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The study proposes the analysis of a jurisprudential solution from the perspective of the regulations on the tort civil liability for the prejudices caused by things in order to signal the recognition of the reparable nature of some new categories of prejudices. The arguments exposed are substantiated on the regulation of the Civil Code, but also on the opinions expressed in the classical and contemporary doctrine, supporting the need to ensure the full reparation of all prejudices caused to the victim. -
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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The following study critically analyzes the civil liability of the civil servants. It is estimated that it is about a contractual liability, however different from the patrimonial liability and from the material liability, regulated in the case of employees, respectively of the military and of other categories of personnel. The cases of civil liability of the civil servants are presented, as well as the conditions of this form of liability. Special attention is paid to the procedure of reparation of damages (imputation order or disposition and the payment commitment), including with regard to the former civil servants. Key words: payment commitment; authority; public institution; imputation decision/disposition/order; illicit deed; civil servant; obligation of restitution; injury; civil liability; material liability; patrimonial liability; guilt.
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The civil liability of judges and prosecutors for damages caused by torts related to their professional duties is a subject of actuality much debated by legal professionals, the media and the civil society as a whole. Problems such as judicial errors, arrest followed by exculpatory decisions, controls and other forms of discriminatory police abuse performed sometimes at the request of prosecutors are just some of the examples observed by many contemporary societies as dangers for the human rights and liberties. The constitutions, laws and case law provide for answers to the questions in connection with the tort liability of judges and prosecutors. Latest, it becomes visible worldwide a certain way of thinking which advocates for more restrictive rules regarding the subject. This phenomenon is noticeable not only in Romania but also in other countries, such as the United States and France. The paper proposes a synthesis of the constitutional, legal framework and case law in the United States of America, with a special focus on the Supreme Court of Justice cases regarding the civil liability of judges and prosecutors. Since the notions of absolute immunity and qualified immunity in this context are quite unknown to the Romanian legal readers, this paper should add some value to their knowledge of the way of thinking the relation between independence versus accountability of the judiciary specific to the legal traditions of the U.S. From the perspective of the U.S. case law, the paper presents some of the most relevant cases of the Supreme Court of Justice such as: Stump v. Sparkman, Griffith v. Slinkard, Yaselli v. Goff, Imbler v. Pachtman, Burns v. Reed and Buckley v. Fitzsimmons. Although quite old some of them, the majority of the conclusions resulted from this case law are still valid today, with nuances, mainly in the area of the qualified immunity for prosecutors. -
Typical as they could be for the continental legal system and bearing common landmarks recommended by the Council of Europe and European Union, France, Italy and Spain are the three examples of states best suited to illustrate the European vision on the civil liability of judges and prosecutors for the damages caused by the exercise of their legal powers in deciding upon acts and measures taken in the framework of litigation, including the final decision on the case. The analysis of these examples represents the continuation of a former study published in the same legal journal on the matter, but viewed through the lenses of the US Supreme Court of Justice and laws. Based on the Council of Europe Charter on the Statute for Judges and Recommendation on the judge’s independence, efficiency and responsibilities, guided by the case law of the EU Court of Justice and ECHR, the law and legal practices on civil liability of judges and prosecutors find their expression in slightly different manners in France, Italy and Spain, but all of them respect the paramount principle of the indirect liability which could be enacted only based on the state’s direct liability. There are some national differences but nevertheless they don’t represent deviations from the common European approach. The present study searches for all different and common views of the three states on the subject, emphasizing on the main principles that should guide the continental legal system’s states on that respect. -
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. -
The study presents the new provisions of the Civil Code on tort liability for the act of the animal and the act of the thing by establishing the scopes of these liability hypotheses. Along with the traditional rules established in the former Civil Code, as innovative elements, the legal guard was defined, in Article 1377, and provisions concerning the liability in case of collision between motor vehicles and the liability for things that fall down or are thrown out of a dwelling place owned with any title were introduced. -
The author believes that tort liability for the “ruin of building” (regulated in a similar manner in the current Romanian Civil Code – art. 1002 –, and in the new Romanian Civil Code – art. 1378 –, the latter not yet in force) was erroneously regulated as a special form of the liability “for things”, when, in reality, the liability for the “ruin of building” is simply a case of liability “for things” (art. 1000 paragraph 1 of the current Civil Code; art. 1376 of the new Civil Code). Also, the author severely criticizes the legal regulation in both Codes due to the fact that it limits the tort liability of the owner of the ruined building exclusively to the situations in which the ruin of the building is due to the lack of maintenance or to any construction fault. -
We have taken into account that there have been several discussions with regard to medical legal liability, related to such a domain of maximum sensitivity, which is why the regulation of this form of liability is fully justified. Thus, medicine, being a social activity, cannot be deprived of a legal regulation that would protect the interests and rights of both the medical staff and, especially, of the patients. The liability based on the medical error cannot be one of an objective type, because, in principle, the doctor’s obligation is one of diligence and in rare cases it is one of result; depending on this aspect, at the time when the doctor guarantees a certain result, expressly expressed by him, his mistake will have an objective foundation. There have been doctrinal controversies in order to correctly qualify the type of liability that can be engaged depending on several factors, liability that may be civil tort, contractual, civil special or professional one, as appropriate. We have considered necessary to emphasize that the foundation of liability is represented by the relations established between the patient and the doctor, between the patient and the units providing medical services, units that can be in the public medical service or circumscribed to some private forms of practising medicine.
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The present study begins with the analysis of the texts of Article 630 of the Civil Code, where there can be found the legal relevant provisions, followed by some considerations regarding the origin of the civil liability for the abnormal neighbourhood inconveniences under the influence of the old Civil Code. Furthermore, the author appreciates that, at present, from the economy of the texts of Article 630 of the Civil Code, it results that the civil liability in question is of two types: reparative and preventive. Further on the scope of this liability is circumscribed. For this purpose, on the one hand, it is established the sphere of the persons between whom it can be engaged, and, on the other hand, there are determined and qualified the neighbourhood inconveniences that can generate it. An important and ample space is conferred to the analysis of the conditions that must be met for the existence of this liability, as well as to the detection of its theoretical foundation. Thus, in the reparative variant, the existence and the engagement of civil liability requires to cumulatively meet three conditions; two of them are the general conditions of any reparative civil liability – damage and relation of causality – and a special or particular one, which is the abnormal neighbourhood inconvenience caused to the victim, directly or indirectly, personally or by another, by the owner or owners of one of the neighbouring buildings. Therefore, it can be easily established that the fault or guilt, proven or presumed, of the neighbouring owner or of other persons, who exercise the attributes of the property right, over or beyond its normal limits, is not a necessary condition of engaging this reparative civil liability. Consequently, the problem of the theoretical foundation of liability is also solved legislatively, in the sense that we are in the presence of an objective civil liability, without the guilt of the liable person or of other persons, according to Article 630 (1) of the Civil Code.
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In any democratic state the activity carried out by the body of magistrates must be limited exclusively to the law and in compliance with the Constitution, because, otherwise, those judgments pronounced by ignoring these requirements, the fundamental rights and freedoms of the citizens, may lead to the commission of some judicial errors, through which the litigants suffer both from damage of material, but especially moral nature. -
