The object of the paper are the standards which, according to the European Court of Human Rights, must be met by the procedure of hearing witnesses so that the defendant be given an adequate and proper opportunity to question them and the requirements of the fair trial be satisfied. Those standards include a relative right of the accused to confront the prosecution witnesses, the right to legal assistance and the principle of immediacy of witness examination. The latter principle has certain implications regarding the requirement that witnesses should give evidence at trial and that the hearing of witnesses should be repeated in the appeal proceedings and in other situations in which new judges are appointed during trial. It is applicable, pace the Constitutional Court, in the procedure concerning the confirmation of the prosecutor’s decision to discontinue the proceedings. All along the study we follow the way in which the European Court of Human Rights uses the method of combination of criteria to evaluate the interferences with the rights of the accused.

The article presents the considerations of the Decision No 250/2019 of the Constitutional Court of Romania and the practice of the European Court of Human Rights regarding the change of the legal framework during the trial, concluding that it is ordered by a conclusion prior to the settlement on the merits. Likewise, there are presented arguments that justify the mandatory preparation of the minute in case of change of legal framework, the motivation of the conclusion and its communication. There are examined, from the perspective of the change of the legal framework, the amendments and supplements to the Criminal Procedure Code ordered by the Law No 130/2021, which bring specifications in agreement to the case law of the Constitutional Court of Romania and of the European Court of Human Rights.

There are situations in which the judicial bodies need the opinion of an expert to ascertain, clarify or evaluate certain facts or circumstances that are important for finding out the truth. Forensic expertises have a special regime in relation to other types of expertises, which can be performed only in sanitary institutions of forensic medicine, subordinated to the Ministry of Health. The supreme scientific authority in the field of forensic medicine is the Superior Forensic Commission, which operates under the Institute of Forensic Medicine „Mina Minovici” Bucharest. This article aims to clarify the probative value, in a criminal trial, of the advisory opinions issued by this supreme authority, because there have been and are situations, in the judicial practice, in which there has been given superior probative value to this advisory opinion, as well as situations in which its conclusions were removed with reasons.

The problems of the land fund became of maximum importance after 1990. Romania, in relation to the new realities regarding the property, had to urgently adopt the Law No 18/1991. After more than 30 years of application, the Law on the land fund still gives rise to discussions on the topic of sharing the competence of the courts in matters of administrative acts issued in its application. The general framework in the matter of restitutions was completed by the appearance of the Law No 10/2001. Subsequently, the entry into force of the Law No 554/2004 has definitively established the legal regime of administrative acts in general. Therefore, we are at the confluence of several framework-laws in the field regarding the regime of administrative disputes, in general, and of the matter of the land fund, in particular. This study seeks to provide precisely an approach as analytical as possible of the manner the courts of law settle this issue.

According to Article 19 of the Government Emergency Ordinance No 20/2021, the doctors, regardless of specialty, acquire or lose by a Government decision which declares or terminates the state of alert, without any training, evaluation or sanction, a special professional competence to treat persons infected with SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, for which they would not be liable with their patrimony if they complied with the guides and protocols approved by the order of the Minister of Health. The regulation represents a violation of Article 34 (3) of the Romanian Constitution, generating an uncertainty regarding the existence and extent of the doctors’ rights and violating the fundamental right to the protection of citizens’ health. First, the criteria for exercising the medical profession (acquisition and loss of a professional competence) are delegated by emergency ordinance by the exceptional legislator (the Government) to the executive (the Government), in order to be established by a legal act with inferior force than the law, in violation of Article 1 (4) and (5) of the Constitution. Secondly, the fundamental rights to Life, provided by Article 2 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and, respectively, to Health care, regulated by Article 34 of the Constitution, guaranteed by the control of the medical profession (embodied in legal provisions imposing some strict conditions for acquiring professional competence and liability for the medical act), are eluded by the permission granted to non-specialists to intervene, apparently without liability, on the human body.

The behaviour of a free and conscious man is the result of his will, which is guided by a reasonable intentionality that gives it meaning. In the absence of a purpose, any action becomes chaotic, accidental and raises questions about the mental health of the person who takes action 1 . We find that the fourth essential condition, a substantive one, necessary for the valid existence of the sales contract is the cause. According to the rules of common law, in matters of legal acts, the cause is the determining reason for the consent expr essed when concluding the legal act. The obligation without cause or with an illicit or false cause cannot have any effect.