-
This study concerns the manner in which the abuse of office provided by Article 297 (1) of the Criminal Code is presented in the Draft law drawn up by the Ministry of Justice, appreciating that the offence is defined simplistically and formally, without clarity, precision and predictability. According to the Draft law, any act of breach of the law, of a Government Ordinance or of a Government Emergency Ordinance by a civil servant is considered to be offence of abuse of service, regardless of its severity and consequences, because the legal content thereof is not circumscribed. In order not to confuse the offence of abuse of service with the other forms of civil, disciplinary, administrative, fiscal, material or contraventional legal liability, we have introduced in its definition the condition that the act be committed for material interests, and that the damage cause particularly serious consequences. In this way, the abuses in the interpretation and application of Article 297 (1) of the Criminal Code will be completely removed. -
The authors present another opinion on the subject regulated by Article 132 of the Law No 78/2000, arguing that it constitutes a special legal aggravating circumstance for the offences of abuse of office and usurpation of the function provided by Article 297 and Article 300 of the Criminal Code. In the current regulation the abuse of office provided by Article 297 of the Criminal Code by reference to Article 132 of the Law No 78/2000 is not a criminal offence assimilated to corruption offences and, consequently, may not fall within the competence of the NAD unless the damage caused exceeds the ROL equivalent of one million euros. Drawing attention to the fact that the provisions of Article 132 of the Law No 78/2000 are not precise, predictable, they bring arguments in support of the thesis of the susceptibility of unconstitutionality thereof.
-
The offence of international illicit trafficking in risk drugs is provided in Article 3 (1) of the Law No 143/2000 on preventing and combating illicit drug trafficking and consumption, and, following the amendment brought by the Law No 187/2012 for the implementation of the new Criminal Code, is currently punished by imprisonment from 3 to 10 years and the interdiction to exercise some rights. Prior to the amendment, the punishment was imprisonment from 10 to 20 years and the interdiction to exercise certain rights.
-
The recent case law of the Romanian Constitutional Court gives shape to a new doctrine regarding the Court’s role in ensuring the national legislator’s compliance with the European Union’s competences. In order to identify the new doctrine’s background, the current article analyzes the evolution of the Romanian constitutional case law on the application of Union law. Subsequently, the current position of the Constitutional Court is extensively described, emphasizing both its immediate consequences and possible future developments. -
This study deals with the mediation in the criminal side of the trial. The legislator has limited the scope of application of the mediation in the criminal side of the trial to the offences in respect of which the criminal action is set in motion upon the prior complaint of the injured party and is extinguished by the withdrawal of the prior complaint, on the one hand, and to the offences in respect of which the criminal action, although set in motion ex officio, is extinguished by the reconciliation between the injured party and the perpetrator. The mediation procedure in the criminal side of the trial is marked by three stages: the pre-mediation stage, the stage of actual mediation and the stage of closing the mediation. The pre-mediation stage is marked by an initial moment, when the conflicting parties present themselves to the mediator, and by a final moment, when mediation is either accepted or refused. The stage of actual mediation takes place in the form of some mediation sessions and it concentrates the most important activity of the mediation procedure. After the mediation takes place, the procedure is closed by concluding an agreement between the parties as a result of the settlement of the conflict, by the mediator’s finding of the mediation failure or by the submission of the mediation contract by one of the parties. Within the mediation in the criminal side of the trial, three legal acts are drawn up: the mediation contract, the minutes of closing the mediation and the mediation agreement. The mediation contract ends at the final moment of the preliminary stage of the procedure, when the conflicting parties appear before the mediator. Upon closing the mediation procedure, the mediator draws up a minutes. It is mandatory to draw up the minutes, regardless of the modality by which the mediation procedure is closed. If the mediation is closed by settling the conflict between the parties, the minutes of closing the mediation procedure is doubled by a mediation agreement. In criminal matters, the mediation agreement in writing is mandatory.
-
The study is grounded on the thesis according to which the contestation against execution aimed at reducing the punishment imposed on the convicted person under the special cause of reducing the punishment provided in Article 19 of the Law No 682/2002 on the protection of witnesses is inadmissible.
-
The notion of „principle” has known three approaches throughout its history: ontological (philosophical), logical, and normative. Ontologically, it would mean the primary object of knowledge stemming from the intellectual act, by the procedure of induction, generalization (a form of reasoning), starting from the particular and ending with the general, from facts to concepts. In a logical sense, it is a general proposal induced from particular rules, being a source for deductive reasoning wherein the conclusion follows necessarily premises that are sources of orientation: ideas, facts, situations. Legal logic has a wide content, and it is considered that logical principles denote, on the one hand, a body of rules stemming from a methodic and reflected development, rules ordered systematically, and, on the other hand, the axioms that substantiate a rational structure. This is how principles are linked with the perpetual work of sensibly organizing the law (the activity of legislation). In a normative sense, the principle no longer describes the object or a form of logic, nor does it describe an axiom or a reason-based system of rules, but a legal norm/standard whereby an obligation is asserted, establishing a resource for the legal interpreter. Interpretative adages which relate, however, to formal rules of logical reasoning, may clash and lack any compelling force, being used by the judge in the development of his/her own policy. The role of the principles is to ensure the coherence and harmony of the legal system, since they are the expression of superior values embedded in the spirit of the law. Regarding the content and the extent of the principle of legal certainly, legal literature has identified three levels of approach: pre-judicial legal certainty; procedural legal certainty and post-judicial substantial legal certainty; all of them meet to ensure the „predictability of the law” so that the parties/the litigants have a feeling of certainty.
-
Conform prevederilor art. 396 alin. (6) C.pr.pen., instanța pronunță încetarea procesului penal atunci când există vreunul dintre cazurile prevăzute la art. 16 alin. (1) lit. e)–j) C.pr.pen. Unul dintre aceste cazuri, prevăzut de art. 16 alin. (1) lit. g) teza ultimă C.pr.pen., se referă la situația în care „a fost încheiat un acord de mediere în condițiile legii”. (Curtea de Apel Galați, Decizia penală nr. 1278/A/8.12.2016 dată în Dosarul nr. 1324/233/2016, cu notă aprobativă)
-
This article has as object of study the issue of the marriages of convenience concluded for the sole purpose of ensuring the right of entry and of stay of a foreign citizen on the territory of Romania. In elaborating the study plan we have considered: a first introductory part which presents the normative basis relative to the legal regime of the foreigners; a section devoted to some decisions of the Romanian Constitutional Court which has been entrusted over time with analysing the concordance of the provisions regarding the legal regime of foreigners with our Fundamental Law; a point devoted to the European legislation relevant for the issue under our examination and a practical part which reveals how Romanian courts have settled cases concerning the assessment of the marriages of convenience. -
The current Civil Procedure Code has brought some changes in respect of the evidence with the interrogatory, changes which are discussed in this study. Thus, for example, the court has the possibility to proceed to the confrontation of the parties and, in case of the interrogatory of the persons who are abroad, according to the new regulation, the condition of domicile situated abroad is no longer necessary, being sufficient for the party to be abroad for a longer period of time. I have discussed punctually the administration of the evidence with the interrogatory in the case of the natural person, in the case of the legal person, in the situation of the persons who are abroad, as well as the effects of the absence from the interrogatory or of the refusal to answer to it. Since the confession is currently regulated by the Civil Procedure Code, unlike the former regulation, when it could be found in the Civil Code of 1864, I have presented the most important aspects concerning the judicial confession.
-
The legal epistemology justifies the interest of this study for the relations which are established between the notions of branch of law, of sub-branch of law, of legal institution, as well as their relations with the forms of legal liability which they regulate. In the problems of the dynamics of the relations between the branches of law and the forms of legal liability the rule is that every branch of the law knows or generates at least one form of legal liability. Starting with the theoretical challenge launched by Professor Antonie Iorgovan, regarding the elements that announce the appearance of a new form of legal liability within or outside a branch of law, the novelty proposed by this study consists in the approach of the inverse relation, precisely of the capacity of a new form of legal liability to generate a new branch of law, as well as its reception by a legal science of branch. The verification of the validity of the capacity of mutual cogeneration between the forms of legal liability and the branches of law will be achieved by means of the examples of the relations established between the ecological liability and the environmental law, the objective liability and the insurance law, the managerial liability and a possible managerial law on the ground of legal methodology.
-
In the Draft law drawn up by the Ministry of Justice, the offence of abuse of office provided by Article 297 (1) of the Criminal Code is defined simplistically and formally, without clarity, precision and predictability. According to the Draft law, any act of breach of the law, of a Government Ordinance or of a Government Emergency Ordinance by a civil servant is considered to be an offence of abuse of office, regardless of its gravity and of its consequences, because its legal content is not circumscribed. In order for the offence of abuse of office not to be confused with the other forms of civil, disciplinary, administrative, fiscal, material or contraventional legal liability, we have introduced in its definition the condition that the deed must be committed for material interests, and the damage must cause particular serious consequences. In this way, the abuses in the interpretation and application of Article 297 (1) of the Criminal Code will be completely removed.
