Personality’s rights are non-patrimonial rights, inherent to the natural person, in the sense that they are directly attached to and inseparable from the real man, and they serve to the free development of his personality. The new Civil Code regulates the following rights of the personality: right to life, right to health, right to physical and mental integrity, right to dignity, right to respect for private life, right to his own image, identification attributes of the natural person, and the right to dispose of oneself. They can be grouped in two categories: rights that protect the human body and its biological functions, and rights that protect moral values. The first category of rights is governed by three principles: the principle of inviolability of the human body (which may suffer certain exceptions); the principle of non-patrimoniality of the human body, and the principle of the priority of interest and of the good of the human being. The rights which protect moral values have a content determined by their relation to a series of generic notions, incompatible with a precise definition, such as freedom, honor, private life, respect, for which reason the Romanian lawmaker strove to contour such notions; as well as by the regulation of some of the deeds which may impair such rights. Some of the personality’s rights may suffer limitations, which are imposed either by the necessity to protect some major public values, or by the exercise of other persons’ similar rights.

The new Romanian Civil Code advances a new conception regarding the divorce, essentially different from the conception with which we were familiar under the legislation that is (still) in force. Analyzing the provisions of Arts. 373-404, contained in Book II, “Family” of the new Civil Code, a note must be made of the non-dissimulated liberal “philosophy” on divorce, particularly expressed through the following features: multiplication of the reasons for divorce – in the sense that divorce by the spouses’ agreement may also take the form of a request accepted by the other spouse, the de facto separation is a distinct reason for divorce, allowing for the dissolution of marriage including out of the exclusive fault of the claimant spouse’ the “de-judiciarization” of the divorce procedure – by the fact that marriage termination does not fall under the exclusive competence of the courts of law, in the case of divorce by proper consent, alongside the judiciary means, being also available the means of administrative or notarial procedure, the latter being accessible even in the presence of spouses’ underage children, the limitation of post-divorce legal issues – by encouraging the settlement of “all issues” related to marriage, patrimonial or non-patrimonial, in the relation between spouses, as well as in the relations between parents and children, preferably by the spouses’ agreement of will and, inasmuch as possible, “in one package”, on the occasion of marriage termination. This study is dedicated to these features. In the introductory part (§1), we propose a systematization model for divorce cases, then we analyze the forms taken by divorce according to the reason for marriage termination (§2), making a distinction between divorce as a remedy – by the spouses’ agreement, at the request of either one of them accepted by the other spouse, for health reasons – and divorce by fault – for reasons that are not provided by the law, due to the de facto separation which lasted at least 2 years.

Starting from the case of Vergu vs. Romania, recently settled (January 11, 2011) by the European Court of Human Rights, the author, in light of Art. 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights, discusses the issue related to the right to a prior effective recourse with the internal (national) court of law, a sine qua non prior condition for notifying the Strasbourg Court, concluding that the European court of law (must make the severe application of the subsidiary nature principle. Only under entirely exceptional cases, with grounded motivations, in a circumspect and entirely isolated manner, may the Strasbourg Court release the claimant from its obligation to exhaust the internal means (of effective recourse with the national court).

This study analyzes the situation – which is not expressly regulated by the provisions of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms – in which, after the claimant notified the European Court of Human Rights (and until 1998 the Commission within such Court), the respective claimant demises. The study takes into account a rich history of relevant cases, resulting from the case law of the Court/Commission. In the end, after examining the mentioned cases, a series of conclusions may be briefly deducted.

According to Art. 244 para. (1) of the current (Romanian) Civil Procedure Code, the court may suspend trial if: – the settlement of the case depends, in full or in part, on the existence or inexistence of a right that forms the object of another trial; – criminal prosecution was initiated for a crime which would have a decisive influence on the decision to be issued. The author examines this text by correlation to Art. 248 et seq. of the same Code regulating superannuation. In this context, the author believes that the request to reopen the suspended case according to Art. 244 of the Civil Procedure Code for the re-initiation of trial is not a procedural act which must be fulfilled by the court ex officio. Moreover, the court of law may only re-place the case on the dockets to ascertain superannuation, on which occasion it shall have to grant trial expenses to the defendant or respondent in appeal (as applicable), which requests or produces proof of such expenses.

The system of penalties, although it marked a progress in the evolution of the Romanian penal law, however, if it is critically examined, it evidences the small number of major penalties and, especially, their emphatically repressive character. In this study, the author makes an analysis by comparison of the system of penal sanctions in the new Penal Code as compared to the current regulation, as well as in comparative law. Another issue relates to the impact of normative provisions on the judiciary individualization of penalties with reference to the individualization criteria and the appreciation margin acknowledged to the judge. The author also states that it is useful that the relevant penal regulations should provide the criterion of proportionality for the judiciary individualization of penalties.