紐時賞析／上任僅2月…川普政府蔑視司法 哈佛學者：手段比獨裁者更惡劣

Trump’s Judicial Defiance Is New to the Autocrat Playbook, Experts Say

川普蔑視司法 手段比獨裁者更惡劣

President Donald Trump’s intensifying conflict with the federal courts is unusually aggressive compared with similar disputes in other countries, according to scholars. Unlike leaders who subverted or restructured the courts, Trump is acting as if judges were already too weak to constrain his power.

美國總統川普和聯邦法院間衝突日益加劇，學者指出，與其他國家的類似爭端相比異常激烈。川普不像那些顛覆和重組法院的領導人，反而像是法官過於弱勢，完全拿他沒轍。

“Honest to god, I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Steven Levitsky, a Harvard University political scientist and coauthor of “How Democracies Die” and “Competitive Authoritarianism.”

哈佛大學政治學家、書籍「民主國家如何死亡」和「競爭式威權」共同作者李維茲基表示：「說真的，我從未見過這樣的事。」

“We look at these comparative cases in the 21st century, like Hungary and Poland and Turkey. And in a lot of respects, this is worse,” he said. “These first two months have been much more aggressively authoritarian than almost any other comparable case I know of democratic backsliding.”

他說：「我們檢視這些21世紀的比較案例，如匈牙利、波蘭和土耳其。從許多面向看，這個狀況更糟。川普就任最初兩個月的狀況，比我所知的其他任何民主倒退案例更加激進獨裁。」

There are many examples of autocratic leaders constraining the power of the judiciary by packing courts with compliant judges or by changing the laws that give them authority, he said. But it is extremely rare for leaders to simply claim the power to disregard or override court orders directly, especially so immediately after taking office.

他表示，獨裁領導人透過在法院安插順從的法官，及修改賦予他們權力的法律限制司法權力的事例很多。但領導人直接宣稱擁有無視和凌駕法院命令權力的狀況極為罕見，特別是在上任後就立刻這麼做。

In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has purged thousands of judges from the judiciary as part of a broader effort to consolidate power in his own hands. But that required decades of effort and multiple constitutional changes, Levitsky said.

在土耳其，總統厄多安已將成千上萬名法官從司法體系中清除，這是他為鞏固自身權力所付出更廣泛努力的一部分。李維茲基說，但這需要歷經數十年的努力和多次修憲。

In Hungary, Prime Minister Victor Orban packed the constitutional courts with friendly judges and forced hundreds of others into retirement but did so over a period of years, using constitutional amendments and administrative changes.

在匈牙利，總理奧班在憲法法院安插對他友好法官，並迫使其他數百名法官退休，但他數年來是利用憲法修正案和行政改革這麼做的。

Over the weekend, the Trump administration ignored a federal judge’s order not to deport a group of Venezuelan men, then later tried to retroactively justify its actions with arguments distant from settled law and ordinary practice.

川普政府整個周末都無視一名聯邦法官下令禁止驅逐一群委內瑞拉男子，隨後又溯及既往，引用與既定法律和常規做法相差甚遠的論辯，試圖事後合理化其行動。

On Tuesday, Trump further raised the stakes by publicly calling for the impeachment of the judge who had issued the order, Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court in Washington.

在周二，川普進一步提高賭注，公開呼籲彈劾發布該命令的法官，即華府聯邦地區法院法官波斯柏格。

Levitsky said he was struggling to find a precedent for what the Trump administration is doing.

李維茲基表示，他難以找到川普政府所為的先例。

“The zeal with which these guys are engaging in increasingly open, authoritarian behavior is unlike almost anything I’ve seen. Erdogan, Chavez, Orban — they hid it,” Levitsky said.

李維茲基說：「這些人幹這些事愈發激情，毫不隱諱。厄多安、查維茲和奧班等人這樣胡搞時，還遮遮掩掩。」

文／Amanda Taub　譯／羅方妤

說文解字看新聞

【張佑生】

本文探討一個許多民主國家虛有其名的現象，就是行政權獨大，不管是三權分立或是五權憲法，作者用專制(autocracy)形容此一現象，大權集於一人之手，這個人就是autocrat，和極權主義(totalitarianism)全面支配的概念不盡相同。

喬治歐威爾的名著「1984」描述政府如何全面監控民眾、洗腦、大內宣、分化內部，對極權主義的犀利批判，同樣適用於authoritarianism，現更有當選後無限擴權的electoral authoritarianism（民選獨裁）。看似矛盾，在現實毫無違和感。

政府標準作業流程的順序是先立法、依法行政、司法審查（事後），雖說監督制衡，但行政權資源最多，如果不甩國會、恣意任命體察上意(compliant)的法官及大法官，就真的是諸法皆空，為所欲為了。Compliant不單是服從(obedient)，更有順從(submissive)的含意。

Democratic backsliding（民主倒退）也稱為專制化(autocratization)，民主走回頭路。別認為這不可能，文章隨手舉出土耳其、匈牙利、委內瑞拉為例。實務上，總統制的國家似乎比內閣制國家更容易發生此一現象。