In this article, the author critically examines matters of criminal procedural guarantees for the injured person, the injured party or civil party, stressing their importance in the administration of criminal justice. In this context, topics on the rights of victims are depicted inspired from the principle of equality of arms, inferred from the (European) Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the author making some suggestions on repairing the damage caused as a result of the offense.

The study presents critical issues on contraventional complaints’ settlement procedure from point of view of Law 202/2010 regarding certain measures to accelerate the process. The reason for this amendment was obvious: the rapid settlement of trials far more numerous than in other matters also due a consequence of the fact the offenders’ procedural interest was that many times only that of suspension of the enforcement of fines and other sanctions imposed by the records of offense, suspension which, according to legislation in the matter, became effective by law upon the registration of the contraventional complaint until the date of the final and irrevocable judgment. In the second part of the study, the author has analyzed the nature of contraventional law given that offenses were removed from the criminal law and have undergone administrative arrangements. Issues of unconstitutionality by removing appeal in certain contraventional matters were addressed, arguing that thereby they have infringed art. 2 of Protocol 7, supplementing the (European) Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. In the final considerations, the author revealed that the ruling no. 500/2012 of the Constitutional Court case-law is a welcomed revival for the Romanian legislation arguing that it forces a reconsideration of the regulation on contraventional proceedings as a whole.

In international relations the old rule of law acta probant sese ipsa has not the same value as inside of a state because it is considered that an authority of a State who receive a document from another State should be put in an extremely difficult situation in terms of imposing the task of assessing the authenticity of a foreign document to the first sight. So, the use abroad of official documents from a State authorities require the completion of special formalities in order to ensure the originality, the authenticity of signatures/seal and legality of a specific document preparation. If by 1961, the year of concluded of the Hague Convention on Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents (to which Romania joined by the Government Ordinance no. 66/1999, approved by Law no. 52/2000), there was only legalization procedure, since that date appears apostille procedure (only for the states signatory to the Convention) determined by reason of simplifying the requirements necessary to be fulfilled for the validity of official documents abroad. The aim of the present study is to present the apostille procedure in the light of the provisions of the Hague Convention on Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents and of the Romanian provisions regarding this issue.

The liberty of the person is one of the most important social values, its importance requiring its protection by criminal law rules, in all the states with acknowledged democratic systems. Taking into consideration the content of the offense of deprivation of liberty in the new Criminal Code, the authors made a brief examination of these provisions and carried out a comparative analysis with the current provisions. The comparative analysis refers to the differences existing between the two accusations, differences noted in particular as regards the accusation of aggravated forms of this offense. The authors also carried out a comparative law examination proving that the illegal deprivation of liberty is an action regarded as an offense by all the countries, and that there are many elements of similarity, as well as certain insignificant differences between its content in various legislations. In the conclusions they formulated, the authors proposed the addition of other aggravated forms to the provisions of the new Criminal Code, forms that are in fact provided both in the current Criminal Code and in the legislations of other European Union countries.

The article examines certain problems that have occurred in practice in relation to the institution of retrial in case of extradition for persons convicted by default, namely the possibility to order, after the admission in principle, the entire or partial suspension of the decision whose retrial is requested, the moment as of which the pronouncement of a decision regarding the admission of such retrial produces legal effects, both as regards the annulment of the former conviction decision, and regarding the annulment of the punishment execution warrant, with direct implications on the release of the person in question, as well as the impact of the legal provisions regarding the intervention of the special prescription of criminal liability, upon the retrial of such a case.

In this study, the author comments on a 2010 decision of the High Court of Cassation (the Commercial Section) dismissing – in a final way – an action for declaring absent a sale-purchase agreement for real-estate – a future good – considering that there is a condition precedent, and not a contingent right, as the author claims.

En el nuevo siglo los discursos de legitimación del poder punitivo se extraen de las nuevas realidades, originadas desde la hipótesis que aboga por la empírica constatación de una síntesis, que surge de la tensión dialéctica entre el binomio libertad vs. seguridad, que en la actual “sociedad del riesgo” se resuelve “irremediablemente” a favor de la última opción. Se trata de una forma de organización e interacción comunicativa, surgida con la postindustrialización, caracterizada por una serie de factores que la población estima como esencialmente negativos, vinculados al miedo al avance tecnológico y las modificaciones en los sistemas de producción, que suponen el nacimiento de nuevas realidades, que amenazan la seguridad de la población y también el Estado Social en algunos de los países desarrollados1. Al servicio de este modelo hay ahora todo un sistema de imputación que busca el mantenimiento de los valores de la sociedad, mediante la estabilización de la expectativa asignada por la norma penal y la neutralización del riesgo futuro de lesión a la misma. Esta legitimación significa asignarle un sentido útil a la tendencia creciente hacia la disminución de los espacios de libertad; en ese sentido, se dice, que la decisión es netamente política y no jurídico-penal: en consecuencia, no hay que inmiscuirse en ello, ni mucho menos calificar las nuevas regulaciones legales como algo positivo o negativo, como postula Jakobs.

In this article, the author emphasizes the main amendments brought to the Romanian criminal and criminal procedure legislation by Law no. 202/2010 regarding certain measures to accelerate the resolution of trials.

By Law no. 221/2009 on political convictions and the administrative measures related to them, pronounced during 6 March 1945 – 22 December 1989. This law provides for two categories of political convictions (during the mentioned period), namely two categories of administrative measures of a political nature, namely: the first category (by right), when the political nature of the criminal conviction (administrative measures) results from certain legal texts, explicitly indicated by Law no. 221/2009; the second category, when the political nature of the criminal conviction (administrative measures) can be established – at the request of the interested party –, at present, by the civil court. At the same time, either in the case of the first category, or in the case of the second category, the person in question, the husband/wife or the descendants (up to the 2nd degree) may request ordering the Romanian State to pay moral damages. According to the texts of Law no. 221/2009, the prosecutor’s participation is mandatory only in case the establishment by the civil court of the political nature of the criminal conviction or of the administrative measure is previously discussed.

The Lisbon Treaty is designed to replace the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. Its adoption brings about an improvement of the institutional law system of the European Union, due to the coming into force of the Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the European Union. It was proclaimed by the European institutions (the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union) on the occasion of the European Council of Nice on 7 December 2000 and its wording states for the first time in a single document, on the whole, the social, economic, civil and political rights that all the European citizens can benefit of.

The article presents some considerations regarding the procedural provisions related to the system of the means of proof, as it is regulated by the new Criminal Procedure Code. The author examines the new provisions establishing the enunciative system, in relation to the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code in force, which establishes the completeness of the means of proof.

In this study, the two authors examine the procedure of establishing local councils in the Romanian legislation and reveal a series of ambiguities of the legal rules regulating various stages of this procedure, ambiguities generated in particular by the circumstance that the given procedure is regulated in the content of three regulations, namely: art. 28–35 of the Local Public Administration Law no. 215/2001 (republished in 2007, then amended and supplemented several times), art. 1–10 of the Government Ordinance no. 35/2002 for approving the Regulation on the organization and operation of local councils; art. 6–8 of Law no. 393/2004 on the statute of local elected officials (and the latest two regulations being amended and completed several times). Taking into consideration this situation, the authors propose a series of solutions for creating a more coherent legislative framework in this field.