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The probative force of the document under private signature derives from the signature of the party or, as the case may be, of the parties. The signature of a document guarantees in full faith, until proved otherwise, the existence of the consent of the party that has signed it with regard to its content. In case of the document under private signature the presumption of authenticity will no longer operate. The person to whom it is opposed a document under private signature is obliged either to acknowledge, or to contest the writing or the signature, because, until it is voluntarily acknowledged or verified in court, one can not know whether the signature belongs or not to the person who appears in the document as signatory and whether or not he has knowledge of the content of the document. The document under private signature, acknowledged by the opposing party or considered by the law as acknowledged, makes proof between the parties until proved otherwise, including with regard to the mentions in the document which are directly related to the legal relation between the parties. On the other hand, the mentions in the document not related to the content of the legal relation between the parties can serve only as prima facie written evidence. The attitude of the party, to whom it is opposed a document under private signature, not to protest against the use of that document or not to give an opinion in one sense or the other, is presumed to be a tacit acknowledgment. In case the writing or the signature has been contested by the party or declared unknown by its heirs or successors in rights, the court will proceed to the verification of the document according to the provisions of Articles 301–303 of the Civil Procedure Code. However, if the party claims that the document has been forged after signing, by erasures, additions or corrections in its content, or that the document contains an intellectual forgery, the party in question will be able to denounce the document as false, by means of the procedure regulated by Articles 304–308 of the Civil Procedure Code. The document not signed by the parties or by one of the parties is not valid as instrumentum probationis, but the legal operation (negotium iuris) remains valid and can be proved by other means of evidence, if the written form is not required by law ad validitatem. Even the document not valid as document under private signature is worth as prima facie written evidence, if it is opposed to the party who wrote it. The documents under private signature (signed) for which the formality „plurality of copies” or, where appropriate, the formality „good and approved” has not been accomplished is always worth as prima facie written evidence. In the relations between professionals it is recognized the probative force of a document not signed, but commonly used in the exercise of the activity of an enterprise in order to establish a legal act, unless the law imposes the written form in order to prove the legal act itself. The date indicated in the document under private signature has the same probative value, in the relations between the parties, with the other mentions in the document. Against third parties, the date of the document under private signature, by itself, is not evidence. Only the certain date is opposable to third parties, a date obtained by one of the methods established in Article 278 of the Civil Procedure Code or by other means provided by law. -
In the present study, the author gives us a general examination concerning the right to a fair trial and of the settlement of the case within an optimal and predictable time limit. The approach is carried out in accordance with the international and internal regulations, but also in consideration of the latest doctrinal and jurisprudential evolutions in the matter. The first part of the study is devoted to the fair trial, and the main ideas promoted in the context are related to the complex character of the subjective right proclaimed by Article 6 (1) of the European Convention on Human Rights. In the second part of the present approach there are presented the procedural meanings of the right to the settlement of the case in an optimal and predictable time limit. Likewise, some considerations have also been formulated on the legal contest concerning the delaying of the trial, a remedy deemed useful by the author, although the results involved by this institution can not be regarded as spectacular. The author also evokes the recent amendments to the new Civil Procedure Code, such as those concerning the suppression of the review filtering procedure and the possibility of extending the term for the motivation of the judgment no more than twice.
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Legal liability is a relation established by law, by legal rule, between the author of the infringement of legal rule and the state, represented by the officials of the authority, which may be the courts, public servants or other officials of the public power. The contents of this relation is complex, being composed essentially of the right of the state, as a representative of society, to apply the sanctions provided by the legal rules to the persons which are in breach of the legal provisions and the obligation of those persons to be subject to legal penalties, in order to restore the legal order.
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In this study, the author analyzes the change occurred with regard to the response to the statement of defence, by point 27 of the Law No 310/2018 amending and supplementing the Law No 134/2010 on the Civil Procedure Code, as well as for amending and supplementing other normative acts. In the old Civil Procedure Code this act of procedure was not regulated, but it was customary to submit a response to the statement of defence. The author presents how the act of procedure called the „response to the statement of defence” has been regulated, being introduced by the Law No 134/2010 on the Civil Procedure Code. Initially, in Article 201 (2) of the Civil Procedure Code, it was provided the obligativity of the applicant to submit the response to the statement of defence, after having communicated it. This obligation postponed the setting of the first trial term. The obligation to formulate a response to the statement of defence was also provided in Article 471 (6) of the Civil Procedure Code, for the settlement of the means of appeal, as well as in Article 490 (2) of the Civil Procedure Code, for the settlement of the extraordinary remedy of the review. As regards the appeal and the review, the provisions of the Civil Procedure Code have not entered into force, but it has been applied the intermediary regime regulated by Article XV (4), for the appeal, and Article XVII (3), for the review, of the Law No 2/2013 on some measures to relieve the courts, as well as to prepare for the implementation of the Law No 134/2010. By point 27 of the Law No 310/2018 the facultative character of the response to the statement of defence was enshrined. This amendment has also been extended to the case of settlement of the appeal and of the review. The author presents the arguments for which she considers that the legislator should have abandoned this procedural act, being sufficient to express the position of the applicant by way of the request for summons and of the defendant by way of statement of defence. The conclusions of the study are reflected in the opinion that the response to the statement of defence is not justified in the civil trial, creating an imbalance between the parties, the applicant being able to justify his claims both by the request for summons and by the response to the statement of defence, while the defendant has available only the statement of defence. Even if by abandoning the binding character of the response to the statement of defence, the fixing of the first term, respectively that for appeal and for review, takes place more quickly, the author proposes to fully abandon this act of procedure and considers that the legislator should have repealed the response to the statement of defence.
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The purpose of the present analysis is to determine the applicable legal regime to certain procedural acts made in bad faith in relation to the abuse of rights theory, and the lis pendens (same trial pending in the same time before two or more panel of judges) and joined cases institutions. The analysis started from a particular case in which a claimant filed two statements of claim having the same object in two considerably distant moments (7 years between them) against the same defendant. The only aspects which the claimant drafted differently in the second case file, in order to eliminate risk of identity, were the claims’ phrasing and some additional arguments in his favour which were not inserted in a proper form in the first case file. Nevertheless, through the second statement of claim, the claimant himself raised the lis pendens exception, in order to send the second case file in front of the initial judge and thus to overcome his incapacity to invoke additional arguments in the first case file. The court vested with the judgment of the lis pendens exception stated that the exception is applicable and in the case at hand. Thus, it has sent the second file to be analyzed together with the initial statement of claim. In addition to this, the court fined the claimant for misconduct represented by filing intentionally the two statement of claims having the same object. In consequence, in the present article we have analyzed the conditions to be met in order to state the presence of an abuse of rights in the light of the lis pendens and joined cases institutions. We have identified the purpose for the regulation of these legal institutions and the similarities and differences between them. In addition to this, we addressed the conduct which the court should have in order to correctly analyze the two statements of claim which are object of the lis pendens exception. Finally, our theoretical conclusions related to the three institutions were applied to our particular case, in order to prove the presence of an abuse of right.
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The doctrine of the state of law springs from the German theory and case law, but at present it is also a requirement and a reality of the constitutional democracy in the contemporary society. At present, the state of law is no longer merely a doctrine, but a fundamental principle of democracy enshrined in the Constitution and in international political and legal documents. In essence, the concept of the state of law is based on the supremacy of law in general and of the Constitution in particular. Essential to the contemporary realities of the state of law are the following fundamental elements: the moderation of the exercise of state power in relation to the law, the consecration, guarantee and respect for the constitutional human rights especially by the state power, and last but not least, the independence and impartiality of justice. In this study we are analyzing the most important elements and features of the state of law with reference to the contemporary realities in Romania. An important aspect of the analysis relates to the separation, balance and collaboration of the state powers, in relation to constitutional provisions. The most significant aspects of the case law of the Constitutional Court regarding the state of law are analyzed.
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The suspension of the administrative contract is an institution rather newly-introduced in the Romanian law, at the same time with the entry into force of the Law No 101/2016. However, this normative act exclusively regulates the judicial suspension of the administrative contract, which makes room for the following question: Can an administrative contract be suspended only by court decision and only under the conditions established limitatively by the Law No 101/2016 or in other circumstances as well, namely following a procedure other than that established by the aforementioned normative act? We believe that the suspension of an administrative contract may also be reached under conditions other than those established by the provisions of Article 53 (2) of the Law No 101/2016, either by administrative means, by a decision of measures taken by the competent bodies of the Court of Accounts, or as a result of the raising by one of the parties to such a contract, in relation to the other, of an exception for non-performance of the contract, or, finally, as consequence of the suspension of the unilateral administrative act on the basis of which such a contract was concluded, using the rule according to which the legal fate of the original act determines the legal status of the subsequent act. The subject seems to be new in our legal literature and engages extraordinary implications of substantive and procedural law. It is sufficient to mention here that the judicial suspension of the administrative contract enjoys, at the level of the Law No 101/2016, by a superficial regulation, requiring the supplementation by several provisions of the Law on administrative disputes No 554/2004, but also with those pertaining to the current Civil Procedure Code. It is this supplementation that makes it possible to clarify the institution of the judicial suspension of the administrative contract, but in a direction that raises problems which the practitioner not accustomed with the analytical doctrinal discourse could hardly envisage, of a higher depth than that encountered in the marginal comments of the legal provisions incidental in this matter. In other line of ideas, in the context of analyzing the set of prerogatives attributed by the law to the Court of Accounts, it can easily be concluded that an administrative suspension of the administrative contract is perfectly possible, ordered by a unilateral administrative act of an individual nature. Likewise, the administrative contract may end up in the situation to be suspended, as consequence of the legal suspension of the unilateral administrative act, on the basis of which the contract was concluded, an act challenged by the prefect in the exercise of the prerogatives of administrative trusteeship with which he was empowered by law. Both scenarios are binding on the use of the terminological luggage of the Law on administrative disputes No 554/2004. Lastly, the suspension of the administrative contract may be engaged also by the possible raising by any of the parties to an administrative contract, in relation to the other, of an exception of non-performance, which sends the assumed analysis to the ideological set of the civil law.
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The authors appreciate that the Constitutional Court Decision No 874/2018 is welcomed in the Romanian legal landscape. To the same measure, the authors reiterate criticism to the decision of the High Court of Cassation and Justice No 52/2018 for a prior ruling on the interpretation and application Article 27 of the Civil Procedure Code, by reference to Article 147 (4) of the Constitution of Romania and Article 31 (1) and (3) of the Law No 47/1992 on the organization and functioning of the Constitutional Court, republished, texts which establish the effects of a decision of the Constitutional Court.
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The provisions written down in the Peace Treaties of 1947 have decisively determined the international political alignment of the five former enemy states. Regardless of the divergences and contradictions occurred within the Great Alliance during the war, the post-war political situation of the defeated would have been different if the clauses of this international juridical act were drafted in accordance with the norms and customs of international law. The situation of fact became fully legitimate in the Peace Treaties elaborated by the winners and accepted by the defeated in the conditions of the lack of some viable options in the realities of the moment. -
The features that give a distinct note to European Union law, and even its specificity, in relation to national or international legal orders, whether universal or regional, par excellence lie in the immediate, direct and priority applicability of the rules that make it up. The concept of „priority” EU law in relation to the national law of the Member States is likely to complete the understanding of its specificity in relation to the situation which we encounter with reference to international law. The development and adoption of primary or secondary norms of European Union law represent true, intrinsic consequences of developments or, respectively, expectations recorded at EU level, either qualitatively or quantitatively. From such a perspective the steps we are witnessing, including those of legislative nature, must be known, understood, and accepted. Our approach considers the fundamental legal basis offered by the Romanian Constitution, republished version, but also relevant aspects found in the Civil Code, the Civil Procedure Code, Penal Code, and Criminal Procedure Code, to which we add the Insolvency Law.
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Continuous development of types of non-custodial sanctions as ways of combating crime, reducing the damage caused by it, avoiding the negative effects of deprivation of liberty, increasing the possibilities of executing these alternatives to the imprisonment and, last but not least, by reducing of detention costs have guided European Union Member States to create and introduce the most appropriate Community sanctions and measures to respond to these desires. The successful introduction of alternatives requires credibility, support of the public who must abandon the prejudice that a more relaxed criminal policy with less severe punishments encourages criminality, or that public humiliation or intrusive tracking of the persons undergoing penalties is permissible, and even necessary, to highlight the status by the offender. Equally, the successful introduction of alternatives1 depends on the judiciary that can not hesitate to make them available on a large scale whether is possible, but also on the involvement of many agencies (probation service, the bodies of the Ministry of the Interior, local authorities, etc.) to implement non-custodial sanctions.
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Among the measures initiated by the European bodies and subsequently taken over and adopted by the judicial authorities of the Member States to combat cross-border crime are those regarding the judicial cooperation in criminal matters referring to the tracing, identification, freezing and confiscation of proceeds, instruments and assets related to the offences committed by this kind of criminality. In this regard, the Report of the Commission to the European Parliament and to the Council on the progress made by Romania under the cooperation and verification mechanism, issued on 13 November 2018 in Strasbourg, through the Recommendation No 12, was sending to the Romanian authorities „the assurance that the National Agency for Management of Seized Assets is fully and effectively operational, so as to be able to publish the first annual report with reliable statistical information on the confiscation of assets coming from committing offences. The Agency should establish a system of regular reporting on the development of its administrative capacity, on the results obtained in the confiscation and management of proceeds resulted from committing offences”. The Romanian legislative authorities have indeed adopted the Law No 318/2015 for the establishment, organization and functioning of the National Agency for Management of Seized Assets and for the amendment and supplementation of some normative acts, law published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, No 961 of 24 December 2015. This first legislative approach, however, had to be supported also by other administrative and executive formalities which involved the effective establishment, organization, functioning and operationalization of this Agency, a fact ongoing even at the date thereof. It is also noted, at the time of writing this study, that this Agency is not operational and that there are ongoing, although with big delay, some procedures for organising contests and for filling several offices therein in order to become functional. Starting from these coordinates, the article contains a brief analysis of the stage in which the Romanian authorities have complied with this recommendation, together with the relevant Romanian case law, with some of the Community norms and with the model of other European states in this matter, as well as its own conclusions necessary for an as good as possible implementation of this recommendation in the Romanian judiciary system.
