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The foundations of European Union law lie in the reasons that European decision-makers have identified, after the two World Wars, firstly, for the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community and then of the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community. These reasons, however, find their origins in the events that essentially marked the first half of the 20th century, identifying themselves, among other things, through the developments recorded by the international society, namely the international law, in general, evolutions which the European society, and, implicitly, the European Union law, would not have been possible to avoid. -
Following the Decisions of the Constitutional Court No 405/2016 and No 392/2017 there are numerous discussions regarding the regulation of the offence of abuse of office, provided by Article 297 (1) of the Criminal Code. The Ministry of Justice has proposed the amendment of Article 297 (1) of the Criminal Code without establishing a value threshold and without the circumstantiation of the injury caused by committing the facts, elements depending on which it can be assessed the incidence or lack of incidence of the criminal law, by ignoring the above-mentioned decisions of the Court. In the public debates organized by the Ministry of Justice different opinions have been expressed in the sense of establishing a derisory threshold of ROL 1 000, in another opinion a threshold of ROL 2 000 000, and in another opinion in the absence of any threshold, without any circumscribing of the offence of abuse of office. In the context of these discussions, we propose the adoption of the regulation of the French Criminal Code in which facts are clearly, precisely and predictably circumscribed.
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This article proposes a solution to identify the initial moment of the period of prescription of the criminal liability in case of the offence of deception, in the particular situation where the material element is separated in time from the immediate follow-up. In order to resolve this matter of law it is necessary to establish the legal nature of the offence of deception, from the point of view of the offence unity. If a progressive offence is in question, the form of legal unity being part of the category of offences with duration of consummation in time, the period of prescription of the criminal liability begins to run from the date of committing the action or inaction.
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The purpose of imposing the criminal processual sanctions is to respect the principle of legality that governs the criminal trial. The principle of legality, established in Article 2 of the Criminal Procedure Code, is the fundamental principle of the criminal trial according to which the conduct of the entire criminal trial, namely in all its phases (criminal prosecution, preliminary chamber, judgment, enforcement phase), takes place strictly according to the provisions stipulated by the law. The effects of this principle are materialized in a series of processual guarantees, one of the most powerful guarantees of the fulfilment of the processual and procedural acts according to the legal rules being precisely the processual sanctions. The problems which arise in the practice in connection with the application and interpretation of the regulations incidental in the matter of criminal processual sanctions have led us to proceed to the elaboration of this study.
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Reopening the criminal trial in case of the judgment in the absence of the convicted person – an extraordinary means of appeal whose admissibility is subsumed to a set of conditions and requirements the fulfilment of which is meant to offer to the defendant the guarantee of a fair trial.
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The aim of the present paper is to cover the main aspects regarding the legal treatment of witness protection in the Romanian criminal legislation by presenting, from a critical standpoint, the current regulation of the witness protection. The authors analysed essential aspects regarding the protection of threatened witnesses, the protection measures ordered during the criminal investigation, the protection measures ordered during the trial or the protected witnesses hearing, as well as the protection of vulnerable witnesses by reporting to the European Convention of Human Rights provisions and jurisprudence. Also, the present paper analyses the probative value of the protected witness statements and contains comparative law matters on witness protection laws in several European countries.
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This study focuses on the legal issues involved by the provisions of Articles 125 (3) and 132 (2) of the Constitution (according to which the office of judge or public prosecutor shall be incompatible with any other public or private office, except for the didactic offices in the higher education institutions) in correlation with the provisions of Article 41 (1) of the Constitution (according to which the right to work shall not be restricted, and everyone has a free choice of his/her profession, trade or occupation, as well as work place). Currently, the relevant administrative practice and case law interpret and apply extensively (lato sensu) Articles 125 (3) and 132 (2). Such approach leads to the presumption that any other activity performed by judges or public prosecutors is forbidden (otherwise triggering disciplinary liability thereof) unless that other activity is not related to didactic offices in higher education or is not assimilated to such offices by special law (or, as it happens most often, by a decision issued by the Plenum of the Superior Council of Magistracy). This study demonstrates that, on the contrary, the aforementioned constitutional provisions establish a presumption according to which the judges and public prosecutors can lawfully perform not only the activities which consist in „didactic offices in higher education”, but also any other activity which is not an „office” and in relation to which there is no „conflict of interest” in the light of the relevant legal provisions. In order to reach this conclusion, the constitutional and legal provisions on the concept of holding multiple „offices” must cease to be interpreted extensively (lato sensu), as it is made currently by the administrative practice and the case law, but restrictively (stricto sensu) – as those constitutional provisions constitute an exception from the constitutional principle of the free right to work, establishing a restriction of this fundamental right exercise. The legal provisions laid down in this field can be qualified as consistent with the Constitution only if their normative content does not produce an extensive application of the constitutional provisions concerning the holding of multiple „offices”. Thus, by the words „other public or private office” (with which the office of judge or public prosecutor is prohibited to be held simultaneously) one has to understand exclusively a public or private activity performed regularly and in an organized manner within an institution (organization) against a remuneration.
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The ordinary courts have the general competence to protect the rights and freedoms of individuals, whether provided or not in the international treaties or in the Constitution of Romania. The Constitutional Court’s claim to be the only one to exercise constitutional justice powers is based on a faulty interpretation of its own competence, which is constitutionally determined as being to ensure the supremacy of the Constitution, and on reducing the constitutional contentious to the contentious of rules. A correct interpretation of the constitutional provisions and the fructification of the Romanian tradition in the matter of constitutional justice demonstrate that the ordinary courts are competent to apply the Constitution in order to protect the rights and freedoms of individuals, therefore to exercise constitutional justice powers, because this is not reduced to the control of the constitutionality of the laws.
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Until the entry into force of the current Civil Code, the maintenance contract was an unnamed one and did not benefit from a regulation by the former Code or by other normative act. Often encountered, developed in time by the practice, the doctrine and the case law, devoid of rules to determine its definition and content, the maintenance contract raised problems due to the difficulty with which it was delimited from similar contracts. In this study, starting with the provisions of Article 2256 of the Civil Code, corroborated with the provisions of Article 2247 of the Civil Code, we are analyzing a real, practical situation of applicability of the provisions of the mentioned articles, showing also the solution which we consider to be the most effective, from all points of view, to solve the problem. It concerns the situation in which the maintenance contract was concluded during the lifetime of an individual who, at the time of conclusion of the contract, suffered from a disease which caused his death.
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Engaging the civil tort liability has as finality the full reparation of the damage. Reparation is a legal means by which the victim may claim to be reinstated in the situation prior to the commission of the illegal act. The right to reparation depends on an objective fact, that of causing the damage. The condition of the certainty of the damage is its most important character. If the damage is not certain, it can not be ascertained whether the right to reparation arose, and if the uncertainty concerns the extent thereof, the object of the claim for damages can not be established. Sometimes, in practice, it is difficult to determine whether the damage invoked is certain or possible. In relation to this condition of certainty of the damage, the damage by loss of the opportunity to gain an advantage is one of the innovative elements of the new regulation, being outlined as a distinct category of reparable damage.
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Stipulation for another and direct actions are two topical legal mechanisms that, although in theory are clearly explained, the judicial practice is hesitant in their application. At the same time, due to the multitude of similarities regarding the effects of these legal mechanisms, a confusion has been created in numerous situations both in terms of their legal meaning and their applicability. As such, a comparative study of the two legal notions contributes and facilitates the substantiation in law of the stipulation for another and of the direct actions, but also the way of application in the judicial practice. In the present study we mainly focused on presenting the origins of the stipulation for another, but also on its application over time, so far, concluding with a comparison with the direct actions, regarding the main effects of the two legal mechanisms. We hope that the judicial practice will outline in time a more effective differentiation of the two notions with a wide spread in the fields of law.
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In this article, the author advocates the necessity to adopt a special law on the liability of magistrates for committing the judicial errors through bad faith or due to their own negligence. The beginning of reforming the political system set in motion in December 1989 has generated also the change of the judicial system as a whole and, at the same time with it, of the relations between the state and the citizen, according to the principles of the constitutional democracy. As the new government system places at its foundation the individual-citizen, it was natural for the state to assume a direct liability for the violation by its judicial agents of the legitimate rights and interests of the citizens. In this framework, it was built a system of corrections for judicial errors, extended to the effective legal liability of the judges and of the public prosecutors who, in bad faith or gross negligence, have violated the processual rights of the parties in the trial, have convicted them unjustly, or have subjected them without any grounds to some repressive procedures. This system of moral and material corrections does not work, the provisions in the matter, included in the processual legislation, are not sufficient for the citizen to gain full confidence in the act of justice. A special law is necessary not only to ensure the corrections of the judicial errors, but also to exemplarily sanction the guilty parties for violating the law.
