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The Decision of the Constitutional Court of Romania No 405/2016, referring to the plea of unconstitutionality of the provisions of Article 246 of the Criminal Code of 1969, of Article 297 (1) of the Criminal Code and of Article 132 of the Law No 78/2000 on preventing, discovering and sanctioning of corruption acts (hereinafter referred to as „Decision No 405”)1, is not a mere interpretative decision2 whereby, following the admission of a plea of unconstitutionality, it is established that a text of law is constitutional only provided that a certain wording has a certain meaning3. The recitals of the Decision No 405, to which there have been added, shortly after, those included in the Decision No 392/2017, referring to the plea of unconstitutionality of the provisions of Article 248 of the Criminal Code of 1969, of Article 297 (1) of the Criminal Code and of Article 132 of the Law No 78/2000 on preventing, discovering and sanctioning of corruption acts4 (hereinafter referred to as „Decision No 392”), have emphasized the fact that the current rules of incrimination of the deeds of abuse of office, once clarified the meaning of the phrase „defectively fulfils”, still establish a criminal liability that rather acts with priority, and not according to ultima ratio principle, and the constitutive elements of the offence do not meet the standards of drafting of such legal norms identified in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter referred to as „ECHR”), the United Nations Convention against Corruption5, as well as in various reports and positions assumed by the European Union bodies on this subject. For the assumption that these observations of the Constitutional Court would determine the legislator to reflect on the necessity to reconfigure the legal provisions in question, the Court has indicated certain points of reference that should be considered in order to ensure a regulation compatible with the international and European standards mentioned.
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This study aims at advancing solutions in view of correctly construing and interpreting certain provisions regulated under Law No 303/2004 on the status of judges and public prosecutors, in view of determining whether ex-judges and public prosecutors are entitled to benefit from the recalculation of their service pensions as a result of reaping the length of service obtained from practicing as lawyers, after retirement.
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Article 42 (3) of the Annex to the Order of the Minister of National Defence No M.110/2009 is a true legal innovation because it extends the scope of the liability for medical malpractice to hotel obligations (specific to the tenancy contract) within the content of the medical contract, but, at the same time, reduces the sphere of liable persons down to the military physician (treating physician and section chief), by exceeding the express legal limits of the liability of the physician and actually taking over not only the entire medical liability of the military hospital, but also of the medical equipment producers and of the suppliers of utilities of the military hospital.
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The author’s approach is intended for a partially critical analysis of the Decision of the Constitutional Court No 225 of 4 April 20172, by which the phrase „likely to prejudice the prestige of the profession” within Article 14 a) of the Law No 51/1995 was declared unconstitutional. The Constitutional Court has held that the criticized text is devoid of precision, clarity and predictability, as it does not circumstantiate the scope of the offences likely to cause the unworthiness in the profession of lawyer. The author considers that this solution of unconstitutionality makes an exaggerated interpretation of the incidental legal provisions, unduly restricting the right of appreciation of the competent structures of the professional organization of lawyers and of the judge called to settle any possible disputes. Within this study it is noted that there are various other situations in which the right of appreciation of the judge can not be challenged in our legal system. The approach included in this study also insists on the consequences which can be determined by the analysed solution of unconstitutionality, due to the existence of some identical or very similar provisions in respect of other liberal legal professions as well. A cavalcade of pleas of unconstitutionality, based on similar considerations, could raise for discussion other important institutions of law as well, such as those concerning the disciplinary, contraventional, civil or even criminal liability.
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This study presents a possible legislative incoherence, generated by the current form of Article 130 (3) of the Civil Procedure Code, concerning the invocation of the lack of competence of private order of the courts, which may lead to the situation of an incompetent court hearing a request, an abnormal situation in the conduct of a civil legal procedure.
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Commercial competition is „a social patrimonial or non-patrimonial relationship, arising between natural or legal persons engaged in economic activities, based on the property right, equal opportunity for competitors, the freedom of action for enterprises, the freedom of choice for consumers and the obligation of the participants in these relationships to enable the exercise of the mentioned rights, in order to ensure a degree of rivalry between competitors which would bring benefits to the consumers, in terms of price, quality of the marketed goods and services”. Competition can be manifested in various forms, namely: perfect competition, also called pure; real perfect competition; imperfect competition; monopolistic competition. From a different perspective, namely that of the respect for fair customs and of the general principle of good faith, the law distinguishes between fair competition and unfair competition. Fair competition is „the situation of rivalry on the market, in which each enterprise tries to simultaneously obtain sales, profit and/or market share, offering the best practical combination of prices, quality and related services, by respecting the fair customs and the general principle of good faith” [Article 11 a) of the Law No 11/1991 on combating unfair competition]. „Unfair competition is... the commercial practices of the enterprises that contravene to the fair customs and to the general principle of good faith and which cause or may cause damages to any market participants” [Article 2 (1) of the Law No 11/1991]. Price is an essential indicator of the social reality and also a market instrument. In the doctrine the market price is defined as „a quantity of money that the buyer is willing to offer and can offer to the producer in return for the good he can offer”. It may have anti-competitive nature when it is derisory or contrary to fair customs.
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Having regard to the number of judgments delivered in the field of property and of expropriation against Romania by the European Court of Human Rights, it is necessary to present the relevant principles which this court has set out, principles which the national judge is bound to observe and to apply to concrete cases, in accordance with the provisions of Article 20 of the Constitution. The principles not correlated with actual examples would be devoid of content, therefore the presentation of the most important examples on the basis of the state of fact emphasizes the correct reasoning of the Court, the more so as it has a limited competence to verify the compliance with the domestic law1, attribution which is the responsibility of the national judge.
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By the provisions of Article 657 (2) of the Civil Code it is regulated the situation in which the destruction of a smaller part of a building takes place, destruction that does not affect the building as a whole nor in a proportion of no more than half of its value, in which situation the co-owners are bound to contribute to the restoration of the common parts proportionally to the quota-share of each of them. The law establishes the obligativity of those co-owners who either do not want or can not participate in the restoration, to assign the quota-shares of the right of forced joint ownership to the other co-owners, meaning that it establishes a modality of extinguishing the right of private property, which, in our opinion, is likely to give rise to some situations that are hard to accept.
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Through this study, the author starts from the monistic regulation of the current Civil Code, raising for discussion the possibility of adopting a new Commercial Code, which should include all the essential regulations of the special laws in force, with regard to the legal relations in which those who pursue professional activities participate, regulations on the special status of the participants in the legal relations intended for professional activities, the trading companies and the trading professionals who are natural persons, regulations on the contracts and guarantees specific to professional activities (leasing contract, franchise contract, banking contracts and guarantees), regulations on credit titles, the regulation of the insolvency procedure, updated for all areas of professional activity.
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