence of the legal habits which are common in America extends beyond the limits I have just pointed out. Scarcely any question arises in the United States which does not become, sooner or later, a subject of judicial debate; hence all parties are obliged to borrow the ideas, and even the language, usual in judicial proceedings in their daily controversies. As most public men are, or have been, legal practitioners, they introduce the customs and technicalities of their profession into the affairs of the country. The jury extends this habitude to all classes. The language of the law thus becomes, in some measure, a vulgar tongue; the spirit of the law, which is produced in the schools and courts of justice, gradually penetrates beyond their walls into the bosom of society, where it descends to the lowest classes, so that the whole people contracts the habits and the tastes of the magistrate. The lawyers of the United States form a party which is but little feared and scarcely perceived, which has no badge peculiar to itself, which adapts itself with great flexibility to the exigencies of the time, and accommodates itself to all the movements of the social body; but this party extends over the whole community, and it penetrates into all classes of society; it acts upon the country imperceptibly, but it finally fashions it to suit its purposes.
在美国法律习惯影响的普遍性已经超出了我刚才指出的范围。在合众国出现的任何问题,几乎迟早都会变成法庭辩论的主题;于是所有的社团不得不将在通常的审判程序中所使用的观念,甚至语言,引入到他们的日常争论中。因为大多数担任公共职位的人是或者曾经是法律从业者,他们将他们职业的习俗和技术引入国家的事务之中。审判团(Jury:对于中英翻译者,我热切的期望你们能够将它翻译成“审判团”而不是“陪审团”)将这种习惯传播到所有阶层。从而这种法律语言变成了——在某种程度上——一种通俗的说话方式;产生于学校和法庭的法律精神,逐渐的穿透它们的围墙进入社会的内部,进入社会最低阶层,于是社会全体成员都感染了管理者的习惯和喜好。合众国的律师们形成了一个党,它不足惧怕很少被意识到,它没有自己特别的标志,它极其灵活可以适应紧急时期的要求和适应所有的社会运动;但是这个党扩展到了整个共同体,渗入到了社会所有的阶层;它对国家的影响潜移默化,不过它最终会造成它所预期的那样。 |
1,I.stability of possession;II.transference by consent;III.performance of promises.
2,中国的教育体系是制造SB的流水线。
3,一个充满着下贱历史的国家如何走向正常? |
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