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This study deals with the issue of forced distinctiveness, a legal mechanism that is essential for the matter of the trade mark law, but which is not generally thoroughly treated in the Romanian specialized literature, despite the rich case law it generates. Forced distinctiveness refers to the situation in which a sign that is likely to be represented graphically, but which initially lacks a distinctive nature, acquires distinctiveness following its use. Throughout the study, the author examines the legal nature of forced distinctiveness, from the point of view of the Romanian legislation and the European regulations, with references to the essential case law in this matter. Thus, in the first part, the author reviews the signs likely to acquire distinctiveness by use and in the second part, he examines the conditions of forced distinctiveness, as well as the criteria on which the assessment of the competent authority is based. -
Starting from a decision made in the interest of the law by the High Court of Cassation and Justice, which stated that the terms regulated in art. 278 para. 3 and in art. 2781 para. 2 of the Criminal Procedure Code, for exercising the remedy of complaint against resolutions or ordinances of the prosecutor for not sending a case to justice, can only represent peremptory procedural terms, the article analyses the consequences on the fairness of the procedure of non-settlement by the hierarchically superior prosecutor, within the deadline provided by law, of the complaint against the solution of not sending a case to justice, reaching the conclusion that the legal text under review should be reconfigured, either by way of clarifying the nature of the term provided in art. 277 of the Criminal Procedure Code as a lapse term, or by way of linking the term referred to in art. 2781 of the Criminal Procedure Code to the time of communication of the solution of the hierarchically superior prosecutor, to avoid “deviations” from the fairness principle. -
In this study, the two authors examine certain particularities of the commercial mandate contract existent between the managers of joint-stock companies and the given companies, with the specification that the term “managers”, in the above context, applies exclusively to the managers referred to under art. 143 paragraph 1 of Law no. 31/1990 regarding companies, republished on 17 November 2004 (those whom the Board of Directors delegated the management of the company and who, as the case may be, can be appointed among the directors or from outside the Board of Directors), and not to members of the directorate (existent in joint-stock companies organized in dual system) or to “specialized” managers, who are not representatives of the social will, but run certain specialized compartment. -
The author examines the concept of administrative-jurisdictional action in the context of the doctrinal opinions issued prior to the enactment of Law no. 554/2004 (amended by Law no. 262/2007), as well as subsequent to the enactment of the above-mentioned law, amended by the law mentioned. Further on, the author examines in detail two characteristics of the administrative-jurisdictional action, namely: the principle of immovability and the res judicata force, reaching the conclusion that such actions have the res judicata force, but only provided that the legal stages of appeal are not filed with the court of law, within the deadlines and under the conditions provided by the law, or that such stages of appeal, being filed, were dismissed and, consequently, the decision of the administrative jurisdictional body was maintained.
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Entities with administrative-jurisdictional activity, such as the National Council for Solving Complaints, have duties strictly delimited by the regulations establishing them and organizing their operation. According to the Law no. 554/ 2004 on administrative litigation, the special administrative jurisdiction represents the activity carried out by an administrative authority that has, according to the applicable special incorporating law, jurisdiction to solve a conflict regarding an administrative action, according to a procedure based upon the principles of adversary proceeding, ensuring the right of defense and the independence of the administrative-jurisdictional activity. In carrying out this complex activity, is sometimes possible that the notifications received by the jurisdictional authority exceed its scope of jurisdiction, a situation in which it has the obligation to establish whether there is a competent court of law or another competent entity with jurisdictional activity, to which it could forward the notification erroneously referred by the complainant. The fulfillment of this legal obligation supports and guarantees to the complainant effective access to the institution having jurisdiction to solve his/her claim, in agreement with the principles of any fair trial. Numerous times, after finding justified the exception of its lack of jurisdiction in trying certain cases, the Council ordered their declining towards the competent courts of law, subsequently referring such cases to the courts. Although most courts towards which the declining was ordered accepted the files received, according to the case law of certain Courts of Appeal, the legal institution of declining is not available to the administrative-jurisdictional entities, which should have dismissed the claims received, and not decline them. This study presents with criticism the latter solutions issued by the courts of law in the legal matter of declining, as well as the author’s arguments in supporting its resolution in agreement with the legal rules.
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Chile stands out in Latin-America because its economic growth has resulted in a progressive decrease in poverty and marginality levels. Chile’s unique strides in economic growth have made room for increasingly dignified lives for its people. Along with this improvement in the standard of living, there has been a more thorough exercise of human rights. The normative groundwork for this successful economic model is located in the Constitución Política de la República de 1980, the 1980 Constitution, which contains an economic public order based on two elements – 1) the exercise of personal liberty and 2) the subsidiary role of the State.
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In case the criminal prosecution is carried out by the hierarchically higher prosecutor’s office in the matter in which the preventive detention action is requested, according to art. 45, paragraph 1 with reference to art. 33-36 of the Criminal Procedure Code, when deciding the material jurisdiction for solving such a proposal, according to art. 1491 paragraph 2 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the judge takes into consideration the whole criminal matter, namely all the facts and persons investigated in the criminal case in which the prosecutor makes such a proposal and the legal qualification of all these facts established by the prosecutor and valid as at the date of notifying the judge, and not by taking into consideration only the action (and the legal qualification established for such action) or the person in relation to which the proposal for taking such action was submitted. -
The evolution of the Romanian society in the direction of consolidating the rule of law is accompanied, in some cases, by the amplification of negative phenomena, materialized in the increase in the number of persons committing antisocial actions and evading criminal liability, which requires the taking of actions directly aimed at these categories of persons who can continue to commit crimes, some of them of extreme violence. At present, together with the adoption of the Government Emergency Ordinance no.60/2006 for amending and supplementing the Criminal Procedure Code, the national legislative framework regulating the procedure of starting criminal prosecution is in compliance with the European legal norms and meets the standards imposed by the European Union. The powers provided by the legislation are able to meet the requirements in this field and, at the same time, to support the efforts made by the judiciary police bodies specialized in the activity of investigating and tracking down persons evading the enforcement of judgments, whose ultimate purpose is the achievement of justice.
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In the above study, the authors make a comparison between the provisions of the new Romanian Civil Code (published on 24 July 2009, but not yet in force) and the provisions of the current code (of 1865), regarding the rights of succession of the relatives of the deceased. After a thorough analysis, they reach the conclusion that the new Code provides a quasi-complete adequate regulation in this matter, taking over the judicious principles established by the current Civil Code, updating the specialized legal language, eliminating what is redundant, de lege lato, and bringing the necessary additions.
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In the above study, the author criticizes severely a judgment of the Romanian High Court of Cassation and Justice (the Administrative and Tax Litigations Section), passed on 26 October 2009, explicitly and unequivocally stating that the mentioned court was entitled not to enforce a provision contained in a law in force (namely, art. III of Law no. 262/2009), explaining that the given provision was unconstitutional since it “infringes the right to a fair trial”, although the Constitutional Court of Romania, quite the opposite, had stated the contrary, finding the constitutionality of that legal provision. The author’s criticism focuses on the idea that, according to the Constitution of Romania, only the Constitutional Court is legally competent to give a ruling on the constitutionality/non-constitutionality of a law or a Government ordinance in force (or of any provision included therein), and that the courts (including the High Court of Cassation and Justice) have no such legal jurisdiction in the matter.
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Examining the issue of the parents’ right to agree to their child’s journey in the country (in Romania) or abroad, after reviewing the legal regulations in this matter, the author reaches the conclusion that art. 18, paragraph 2 of Law no. 272/2004 (“Any journey made by children in the country and abroad shall be made subject to notification and consent of both parents; any disagreements between the parents in relation to expressing such consent shall be solved by the court of law”) provides for situations in which the parents exercise their parental rights together, while art. 30, paragraph 1, letter c of Law no. 248/2005 refers to the situation in which parental protection is divided pursuant to a court order (following divorce etc.). At the end, the author proves that the provisions of the new Romanian Civil Code (adopted y the Parliament and published in the Official Journal of Romania, but not yet effective) do not influence the above-mentioned legal regulations. -
The new Criminal Code, which brings numerous innovations to the scope of accusation under the Romanian criminal law, stipulates, in the text of art. 239, the sanctioning of a debtor’s action of alienating, hiding, deteriorating or destroying, in whole or in part, values or goods in its assets or of invoking false acts or debts for the purpose of defrauding creditors or the action of a person who, knowing that it will not be able to pay, purchases goods or services thus causing damage to the creditor.
