法治新論：民主與法院

The Rule of Law Revisited: Democracy and Courts

傳統的法治觀念堅持認爲，應該由法律而非特定的個人恣意來統治社會，即堅持法的統治而非人的統治，以確保社會治理的有序性、可預測性、恒常性，幷防止出現暴政。然而，這一法治理想在司法實踐中難以實現幷引發諸多爭議，因此需要對法治重新做出評價，承認民主政府必須將人的貢獻和法律的貢獻結合起來，以盡可能地實現正義和法律之間的相互協調而非相互衝突。有鑒於此，本文旨在提出一種基於非基礎主義的法治新進路，同時從傳統主義者和批評者的角度對民主、司法及立法責任提出一種不同的闡述，强調在公正治理的民主實踐中，法律和人是相互作用、相輔相成的，法官既不是完全爲法律所壓制以致無法行使個人判斷，也不是完全不受法律限制以致恣意地實施個人判斷，從而重新界定民主社會中的法律和政治以及兩者之間的相互關係。

At the heart of the rule of law is the powerful idea that it is law that should govern society and not the arbitrary will of particular persons—a government of laws, not persons，in order to ensure the orderliness, predictability, consistency of social government and prevent tyranny. However, the ideal of the rule of law is difficult to realize in judicial practice and causes many disputes. Therefore, it is necessary to re-evaluate the rule of law and recognize that democratic government must combine human contributions with legal contributions, achieving as much coordination as possible between justice and law rather than conflict with each other. In the light of this, the essay aims to propose a new approach to the rule of law based on non-fundamentalism, and at the same time to elaborate democracy, justice and legislative responsibility differently from the point of view of traditionalists and critics. It is emphasized that in the democratic practice of fair governance, law and people interact and complement each other. Judges are neither totally oppressed by law so that they cannot exercise their personal judgments, nor entirely unrestricted by law so that they can arbitrarily exercise individual judgments, thus redefining the law and politics in a democratic society and the relationship between them.