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The legislation on the matter of stamp duties, although it should be free of problems of interpretation, is no exception to the fact that the interpretation is the one that generates problems in the application of legal norms. The related controversies reveal that the current regulation inclusive is far from the desideratum to maintain a fair balance between the public interest to collect these budgetary resources in the quantum envisaged by the legislator and the interest of the litigant not to have the relevant legislation interpreted to his detriment. There are difficulties concerning the determination in practice of the actions which the legislator regulates generically by formulating „cash assessable actions and claims”, a phrase used in Article 3 (1) of the Government Emergency Ordinance No 80/2013. The same situation we encounter in the case of applications determined by the phrase „applications not assessable in cash”, phrase used in Article 27 of the Government Emergency Ordinance No 80/2013, with which the legislator intends to cover all the categories of applications not regulated in the previous texts. Other difficulties, revealed inclusively by the decisions of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, concern the interpretation of the phrase „different finality”, used in Article 34 (1) of the Government Emergency Ordinance No 80/2013, for the situation of the actions with multiple claims. Since these three phrases evoke genuine principles underlying the manner of regulation used by the legislator in the matter, by the controversies reviewed, the study argues either the necessity of the minimum approach of defining the terms contained therein by the author of the normative act, or that of rewriting it pursuant to an inventory of the objects of the claims encountered in the judicial practice. This inventory is easy to obtain by the legislator from the courts, with the necessity to update it, after taking over in the normative act of domain, either by the regulations that generate new categories of applications addressed to the justice, or by amending accordingly the normative act having as object exclusively the stamp duty fees. However, this regulatory manner is used by the legislator in the legislation by which it establishes tax obligations, duties and taxes respectively. It is easy to imagine the implications of some norms susceptible to interpretation in this latter matter, which, in essence, has the same nature as the one in question. -
The law provides that all declared claims will be subject to the verification procedure, with the exception of claims established by enforceable court judgments and enforceable arbitral awards, as well as budgetary claims resulting from an uncontested enforcement title within the time limits provided by special laws. In case the court judgments or arbitral awards are annulled, quashed or modified in the means of appeal, the judicial administrator/judicial liquidator will restore the table of claims accordingly. In case the court, by annulling or quashing the judgment, does not settle also the merits of the case, the judicial administrator or the judicial liquidator will proceed to the verification of that claim, by notifying the creditors in the event of total or partial non-inclusion of the claim, the creditors having, against the measure of the practitioner, in the Bulletin of Insolvency Procedures the extract of the report of the judicial administrator or of the judicial liquidator in which that measure is described. The judicial administrator will proceed immediately to the verification of each application and of accompanying documents and will conduct a thorough investigation to determine the legitimacy, the exact value and priority of each claim. For this purpose, the insolvent practitioner has the right to request explanations from the debtor, will be able to discuss with each debtor, requesting additional information and documents, if he considers it necessary. The regulation included in paragraph (2) of Article 106 of the Insolvency Code has an absolute novelty character, because until the appearance of the Law No 85/2014 the judicial administrator/judicial liquidator did not have the right to establish that the extinctive prescription of the claim has arisen. This is provided that, in the conception of the new Civil Code, the prescription can only be invoked by the one in whose favour it runs. Therefore, if the insolvent practitioner will appreciate that for the amount of money declared by a creditor within the procedure the extinctive prescription has arisen, he will notify the creditor in that regard, without further checks on the pretended claim, the legislator considering that in this case it acts, although it is a body applying the procedure, as a representative of the insolvent debtor, obviously with the possibility of the creditor interested in challenging the measure to the syndic-judge. As a result of the verifications made, the judicial administrator/liquidator will draw up and register with the court a preliminary table containing all claims against the debtor’s estate, overdue or not, under condition or under dispute, arisen before the date of the opening procedure. In the table there will be mentioned both the amount requested by the creditor and the amount accepted and the priority rank, and in the case of the creditor undergoing the insolvency procedure the appointed judicial administrator/judicial liquidator will also be indicated. In the case of the simplified procedure, in this table the claims arisen after the opening of the procedure and until the moment of going into bankruptcy will be recorded. In the case of claims which benefit from a preference cause, there will be presented the title from which the right of preference arises, its rank and, if applicable, the reasons for which the claims have been partially recorded in the table or have been removed. The claims that are benefiting from a preference case shall be entered in the preliminary table with the full value, indicating at the same time the title from which the preference right arises, their rank and, if applicable, the reasons for which the claims were only partially recorded in the table or have been removed, and in the final table, up to the market value of the guarantee determined by assessment, ordered by the judicial administrator or by the judicial liquidator, by an authorized assessor. However, Article 122 (1) of the Framework-Law makes the drawing up of the final table of claims conditional upon the handover by the assessor of the guarantee assessment report. In case the capitalization of the assets over which the preferential cause takes effect will be made at a price higher than the amount entered in the final consolidated table, the positive difference will be assigned to the guaranteed creditor, even if a part of his claim had been recorded as a secured debt, until covering the main claim and the accessories that will be calculated according to the documents from which the claim arises, until the date of the capitalization of assets. This provision will also be applied in case of failure of the reorganization plan and the sale of the asset in the insolvency procedure.
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The information about the patient’s state of health, diagnosis, treatment, personal data is confidential even after his death. There is an obligation of the physician to keep the professional secrecy, which is opposable to the patient’s family members and which is maintained even after the person has ceased to be his patient or is deceased. The present study discusses aspects on the impossibility of proving a possible malpractice case, in the absence of the access of the patient’s family to medical documents, medical observations, medical sheets, and medical treatment applied to the patient deceased in the meantime. We have in view that Article 21 of the Law No 46/2003 on patient’s rights stipulates that all information regarding the patient’s condition, the results of the investigations, the diagnosis, the prognosis, the treatment, the personal data are confidential even after his death, and Article 22 of the same normative act provides that confidential information may be provided only if the patient gives his explicit consent or if the law expressly requires so. Similarly, Article 18 of the Code of Professional Deontology states that the physician’s obligation to keep professional secrecy is also opposableagainst the members of the family of that person concerned and such an obligation to preserve the professional secrecy persists also after the person in question ceased to be a his patient or deceased. Starting from these provisions, it is raised the question of the impossibility to prove a possible malpractice case, in the absence of the access of the patient’s family to medical documents, observation sheets and post-surgery treatment of the patient who deceased in the meantime.
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The present study is an analysis of the theoretical and recent judicial practice occasioned by the offences of trafficking in human beings and by proxenetism. His author has quoted relevant opinions from the specialized doctrine, succeeding in creating a complete picture of the two types of offences, and these elements were doubled by invoking some aspects of the judicial practice in the field. Some of the statements invoked in this study are criticized in an argumentative manner. The manner of conceiving the theme reveals its author’s intention to emphasize also those aspects that confer a comparison content of the offences trafficking in persons and trafficking in minors, on the one hand, and proxenetism respectively, on the other hand. In the course of the analysis, aspects related to other forms of exploitation of the person, as defined in the Criminal Code, were tangentially pointed out as well. At the same time, the article also contains some very pertinent de lege ferenda proposals, based on the good knowledge of the analyzed field.
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The study refers to the way in which national criminal processual legislation provides safeguards regarding the respect for the right to a fair trial, with particular reference to the obligation of the courts of law to properly motivate the solutions they pronounce in solving the merits or even the ordinary remedy of appeal. From the research made, the author concludes that the European standards do not find an explicit consecration in the current national legislation and identifies situations from the recent case law in which the courts have directly applied the European conventional provisions, by abolishing the sentences analyzed and sending the case for retrial by the same court even without Article 421 (2) b) of the Criminal Procedure Code providing such a case. The author proposes that it should be completed de lege ferenda the text itself previously invoked by including a case which should refer to the failure to provide proper motivation for the sentence of the court examining the merits and he continues the argumentation by proposing the extension in the same way also of the cases in which an review in cassation may be lodged against the decisions of the courts of appeal. The conclusion he reaches has in view the fact that the two legislative amendments would be likely to provide adequate safeguards to the right to a fair trial in criminal matters, without the need to resort to conventional provisions which should be conferred direct applicability, a solution often avoided by the courts in this field.
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În articolul de față ne propunem să prezentăm câteva considerații critice asupra Deciziei nr. 685/2018 a Curții Constituționale pronunțate recent1. Trebuie să precizăm, în acest sens, că nu împărtășim soluția asupra admisibilității cererii de constatare a existenței unui conflict juridic de natură constituțională, dar suntem parțial de acord cu soluția pe fond și nu împărtășim unele considerații din motivarea instanței constituționale. În ceea ce privește admisibilitatea cererii primului-ministru, suntem de părere că nu ne aflăm în prezența unui conflict de natură constituțională, ci a unuia de natură legală. Așa cum Curtea însăși a definit conflictul juridic de natură constituțională în deciziile sale anterioare2 și cum o reamintește și în prezenta decizie, este necesar ca autoritatea „pârâtă” să-și aroge competențe care îi aparțin autorității „reclamante” sau alteia sau să refuze să-și exercite propriile atribuții, iar aceasta să ducă la blocaje instituționale3; în fine, în prezenta decizie apare pentru prima dată și cerința ca blocajul să nu poată fi înlăturat în alt mod4.
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În luna martie 2010 doamna A.C.L. a achiziționat un autoturism marca Mercedes Benz 350 SL, din sumele primite donație de la părinții ei. Începând cu luna iulie a anului 20101, impozitul2 pentru mijloacele de transport3 s-a majorat semnificativ, dublându-și valoarea pentru autoturismele cu capacitate cilindrică mai mare de 3001 cm³. Autoturismul în cauză având o capacitate cilindrică de 3724 cm³, valoarea anuală a impozitului depășea 5 500 lei. Cum acesta depășea posibilitățile financiare ale doamnei A.C.L., aceasta a hotărât să înstrăineze autovehiculul, postând anunțuri pe site-urile de vânzări, precum și pe geamul lateral al autoturismului. În pofida acestor demersuri, nu a reușit să vândă autovehiculul în România din cauza cuantumului ridicat al impozitului anual, acumulând în continuare datorii la bugetul local. În cursul anului 2012 doamna A.C.L. s-a deplasat în Germania și la data de 27 noiembrie 2012 a reușit să înstrăineze autovehiculul către o societate din acest stat, al cărei obiect de activitate era comerțul cu autovehicule.
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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.
