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A Legal Study On Disciplinary Punishment Of College Students

Posted on:2014-07-29Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:S M SunFull Text:PDF
GTID:1107330434473180Subject:Ideological and political education
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In recent years, public universities’history of "no-litigation" has come to an end, with many cases rising between them and their students concerning disciplinary punishments. Students have increased their demand on rights protection. On one hand, with the progress of rule of law, relations between universities and their students have largely been regulated by national legislations which provide general rules for the universities to follow. On the other hand, these legislations have been abstract and lagged behind social development, thus leaving many areas uncovered. Therefore, in current legal framework, universities have enjoyed quite high level of autonomy, while the power tends to violate rights of students due to its expansive nature. Questions have been raised time and again in those cases concerning how to effectively harness universities’power to make disciplinary punishment while respecting their autonomous rights, how to remedy those violated students and realize fully the principle of combining punishment and education. These are also important topics to promote governing education by law and legalization in universities’ management.By norm analysis, comparison between home and overseas materials, literature review and individual interviews, the disciplinary punishment made to university students is studied from the following four aspects. Firstly, a review of history and current situation is made regarding university systems of students’disciplinary punishment by going through related laws, rules, regulations, local normative documents and representative university codes and discussing relevant questions and reasons. Secondly, adopting comparative analysis, systems of student disciplinary punishment by universities in U.K, U.S.A and Germany will be compared from aspects of theoretical, normative basis and representative codes, emphasizing on their rational substance such as theories of special power and importance and principal of natural justice, thus providing reference when improving our own system. Thirdly, since ambiguous definition of "public institution with legal person status" can not support the university’s power to make disciplinary punishment, a theoretical discussion will be made by referring to overseas theories regarding legal status of universities and combining our practices so as to clarify universities’legal status and their relations to students, limit their power to discipline, and protect students’rights. Finally, overall policy suggestions will be given to improve universities’system of disciplinary punishment based on value orientation, institutional norms, procedural protection, right remedies and educational appraisal.It is discovered by this study that, our current system of disciplinary punishment is in deficit of spirit of rule of law and humanity for lacking normative rules, democratic participation in rule making and execution, remedies to students’rights and humanity in management of higher education. In U.K, U.S.A and Germany, relevant systems give more emphasis on protecting student rights by clearly provided and operative rules, due process when punishing and judicial review on cases of violating students’rights. Based on institutional comparison and reference, it is held that those questions have been rooted in the ambiguous legal status of university. In other words, the unclear "public institution with legal person status" provided for university by law can not resolved complex relations existing between university and its students, giving limits on university’s power to discipline. As a result, when conflicts occur between autonomy of university and rights of students, no effective legal supervision and remedy can be made. Therefore, considering practical situation of our universities, they should be recognized theoretically as special legal person among other public legal person and enjoy certain public power, fulfill specified functions of providing higher education, and have special relations with their students with complex contents,, such as certain administrative legal relation when exerting certain public function. Within legal authorization, university has the power to give disciplinary punishment to its students, but should follow due process, provide legal remedy when violating theirs basic rights at most, and accept judicial review. Ultimately, it is suggested that university’s disciplinary punishment should adhere to humanity, provide education by law and strengthen thoughts and ability of handling students’disciplinary violations by rule of law and legal means. The orientation of management should be replaced by student right, which focuses on protection of student right, upgrades legislative level of disciplinary punishment, limits clearly the disciplinary power, and pays attention to due process and legal remedy. In the meantime, educational appraisal should be emphasized after punishment by establishing the system of service punishment, which allows student realize and correct their wrongdoings in doing labor services. For those who have demonstrated their repentances, the punishment decisions can be removed and withdrew from their personal documents.
Keywords/Search Tags:universities, university student, disciplinary punishment
PDF Full Text Request
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