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By Decision No 405/2016, the Romanian Constitutional Court (CCR) ruled that the provisions of Article 297 (1) of the Criminal Code (misfeasance in office or misconduct in office) are constitutional only if the sentence „fulfils wrongfully” has the meaning of „fulfils by breaching the law”. However, in more than two years from the publication of this Constitutional Court Decision, it is worth to notice that the jurisprudence of the criminal courts knows diametrically opposed interpretations. In one opinion, the Decision is interpreted as of the utmost generality, while a second opinion regards the CCR provisions as being of strict interpretation, whereas for the existence of the respective criminal offence is necessary that the public servant breach one of the laws that govern his activity or at least a provision that is part of its duties in office. The article presents the jurisprudence of the Romanian courts related to the crime of „misfeasance in office” while examining it in the light of the requirements of the principle of legality and of the CCR Decision considerations. -
Cybercrime has become a serious threat to the fundamental rights of individuals, to the rule of law in cyberspace and to the functioning of democratic societies. Cloud Computing provides several benefits such as increased flexibility, scalability and reduced cost. However, it also provides several challenges for digital forensics and criminal investigators. In an investigation involving Cloud Computing services, investigators may seek access to the data held on computer systems located in foreign jurisdictions, held by foreign service providers or where the physical location of the data is unknown. Despite a growing adoption of Cloud Computing, law enforcement agencies and the judicial system are unprepared to prosecute Cloud-based crimes. This article considers various forensic challenges for law enforcement in a Cloud Computing environment and discusses measures against cybercrime, involving electronic evidence given the transnational and volatile nature of electronic evidence. By focusing on problems and solutions we examine the whole extent of legal measures that need to be implemented.
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The Court of Justice unitarily interprets the law of the European Union by way of the preliminary reference procedure. Social networks make available to every person possibilities of individual communication or in communities. The meeting between the Court of Justice and the social networks is not new, but now the European Court has consolidated the interpretation of the notion of controller within the regulations on personal data protection. The administrator of a page hosted by a social network is a controller within the meaning of European legislation. The study attempts to correlate the main attributes of the controller with the functions of the administrator of a page hosted by a social network and to deepen the liability of this administrator.
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For the Romanian legal system, the case law does not have the quality of formal source of law. Nevertheless, the legal reality, also seen from a historical perspective, has demonstrated the essential role of the judicial practice in interpreting and enforcing the law, in constructing the argumentative practices, in clarifying the will of the legislator, and in discovering less obvious meanings of the legal norms, and last but not least to the unification of legal thinking and practice. Therefore the case law, together with the doctrine, is an important component of the Romanian legal system. Staring from these considerations, in this study we aim to emphasize a few aspects of constitutional case law. We are underlining its contribution to the emergence of the constitutionality control of laws in Romania. Under the influence of the Constitution of 1866, which did not regulate such a control in an institutional manner, the courts have assumed this competence by interpreting the law and by jurisprudential way. There are also presented and analyzed important contributions of the case law of the Constitutional Court, but also of the judiciary courts to the development of constitutionality control in our country. We support the idea that the case law currently plays an important role in the interpretation of the constitutional norms, including in terms of deepening the forms of constitutional control.
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In this study, the author presents, from the point of view of the constitutional law, the complex process of re-emergence of the state formations after the break-up of the Roman imperial administration at the end of the 5th century. The collapse of the boundaries of the West Roman Empire and the penetration of the conquering migratory populations to its centre have generated not only the destruction of the military capacity of the empire and its army, but also of the political institutions and of the entire Roman administration. Practically, the Roman state has entered an advanced dissolution process that has led also to the replacement of the old production relations with new relations. Instead of the Roman administration, rudimentarily organized patriarchal formations which responded to the new military conditions imposed on the indigenous population by the conquering populations appeared. At the same time with these, in the former Roman provinces, the Christian churches continued to carry on a social organization activity. Practically, the Christian Church took over some social organization and management functions, specific in the past to the Roman administration. The gradual conversion of the conquering populations to Christianity has stimulated the process of restating and the emergence of the first barbarian kingdoms. The Church had thus an overwhelming role and hastened the re-emergence of the statehood on the former territories of the vast Roman Empire. Finally, new states have emerged on the European continent, with well defined ethnic physiognomies and endowed with a political administration based on constitutional principles that have proven their validity in the subsequent centuries. At the same time with the formation of the new states, a new theory of the political institutions has been forged and gradually developed, in which, along with the elements of laic thinking, many precepts of Christian religion can be emphasized.
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The Insolvency Code, in Article 65, provides as follows: „(1) The procedure shall be initiated on the basis of an application filed to the tribunal by the debtor, by one or more creditors, or by the persons or institutions expressly provided by the law. (2) The Financial Supervisory Authority files an application against the entities regulated and supervised by it, which, according to the data available to it, satisfy the criteria provided in the special legal provisions for opening the procedure provided by this Law.” As such, it can be said that the scope of the persons to whom it is recognized the right to refer the matter to the court is delimited by the legal provisions, excluding the ex officio referral to the tribunal, contained in the old regulation of the Commercial Code. The Framework-Law shows very clearly that the debtor in insolvency is obliged to submit an application to the tribunal in order to be subject to the provisions of this Law, within maximum 30 days of the occurrence of the state of insolvency, being able to come before the tribunal with such an application also the debtor for whom the occurrence of the state of insolvency is imminent (Article 66), any creditor entitled to request the opening of the procedure provided in this normative act against a debtor presumed to be in insolvency having the right to initiate, in its turn, an introductory application (Article 70). Given that the debtor himself is the most suitable person to know the state of insolvency or the imminent insolvency of his patrimony, it was normal for the legislator to admit that it had an important role in the initiation of the collective procedure. The creditors, not having the right to request the opening of the imminent insolvency procedure, but only for current (presumed) insolvency, could not act before a real and manifest imbalance was produced in the debtor’s patrimony, when the financial difficulties were already revealed by the inability to pay the due obligations.
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The present study analyzes how the trial procedure for the application for voluntary intervention was regulated by the Law No 134/2010 on the Civil Procedure Code and the arguments for which the author considers that it is not justified to change this procedure by the Law No 310/2018 for amending and supplementing the Law No 134/2010 on the Civil Procedure Code, as well as for amending and supplementing other normative acts. The result of the study is reflected in the opinion according to which the conclusion of rejection as inadmissible of the application for voluntary intervention had to be maintained in the form existing before the adoption of the Law No 310/2018, namely that it can be challenged separately. Thus, the conclusion of the admission in principle could only be challenged at the same time with the merits, whereas in the event that the application for intervention is rejected as inadmissible, the conclusion could be appealed within 5 days, which was running from ruling for the present part, respectively from the communication for the missing part. The legal remedy was only the appeal, if the conclusion was given at first instance, respectively only the review to the hierarchically superior court, if the conclusion was pronounced in appeal. The settlement of the legal remedy took place within a short time limit of no more than 10 days of registration, the file being submitted to the judicial control court in a certified copy for conformity with the original, within 24 hours of the expiration of the time limit. The legal remedy had suspensive effect, the examination of the main claim being suspended until the appeal is settled. By the Law No 310/2018 it was amended the court procedure, referring to the means of appeal that can be exercised against the conclusion through which the application for voluntary intervention was settled. In this regard, irrespective of the fact that the court admits or rejects the application, the conclusion can only be challenged at the same time with the merits. In this way, the potential intervener has to wait for the finalisation of the litigation to be settled before the first instance or before the court of appeal, in order to be able to benefit by his right. If the means of appeal exercised against the conclusion of rejection of the application for intervention as inadmissible, the judgment pronounced is cancelled by law, following that the case be re-judged by the court before which the application for intervention was formulated, which is usually the first instance, but, by exception, it may also be the instance of appeal. The resumption of the trial is made at the time when the admissibility in principle of the application for intervention is discussed. In the author’s opinion, by the re-examination at this point, the process is delayed, since all the procedural acts carried out must be resumed. Maintaining the possibility of separately challenging of the conclusion of rejection as inadmissible of the application for voluntary intervention, in the author’s opinion, was contributing to the unitary settlement of the litigation at the first instance, and by regulating some short time limits for the means of appeal, it was ensured the compliance with a reasonable time limit for the finalisation of the trial.
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The registers of the professionals are the main tool for knowledge, recording and control of their activity. Along with these functions, the registers of the professionals also have a probative function, the legislator including them in the category of documents under private signature, although they do not constitute a proper written evidence, but an improper one. The entries made in the registers are not made for the purpose of constituting an evidence, but of keeping the records, as established by law. But, through these entries, the professional practically recognizes the attested circumstances, the operations performed. The legal regime of registers of the professionals derogates from the principle of nemo sibi titulum constituere potest, a derogation which is explained by the nature and functions of the registers of the professionals, as well as by the conditions established by the law for keeping them. The Civil Procedure Code lays down the general rules referring to the probative force of the registers of the professionals (therefore, of the registers of all professionals, and not only of the traders’ registers), distinguishing, from a probative point of view, between the registers drawn up and kept in compliance with legal provisions and the registers kept in non-compliance with the legal provisions. The provisions of Article 280 of the Civil Procedure Code (called „Registers of the professionals”) are applicable only to registers, and not to other categories of documents, such as invoices, telegrams, faxes, receipts, etc., from professionals. The registers of the professionals can not bring evidence against the foreigners concerning the relationship among professionals, even if they are regularly kept. The delimitation of the legal relations between professionals from other civil legal relations is based on the concepts of professional and enterprise, concepts whose meanings are specified in Article 3 of the Civil Code, and Article 8 (1) of the Law No 71/2011 for the implementation of the Civil Code includes in the notion of „professional” the categories of „trader, entrepreneur, economic operator, as well as any other persons authorized to carry out economic or professional activities”. The records of the professionals kept in compliance with the legal provisions can give full evidence in court, both to the contrary and in favour of those who keep them, provided that the dispute is between professionals and concerns operations or legal acts which constitute facts and matters related to their professional activity. The registers of professionals, unlawfully kept, can not represent evidence in court in favour of those who have kept them. These registers provide evidence against the professional who kept them, but the part that prevails on them can not divide their content. The evidence resulted from the registers of the professionals is left by the legislator at the sovereign appreciation of the court, whether or not they are legally kept. The court can base its own solution even on other evidence. But, it must motivate the admission or removal of the registers as means of evidence. The registers of professionals may be presented in the trial by appearance or, as the case may be, by communication, or may be investigated by rogatory commission, provided that the documents or registers are in another court jurisdiction.
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Rome was an example of universal state becoming the strongest state of the European antiquity, remaining however in the collective memory as a mechanism that worked perfectly, determined by the Roman law system that distinguished itself by the high degree of abstraction, by the lapidary logical constructions, as well as by a perfect legislative technique. It is unanimously acknowledged that the Roman law has not remained a mere historical document, continuing to directly influence subsequent regulatory systems, proving both its viability and its living spirit. This has lead to the suggestive assertion in the specialized doctrine that „although the kingdom of the Roman people has perished, the kingdom of Roman law still lives”1, and at a brief analysis it can be established that the Roman juridical way of thinking is present in the system of the European modern legislative construction.
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In the absence of an express legal obligation that obliges the data controller to prevent conflicts of interests in its organization, there were often raised in the judicial practice problems related to the existence of a legitimate purpose of data controllers in Romania to process the personal data of the candidates within a process of recruiting the future employees, respectively their family members, affiliates or even close persons, namely of the actual possibility to comply the data controller’s obligation to inform the data subject, being whether a candidate or a person close to them. The same problems arise also in case a potential or actual conflict of interests occurs during the execution of an individual employment contract, thus while the data subject is employed by the data controller. This study therefore seeks to expose the main issues related to the fulfilment of the legal requirements applicable to personal data processing operations performed for the purpose of managing conflicts of interests both in the public sector and in the private sector, aiming at ascertaining the existence of a legitimate purpose, of the legal basis applicable to such a process in accordance with the Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation), but also the rights of the data subject, respectively the data controller’s obligations
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The consent of the patient is a legal consent and therefore it has to comply with all the validity conditions thereof. Among these, the condition of the capacity of exercise of the minor patient benefits from a special regulation by Article 661, the 2nd sentence of the Law No 95/2006. The present study intends to analyze these special provisions, by corroborating them with the regulations applicable to the legal representatives of the minor and by reference to the common law in the matter of capacity of exercise, for the purpose of accomplishing the finality of the legal provisions (protected access to the medical service) and of avoiding some blockage situations, generated by a bureaucratic interpretation.
