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The institution of conditional release under judicial control regulated in Title IV, Chapter I, Section V of the Criminal Procedure Code, has been analyzed succinctly in the Romanian specialized legal literature. The problems arising in the context of erroneous interpretations given in practice to the legal texts regulating this institution by the courts of law derive, according to the author’s opinion, from the insufficient approach at doctrinal level of the way in which the conditions under which this measure can be ordered should be interpreted. Of course, the situation should also be analyzed in the light of the particular situation of each case. Thus, the article written by the author intends to analyze the conditions under which conditional release can be ordered after addressing an actual situation submitted to judgment by the courts. -
In the following study, the author criticizes the legal regulations in Romania (mainly the Civil Procedure Code and the Criminal Procedure Code) strictly limiting the cases of abstention and recusal of judges, proposing in the end that, in addition to these, it should be generically provided that the abstention and recusal shall also act in any other situations in which the objectivity and impartiality of the judge may be questioned.
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O cerere în constatare vizând obținerea unei hotãrâri judecãtorești care sã fie opusã organelor fiscale și în temeiul cãreia sã se beneficieze de scutiri la plata impozitelor pe terenuri și clãdiri nu poate fi primitã întrucât art. 111 C.pr.civ. condiționeazã formularea acțiunii în constatare de inexistenþa unei acțiuni în realizare (Înalta Curte de Casație și Justiție, Secția comercialã, decizia nr. 952 din 9 martie 2010).
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Potrivit art. 145 alin. 12 lit. f C.pr.pen., organul judiciar care a dispus mãsura preventivã a obligãrii de a nu pãrãsi localitatea poate impune învinuitului sau inculpatului ca pe durata mãsurii „sã nu exercite profesia, meseria sau sã nu desfãșoare activitatea în exercitarea cãreia a sãvârșit fapta”, și anume sã nu-și exercite atribuțiile de primar (cu notã criticã).
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Law does obviously not benefit from the privilege of having its own exhaustive language. We might say that most concepts used in law are borrowed from other branches of knowledge. The quite rare concepts that are its own often do not receive a definition that can be classified, according to the methodology of the act of definition itself, as “legal”. The amalgamation of legal terminology with the economic, political, sociological or philosophical terminology, without revising the concepts and without their clear understanding in the areas of knowledge from where they come makes the doctrine and the case law too often flat and stereotyped, if not even chaotic from the conceptual point of view. Lawyers are no longer seen as persons of learning, who try to explain the nature of things through justice, but as simple technicians, who apply concepts taken from other social-human sciences. Under these conditions, one of the fundamental problems for lawyers is to explain a fact that seems to be overlooked by our current culture: what is meant by a legal concept? Afterward, it becomes equally important to understand the way in which the non-legal concepts used in law should be revised, namely what the standards of the legal definition of concepts are. The above-mentioned article attempts to answer to these challenges.
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In the above-mentioned study, the author, bringing to discussion a number of provisions included in the recently adopted Law no. 202/2010 on certain measures to accelerate the settlement of trials (usually called, the Law of the “small reform” of civil procedure) detects a number of inconsistencies between some provisions of this law and the future new Civil Procedure Code (Law no. 134/2010), adopted by the Parliament, published in the “Official Journal of Romania” on 15 July 2010, but, unfortunately, not yet in force), inconsistencies that, inexorably, will generate difficulties and complications upon the entry into force of the new Civil Procedure Code.
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By the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 51/2008 regarding the legal public aid in civil matters, the Romanian lawmaker transposed the European Union Council Directive no. 2003/8/EC of 27 January 2003 in this matter. In the above-mentioned study, the author discusses – also in relation to the cases appearing before the courts – the following matters: – The elements taken into consideration when applying the applicant’s material situation; – The jurisdiction to solve the application for legal public aid in the form of exemption from, reduction etc. of the judicial stamp duty established in the appeal as the debts for the merits of the case; – The actual procedure of providing the legal aid in the form of legal assistance through a lawyer.
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The author examines the – complex – issue of the procedure – in Romania – in case of exequatur and the recognition of foreign judgments given in the Member States of the European Union, taking into consideration that in our country, at present, the common law in the matter is represented by Law no. 105/ 1992 regarding the regulation of the private international law relationships, while in case of judgments given in the other Member States of the European Union, a special law in the matter is considered, namely: the Council Regulation (E.C.) no. 2201/2003 of 27 November 2003 concerning jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in matrimonial matters and the matters of parental responsibility, respectively the Council Regulation (E.C.) no. 44/2001 of 22 December 2000 concerning jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters.
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The cases examined in this study were generated by a recent decision of the Bucharest Court of Appeal. In essence, the author considers legally admissible the conclusion of agreements between the employer and the trade union, outside the formal framework established by Law no. 130/1996 regarding the collective labor agreement, but only subject to complying with certain limits, which he presents.
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Analyzing the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights on freedom of expression (Article 10 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms), the author reveals the close connection between the concept of States’ margin of appreciation (paragraph 2 of Art. 10 of the Convention) and the quality of the Convention as “a living instrument”. Therefore, the purpose of the study is precisely the dialecticism of the relationship between the “freedom of expression” (proclaimed by the Convention) and the exercise of that freedom “that carries with it duties and responsibilities” and which, under national law, may be subject to “such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties” (granted under Art. 10 of the Convention, as well). In light of this line of thinking, the author carries forth an extensive case law of the European Court of Human Rights, expression of a broad relevant casuistry. -
In this study, the authors bring forward the main features of electronic monitoring programs and services for defendants and convicts, pointing out, concurrently, both their strengths and their weaknesses found in the implementation process. The authors also argue for a serious debate on national level, held on the imperativeness and opportunity to implement these services and programs in Romania, in the context of current penal reform.
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In 2010, considering the deadline for the entry into force of new procedure codes, there arose the need to establish procedural rules with immediate effect, under way for the implementation of codes and consistent with legislative solutions established thereupon, so as to smooth efficient enforcement of court proceedings and expedient settlement of cases. The Law regarding some measures aiming at the celerity of cases’ settlement no. 202/2010 frames a series of specific legislative measures, mainly pointing to simplify and increase the celerity of cases’ settlement, with direct impact on the execution of judgments, as well. In the study hereby, the authors analyze, from an applied perspective mainly, amendments and completions to the Code of Criminal Procedure under Law no. 202/2010 on the celerity of cases’ settlement. As regards the general part domain of the Criminal Procedure Code, there have been highlighted a series of situations, resulting from the introduction of the mediation agreement as basis for settling the criminal or the civil case, from the rethinking of the material competence of courts or from express regulation of specific cases on conflict of jurisdiction arisen during the criminal prosecution. Other comments concern completions brought in the field of evidence management, application of the institution of preventive measures’ cessation by right, or relating to enforcement of peremptory writ of mandate, payment of court fees and court fines. As a general observation, since legal provisions under review are at the beginning of their application, and the subject covered is very wide ranging, the work developed by the two authors could not set its purpose neither on their exhaustive analysis, nor on the issue, in all cases, of conclusions claimed as legal certainty, but rather attempted to bring to the attention of practitioners working hypotheses, problems that may arise and their possible solutions.
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Fundamentally, all intentional crimes may be under continuous form, the forest offence being one of them. In practice, we come across various ways of committing forest offences, through a single action or multiple actions, which may meet, separately or conjunctively, elements of the crime of illegal cutting or theft of trees, but usually, when the criminal offence is committed in a longer period of time, twice or several times, without considering whether each single action meets the constitutive elements of the crime for which the defendant is prosecuted, Art. 41 para. 2 of the Criminal Code shall apply automatically. Authors’ analysis refers to the offence’s content unit, namely that the execution deeds of the same kind must submit each the content of the same offence. In legal practice it was decided that there is no requirement that the execution deeds should be identical, but each to cover the contents of the same offense, even if some of them correspond to the variant type and the other to the qualified one and, therefore, in the test case reviewed by the authors it was enough to evidence the existence of two or more trees cutting and stealing acts carried out at different intervals, each causing a damage which exceeds the threshold value for which the act stands for a crime and it was not required that for each of them, the damage caused and the value of timber, respectively, exceed at least 50 times the average price of a cubic meter of standing timber, on the offence’s finding date. Therefore, in order to determine the continuous nature of the act, it is required to administer evidence that should establish the volume of timber (for the offense of theft), and the amount of damage (for the cutting offence), for each action – execution deed, respectively its petty offence or criminal nature.
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The existence of a state, situation or particular circumstance in which the offence is committed may ingrain it a character of legitimacy and in such circumstances it is lacking one of the essential features of the crime, the unjustified nature of the act committed. In the category of supporting causes which result in the removal of the essential trait of crime consisting in the anti-juridical character is also included the consent of the aggrieved party in respect with the commission of the crime set forth in the criminal law. In order to be ascertained as supporting cause, the aggrieved party’s consent must belong to the holder of the protected social value or to his legal or conventional representative, to be freely expressed, to be abreast with the time and to target a specific social value or values endangered by committing deliberate crimes. Consent of the aggrieved party does not preclude the unjustified character of the offence in case of criminal offenses against a person’s life, in the event of offenses whose justified effect is excluded by law, as well as in the event of criminal offences whose main passive entity is the state, and the aggrieved party acts as a secondary passive entity.
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Law no. 1/2011 on the National Education, effective since February 2011, under Art. 289 regulated anew the regime on the legal relationships of employment after retirement age for teaching and research staff in higher education in Romania (public, private or religious). In this respect, the above mentioned bill, after having established the principle that this staff shall retire at the age of 65, sets to rights terms under which academics and researchers may continue their activity in higher education establishments, following retirement. Study hereby is to review these terms.
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The study aims to analyze how the doctrine and jurisprudence, as well, have interpreted the provisions of Art. 32 of Law 18/1991, in over 20 years of applicability of the law’s wording mentioned. As it shall be ascertained, the law’s wording, improperly designed, can not be logically interpreted so as to produce the effects aimed at by the legislator, unless the restraint term of 10 years starts (has already started) its applicability since the issue date of the title deed.
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The author of the study above, consistent with a part of the jurisprudence (but inconsistent with another) holds that, in light of Art. 28 of Law no. 54/2003/ the Union Law) not just the union (within the unit the employee works at), but also the higher level trade union organization (federation, confederation, trade union) can sue on behalf of union members, part of the federation, confederation or trade union. Once started an action as such, the organization acquires not the status of the applicant, but only acts as a representative of the applicants employees (union members, holders of claimed rights). Admittedly, if subsequently to proceedings’ promotion, the unionist employee gives up the case, the trade union organization (trade union, federation, union) can not carry forward proceedings anymore.
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Acțiunea în daune-interese care vizeazã antrenarea rãspunderii civile delictuale a AVAS în temeiul art. 998-999 C.civ. nu atrage aplicarea dispozițiilor legii speciale cu privire la competența curții de apel în primã instanțã, ci pe cele ale art. 1 pct. (1) lit. a) din Codul de procedurã civilã, fiind vorba despre un litigiu patrimonial de drept comun (Înalta Curte de Casație Justiție, Secția comercialã, decizia nr. 1896 din 21 mai 2010).
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Under current Romanian law (via multiple enactments), authorized translators and interpreters (who translate legal documents of any kind), have no legal knowledge in practice frequently, but philological only (for the foreign language they are duly authorized), whereas Romanian legislation in the field (quite bushy) does not provide for the authorized translator / interpreter a law school graduation as a condition sine qua non. Hence, there are a number of serious complications in practice. Such being the case, the author suggests that those who shall be authorized as translators / interpreters (of legal documents or to legal effects), either hold a degree in law (LLB) or at least having completed relevant specialized courses (possibly at the Romanian Notary Institute).
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Review of judgments in civil proceedings is, together with the appeal for annulment, the chance for a final procedural possibility for a “remedy” legal solution so that, ultimately, an irrevocable court decision is consistent with normative propositions incidents to that legal dispute. Often, this extraordinary means of attack is not, as commonly, a “reverential” one anymore, but is “aggressive”, based upon the urgent requirement of retrial as a consequence of “passing final and irrevocable judgments in violation of the principle of Community law priority, governed by Art. 148 para. (2), in conjunction with Art. 20 para. (2) of the Romanian Constitution, republished” as stated in Art. 21 para. (2) of the Administrative Litigation Law no. 554/2004. Review mechanism, as put into operation, focuses on controversial or debatable issues, some unpublished. In this study, the authors note to identify and comment on some of the aforementioned.
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In the study under the above title, the author analyzes the legal regime of movement of privately owned land through sales agreements, focusing mainly on registration and formal requirements for a period of approximately 200 years (the early nineteenth century until the present day) Interest in the study is evident in which there were not only significant differences in time but also in space, the legal regime differing essentially between the “Old Kingdom” (Oltenia, Muntenia, Moldova and Dobrogea) and “Transylvania” (Ardeal, Banat, Crisana, Satmar and Maramures) annexed to Romania in 1918.
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The entry into force since January 1st 2011 of the Framework Law no. 284/2010 on uniform remuneration of staff paid from public funds and of Law no. 285/2010 on remuneration in 2011 of staff paid from public funds brings again to the fore the thorny issue of staff remuneration in the public sector. Fructifying the experience gained in 2010 through the implementation of the Framework Law no. 330/2009, now repealed, the aforesaid enactments regulate principles on remuneration, pay system, base rates’ setting and differentiation (pays, wages in terms of position and monthly allowances according to employment), benefits, bonuses, allowances, compensations and premiums that the public sector staff shall capitalize on, as well as legal liability and proceedings in disputes’ settlement. In this context, essential are also milestones set by the Constitutional Court via resolutions passed on issues of principle on the possible intervention by the legislator in matters of staff remuneration in the public sector.
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Law no. 202/2010 regarding some measures aiming at the celerity of cases’ settlement establishes, inter alia, a number of important (fundamental) amendments and completions to the Family Code and the Code of Civil Procedure in force in relation to dissolution of marriage through divorce under parties’ agreement. The study hereby reviews – comprehensively – amendments and completions in question, highlighting in relevant cases some critical approaches on the new regulations.
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This paper is a review of the provisions set forth in Art. 216 of the Criminal Code, which focuses on questionable theoretical and practical aspects, especially on the question of criteria for distinguishing between the offences of found property appropriation and theft offences. Likewise, the author makes a comparative analysis of the provisions of Art. 216 of the Criminal Code, reported to Art. 243 of the new Criminal Code.
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The author is dealing with the issues related to the postponement and interruption of the execution of penalty by imprisonment and by life detention according to the new Criminal Procedure Code. The study contains a comparative analysis of the new provisions and of the provisions in force both from the point of view of the doctrine, and of the jurisprudence in the field. -
Law No. 221/2009 regarding political convictions and their related administrative measures issued in the period comprised between March 6, 1945 – December 22, 1989 established, inter alia, that the victims of such convictions shall be entitled, within an interval of 3 years from the enforcement of this law (June 14, 2009) to request the Romanian State to pay moral damages (without any ceiling in terms of value) for the suffering caused by such convictions. The law was subsequently amended, in the sense that a ceiling was established for the value of such damages. In its first two decisions (No. 1358/2010 and No. 1360/2010), the Constitutional Court stated that both the original and the amended text of the law are unconstitutional, without denying, however, in principle, the fairness and lawfulness of granting such moral damages in the given situation. Until the present time, the Romanian State did not proceed to enact Law No. 221/2009, in consideration of the mentioned decisions issued by the Constitutional Court, although it was bound by the Constitution to proceed as such. Taking this situation into account, the author sets forth the idea that, at present, although we are apparently in the presence of a legislative void, the injured parties may claim, however, such damages in court, even at this time, on the strength of certain principles from the Constitution of Romania, from the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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The development of the legal framework for public procurement in the European Union represents a very important issue which presents numerous challenges. The starting point of the evolution of legal aspects in public procurement was the year of 1962, when the institutions of the European Community at that time underlined the importance of the regulation of this aspect for making the common market operational. In this respect, they militated for eliminating commercial restrictions inside the Community among the member states by making operational the freedom to establish and the free movement of services. Originally, public procurement represented a non-tariff barrier in the development of the common market, thus opening the way toward the harmonization of this field by the European Commission among its member states, including Romania. The previously mentioned legislative process was divided by the doctrine of the public procurement law in 4 stages which describe the evolution of public contracts for goods, works and services.
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Sintagma „poate fi primit în profesie” folositã în art. 16 alin. (2) din Legea nr. 51/1995 privind organizarea și exercitarea profesiei de avocat conferã consiliilor barourilor – ca organe de conducere ale organizației profesionale – o competențã specialã, un drept de apreciere în legãturã cu primirea în profesie, cu scutire de examen, în cazul persoanelor enumerate limitativ de lege.
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The following codes coexist at this moment in Romania: the Civil Procedure Code (issued in 1865, republished in 1948, subsequently supplemented and amended on numerous occasions), the Family Code (issued in 1954) and the Civil Code (issued in 1865), both of them were amended and supplemented by the new Civil Code and by the new Civil Procedure Code (published in 2009, respectively in 2010), but have not come into force yet. Under the circumstances, Law No. 202/2010 regarding certain measures to accelerate disputes resolution was enacted in October 2010; this law takes over a series of provisions from the new (civil and civil procedure) Codes. In this context, the author, by means of the above study, makes a thorough analysis of the impact of Law No. 202/2010 (mentioned hereinabove) on the notary procedures (regulated under Law No. 35/1995 regarding notaries public and notary activity, subsequently amended and supplemented in a successive manner) both at present, and from the perspective of the new (civil and civil procedure) Codes.
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On the strength of Art. 322, item 4 of the current Romanian Civil Procedure Code, the review of a decision that remained final in the appeal court or through the fact that no appeal was submitted against it, as well as the review of a decision issued by a recourse court (when the merits of a case is invoked) may be requested, inter alia, also if “a judge, witness or expert who took part in the lawsuit received a final conviction for any crime regarding a case or if a decision was issued on the strength of a writ that was declared false during or after the lawsuit or if a magistrate received a disciplinary penalty for exercising his office in bad faith or with gross negligence in that case”. The author is discussing in this study the manner in which a civil court must proceed if, at present (for the reasons provided by the criminal law), the perpetration of the abovementioned crimes can no longer be ascertained under a criminal decision.
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Fidejussion represents a form of personal guarantee, an accessory contract, particularized, in essence, by its purpose, commitment procedure and legal effects. When it comes to determining the identity and legal regime of fidejussion, there must be taken as a point of reference the triangular relation within which its three protagonists act: fidejussor, creditor and main debtor. The present work will be analyzing the conclusion and the effects of the fidejussion from the perspective of the Romanian Civil Code and the New Romanian Civil Code, with the purpose of establishing the elements of continuity and novelty brought by the new regulations.
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In this study, the authors are analyzing the protection of the confidentiality of the attorney-client relationship in the European competition law, on the one hand, from the perspective of the (European) Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, and, on the other hand, from the perspective of the Court of Justice of the European Union and of the union regulations in the field. The authors are also referring to the Romanian legislation in the field, as well as to the latest trends in the doctrine and jurisprudence regarding the tackled issue.
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Relatively recently brought under regulation by our law system, the models of utility are inventions with a lower level of complexity that are legally protected by means of the protection certificate released following a specific procedure. Encompassed in the study presented herein are precisely those judicial aspects of the formalities that need to be fulfilled when aiming at the release of the model of utility certificate of protection. Altogether, the author sets forth an original point of view regarding the approach and the systematisation of the internal and international formalities to be taken into account when dealing with the procedure of releasing the protection title for the models of utility, and also critically inspects the legal editing process, and the corelation between some legal provisions belonging to this field of interest and intereferring law-related notions, while laying down relevant de lege ferenda proposals in fulfilling the purpose of correction and defining with more clarity the legal provisions specific to this law branch.
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In Romania, the Civil Procedure Code in force shall be repealed and replaced by the new Civil Procedure Code, which was published on July 15, 2010, but has not come into force yet (the time when it comes into force has not been legally established yet). Until such time, Law No. 202/2010 regarding certain measures to accelerate disputes resolution (The “Small Reform” Law) was enacted and came into force in October 2010. In this study, the author makes a comparative examination of the following issues: the exception of the lack of competence, competence conflicts and the transposition to the current Civil Procedure Code, by taking into consideration Law No. 202/2010 and, respectively, the new Civil Procedure Code. The author reaches the conclusion that, sometimes, in law, the regulations of the current Code are better than the regulations of Law No. 202/2010 or of the new Civil Procedure Code; also, there are contradictions between the new laws (Law No. 202/2010 and the new Civil Procedure Code). Given these facts, certain de lege ferenda proposals are laid down.
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On 10 December 2009, the Parliament of Romania passed the Law no. 381/ 2009 regarding the introduction of the preventive concordat and the ad-hoc mandate. This paper examines the main features of these preventive instruments, designed to be used by the debtor in order to avoid the opening of the insolvency procedure, while restructuring its undertaking and its debts, as to provide satisfaction to the creditors. The author analyzes the categories of debtors that are eligible for such procedures, the role played by the judicial bodies, the proxy and the conciliator and the mechanism of implementation and the effects of the preventive concordat and the ad-hoc mandate. The final part is critically addressing the chances of these preventive instruments to satisfy the interests of both the debtor and the creditors. -
Criminal law, as a set of mandatory rules of conduct, compliance with which is imposed by the coercive power of the state, applies to all the people on the territory of a given country and for a certain limited period of time. Therefore, the putting into effect of criminal law means the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of the duties it provides for, in relation to two essential elements: “territory” and “time”. The application of criminal law on the territory means the actual fulfillment of instructions carrying sanctions in relation to the territory in which a crime was committed, in the country or abroad. The Romanian criminal law is aimed at and applies to the people in the territory of Romania and who must comply with its provisions. The new criminal code has brought numerous and substantial changes to the principles behind the application of the Romanian criminal law in the territory and which we will examine hereinafter.
