司法的道德性与法律方法

Morality of Judicature and Legal Methodology

在一些具有道德意味的案件中,法官是否具备明确的道德意识,并正确地回应社会公众的道德需求,已成为判断裁判社会效果的重要指标之一。法官应当掌握一定的裁判技巧,遵循一定的司法方法论原则,以缓和法律与道德之间的内在张力。从法律方法论的角度,司法道德性可以在四个视域内加以分析:以规则适用实现法律规则中的道德要求;以原则裁判宣谕法律的道德内涵;以客观和平衡的司法方法遵循社会主流道德观念;以确认和规制良心司法体现法官道德准则。

China is a nation with a strong moral atmosphere, thus the morality of judicature is evitable and needs to be taken seriously. In some cases with ethic factors, one of the important standards to evaluate the social effect of a judgment is whether the judge has a clear awareness of these ethic factors and responds correctly to the moral demands of the mass. But after all, the acceptability of a judgment has to be confirmed in both moral community and legal community. For that purpose, judges must use adjudicatory techniques and follow some principles of judicial methodology to mitigate the inherent tension between law and moral. From the view of legal methodology, morality of judicature can be analyzed and tested in the following four perspectives. Firstly, judges should actively find moral demands incorporated in the legal rules when applying them, and use purposive interpretation and natural law interpretation to deliver the moral implication of the legislators to the case. Secondly, judges might declare the moral meaning of the legal system by way of adjudication according to principles, when legal rules are not adequate in hard cases. Methodological constraint is necessary to eschew subjectivity and over-moralization because the legal principles are too general and vague. Thirdly, when weighing different values, judges should take the mainstream moral ideas in the society as an objective basis and apply them in a balanced way to avoid value suppression. Lastly, adjudication with conscience ought to be permitted because judges＇ self--consciences play an important role in complementing the inadequacies of the law, keeping the law to be obeyed properly, guiding the judges into the social value, and correcting the absurdity in the legal rules. Meanwhile, the adjudication with conscience should also be exercised in a regulated way.