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The idea of a neutral power from those derived from the separation of powers was preceded in the modern epoch by the placing of one of the Chambers of the Parliament in the role of balancing and preserving power. This second Chamber had to be different from the first one, in order for it to be superior. The manner of conceiving this superiority and the balancing and conservative role of this Chamber have been different from one epoch to another and from one system to another. In the following article, subsequent to a brief analysis of the concepts of neutral power and balancing power, I shall investigate the role played by the superior Chamber of Parliament in the constitutional history of Romania. -
Equality of citizens before the law and before the public authorities is a fundamental category of the theory on social democracy, but also a condition of the state of law, failing which constitutional democracy can not be conceived. The Romanian Constitution expressly enshrines this principle. However, there are also particular aspects of this principle enshrined in the Basic Law. Equality before the law and before the public authorities can not involve the idea of standardization, of uniformity of all citizens under the sign of the same legal regime, regardless of their socio-professional situation. The constitutional principle of equality implies that equal legal treatment should be applied to equal situations. This social and legal requirement implies numerous interferences between the principle of equality and other constitutional principles: the principle of identity and of diversity, the principle of pluralism, the principle of unity and, in particular, the principle of proportionality. In this study, using theoretical and jurisprudential arguments, we intend to demonstrate that in relation to contemporary social reality equality, as a constitutional principle, is a particular aspect of the principle of proportionality. The latter expresses in essence the ideas of: fairness, justice, reasonableness and fair adequacy of the decisions of the State to the factual situation and the legitimate aims proposed.
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This study presents the divergent case law generated by the current insufficient regulation of the legal regime of burial plots and funeral constructions, such as burial vaults and crypts. While some courts admit the assignment of the tomb to one heir, others consider that the concession right over the burial plot and the funeral constructions bears upon a forced and perpetual indivisibility which excludes the division. As a solution, it proposes a clarification of the legal regime applicable to funeral concessions and the explicit regulation of the use of underground burial vaults, especially from the perspective of the exclusive right to be buried in a particular crypt.
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Fraud is perhaps the cornerstone of the Paulian action. In this sense, there is no right to action without there being a fraud in the interests of one or some of the creditors. Therefore, it is very important to know the elements that characterize the Paulian fraud. This is because the damage caused to the creditor is a consequence of the fraudulent attitude of the debtor who concludes an act with a third person with the sole purpose of hiding from the pursuit of certain goods. So, the first element to be determined in order to formulate a Paulian action is the existence of fraud that has caused the creditor’s prejudice. Through this study, we have tried to highlight some of the most important judgments in the French judicial practice that have created principles for the application of the Paulian action. Although many of them have been pronounced many decades ago, their effects are still occurring at present, and the courts which have pronounced them have shown wisdom and clarity in setting out principles that ultimately shaped a unitary judicial practice in French law. Finally, the study also presents the regulation of the Paulian fraud in the sense of the new Romanian Civil Code, with references to the new French Civil Code.
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The Civil Code expressly introduces the porte-fort convention or the promise of another’s deed in Article 1283, regulation which takes over the institution which was created in the doctrine of the Civil Code of 1865. The current codification places the institution in the section regarding the effects of the contract, but in a subsection distinct from the one devoted to the consecration of the principle of relativity of the effects of the contract. Although the systematic treatment of the principle inevitably implies the exploration of the controversies on the real or apparent exceptions, the incorporation of the analysis of the porte-fort convention in this framework has made the novelty of this legal figure somehow obscured. This article intends to make a critical analysis of the porte-fort convention in the regulation of Article 1283 of the Civil Code also from the perspective of the comparative law, by pursuing in detail the legal regime in terms of notion, forms, nature, legal characters, conditions of validity and effects, as well as the applications of this institution.
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In this article, the author presents the procedure of individual complaint of the persons before the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Turkey. According to the Turkish Constitution and to the Law No 6216/2011 on establishing the procedures before the Constitutional Court, this procedure is an exceptional means of appeal which can be used after all the other legal means of appeal have been exhausted. The individual complaint before the Constitutional Court fulfils two basic functions: the protection of the fundamental rights and freedoms of the persons and the protection of the national legal order.
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In this article the author analyzes the procedure of individual complaint of the citizens before the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany as it is regulated in the Federal Constitution and in the special law on the constitutional control court. The constitutional text provides that the procedure in question is a legal means of appeal with the purpose of defending human rights and fundamental freedoms. Specifically, any person who claims that one of his rights or one of his freedoms enshrined in the Basic Law has been violated by an authority exercising public power may address the federal constitutional court. The author analyzes the procedure of individual complaint and separates it from other constitutional procedures.
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Înscrierile în cartea funciară nu au caracter constitutiv/translativ, ci numai efecte de opozabilitate față de terți (art. 25 din Legea nr. 7/1996 arată că „înscrierile în cartea funciară își vor produce efecte de opozabilitate față de terți...”). Astfel, această lege asigură publicitatea imobilului și nu are efecte constitutive/translative ale dreptului de proprietate. (...)
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The most controversial aspect in the criminal judicial practice, in the situation of invoking the plea of relative nullity of a criminal processual act, is to prove the existence of a processual injury and, related thereto, to prove the sufficient seriousness of the injury caused to the party or to the main processual subject which justifies the cancellation of the act. Most of the times, the party or the subject that invokes the nullity is put in the extremely difficult position to persuade the judicial body that processual injury is sufficiently serious to justify the drastic sanction of nullity. That is why we have considered that it is required a thorough assessment with regard to the standard of probation of injury, of proving the sufficient seriousness of the injury suffered in order to bring about the sanction of nullity. The conclusion we have reached is that the processual injury suffered is sufficient to bring about the sanction of nullity when the violation of the processual rights or guarantees of the parties or of the subjects puts them in the position to no longer be able to defend themselves with the same chance they would have defended themselves if their processual rights had not been infringed.
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This paper appears as a response to the debate created by the new proposals to amend the criminal codes. I believe that a legal debate should start from the fundamental principles of law and be conducted academically, presenting legal arguments and also knowing the comparative law issues related to the topic debated. This is why this paper offers a historical, current and comparative perspective in terms of recognizing the right to silence to the person being heard as a witness in the criminal trial.
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Although at first sight the procedure of cancellation of documents, regulated by Article 5491 of the Criminal Procedure Code, seems to be an institution that should not create essential problems, we can see at a closer analysis that certain provisions of the criminal processual rule are at least questionable. Moreover, the aspects related to the unconstitutionality of the provisions regarding the active legal capacity of referral to the judge in this respect have been subject to the analysis of the Constitutional Court of Romania. The problems of interpretation may also persist on the object, on the procedure itself, on the competence to settle the referral or on the limits of investiture of the preliminary chamber judge. Under these circumstances, in this paper we intend to express a point of view in relation to these aspects. With regard to the object of the referral and the limits of investiture of the preliminary chamber judge, we will analyse whether the cancellation of documents, in this procedure, concerns only the main documents or the subsequent documents as well, and whether the act sought to be cancelled is regarded in the sense of instrumentum or negotiumiuris. Another problem that may arise within the settlement of the referral with regard to the cancellation of documents is represented by the settlement competence. In theory, this will pertain to the preliminary chamber judge of the court which would have the competence to examine the case on the merits, certainly, according to the pre-established criteria of the criminal processual rules. Under these circumstances, if there aren’t any discussions in relation to material competence, this being given by the juridical classification of the deed for which the dismissal of action, respectively by the abandonment of the criminal prosecution, has been ordered, with regard to personal competence, we will clarify some aspects. At the same time we will try to answer an apparently simple question, namely: is it legally possible to administer evidence during the settlement of such a referral?
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The application of ancillary intervention submitted in favour of the authority that has issued the individual administrative act is admissible in the actions in administrative disputes having as object the suspension of this type of acts, to the extent to which the third party intervening in a trial between the original parties is able to prove the practical benefit which he obtains as a consequence of pronouncing a solution favourable to the party in whose favour it intervenes. The necessity to prove that the condition of imminent damage is fulfilled by the applicant who considers himself injured, by the individual administrative act whose suspension is requested, does not confer this action a personal nature, in such a way as to be incompatible with the institution of ancillary intervention.
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The stages of the civil trial are: (i) the stage of referral to the court of law (written or initiating the civil trial), (ii) the stage of inquiry of the trial, (iii) the stage of debate on the merits of the trial, (iv) the stage of deliberation and (v) the stage of delivery. The accomplishment of the act of justice in civil matters is materialized through court sittings (which may be public, or in which only the parties participate, or not public, in the cases provided by law) and internal administrative stages carried out by the panel of judges (such as the checking and regularisation of the application). Publicity is a fundamental principle of the civil trial stated by the provisions of Article 17 of the Civil Procedure Code and by Article 12 of the Law No 304/2004, republished. The failure to ensure the publicity of the court sitting brings about the sanction of absolute nullity not conditioned by the existence of an injury under Article 174 (2) by reference to Article 176 point 5 of the Civil Procedure Code. The delivery of the judgment shall usually take place in public sitting, according to Article 402 of the Civil Procedure Code, or, as an exception, by making the solution available to the parties through the mediation of the registry office, pursuant to Article 396 (2) of the same Code, in the assumption that the delivery was postponed (premise condition) for justified reasons and the chairman of the panel has indicated expressis verbis this modality of putting the solution at the disposal of the parties. The delivery of the judgment, as the last processual stage, according to the Civil Procedure Code, can not take place otherwise than by means of a public court sitting, according to the principle of publicity, to which the chairman or a member of the panel of judges read the minutes, also indicating the means of appeal which can be exercised. The fact that the parties understand or not to make use of their right to appear in court (as in the case of other processual stages) does not in any way affect the obligation of the panel of judges to comply with the express provisions of the law in respect of the processual stage of delivery, since there is no such distinction in the law, and ubi lex non distinguit nec non distinguere debemus. In addition, the completion of this final stage of the civil trial is necessary for the parties to make use of their right to formulate orally the means of appeal provided by law, according to Article 126 of the Internal rules of the courts of law of 2015, concluding in this respect a minutes signed by the president of the panel and by the registrar of the sitting.
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The provisions of Article 169 of the Law No 85/2014 on the procedures for preventing insolvency and for insolvency regulate the responsibility aimed at covering the debtor’s liabilities in case its assets do not satisfy all the claims of its debtors. The mentioned legal provisions regulate expressly determined cases in which either the members of the supervisory bodies, or the members of the management bodies of the legal person which is in a state of insolvency or any other person that has caused the state of insolvency may be obliged to cover a part of the liabilities of the insolvent debtor, provided that the activity they carried out has led to the insufficiency of the available cash funds from the patrimony of the debtor legal person. In relation to the provisions of Article 171 of the mentioned normative act, the responsibility of the specified persons may be engaged in any form of the procedure, either in judicial reorganization, or in bankruptcy. In case of judicial reorganization, the amounts of money obtained as a result of the responsibility of the mentioned persons are intended to supplement the funds necessary for the continuation of the debtor’s activity, and, in case of bankruptcy, those amounts must ensure that the debtor’s liabilities are covered. The regulation of the responsibility of the members of the supervisory/management bodies or of any other person that has caused the state of insolvency of the debtor legal person is an integral part of the procedure provided by the law on insolvency.
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Although the Paulian action is a legal mechanism, in principle very well known, when it comes to its practical application, in order to effectively promote such action, it is very important to have a thorough knowledge of the conditions that must be met for such action both to be promoted and to be allowed. This study is divided into two parts, in which first the general conditions and then the special conditions for the promotion of the Paulian action are presented. Also, in view of the legislative changes brought about by the entry into force of the new Romanian Civil Code, but also by amending the French Civil Code of 2016, we considered opportune a comparative presentation of the novelties brought by the two legal systems.
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Principiul Separațiunii Puterilor Statului, care a avut o influență considerabilă în viața și organizarea constituțională a tuturor Statelor moderne, și-a avut și el – ca și oricare alt așezământ omenesc – viața și destinul lui.
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Cloud Computing is one of the most innovative technologies in the history of computing. It is radically changing the way how information technology services are created, delivered, accessed and managed. Cloud Computing enables the same services and user content to be delivered to any user device, whether a mobile phone, desktop or tablet computer. Cloud technology involves data storage at multiple data centers in different geographic locations. The evolution of computer technology is strongly related with the cybercrime phenomenon. Over the last decade, the number of crimes that involve computers and Internet has grown constantly. Criminal organizations try to be as efficient as possible and in order to make investigations difficult they are storing criminal data in foreign servers or in Cloud storage systems, and use cryptography and other data obfuscation techniques that hide their illicit activity. Cloud Computing offers criminals accessible means for committing cybercrime. In much the same way as cybercrime may be understood as a new way of committing traditional crimes such as fraud and theft, Cloud Computing presents criminals with new tools with which to commit these offences and many more. Researching this environment is a key element in understanding the new and more complex forms of cybercrime that occur today.
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The extension of the preventive arrest is one of the instruments available to the judicial bodies in order to remove some threats to public order, undermining at the same time a fundamental right of the defendant, the right to freedom. The procedure of extension of the preventive arrest must respect the right to a fair trial, as regulated in the international conventions and the internal provisions. This article analyzes the possibility of breaching the principles of equality of arms and of equality of treatment in the procedure of judging the contestation against the decision to extend the preventive arrest measure.
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The study proposes the analysis of a jurisprudential solution from the perspective of the regulations on the tort civil liability for the prejudices caused by things in order to signal the recognition of the reparable nature of some new categories of prejudices. The arguments exposed are substantiated on the regulation of the Civil Code, but also on the opinions expressed in the classical and contemporary doctrine, supporting the need to ensure the full reparation of all prejudices caused to the victim.
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The modality of enforcement through garnishment involves the existence of a legal relationship, in which the pursued debtor has the quality of creditor, and the garnishee has the quality of debtor, a legal relationship used by the pursuing creditor in order to realize the claim from the writ of execution. The garnishment knows two phases, the one of establishment and the one of validation, the second one intervening only if the garnishee fails to fulfil its obligations as a result of communicating the address for establishment of garnishment. The application for validation of the garnishment is a veritable application for summons, its finality being to obtain a writ of execution by the executing creditor against the garnishee. The study examines the defences which the garnishee can invoke in the court of validation, having regard to the legislative solution provided by the current Civil Procedure Code, according to which a garnishee is forbidden to file a contestation to the enforcement against the acts establishing the garnishment, the latter being able to use his defences only before the court of validation [Article 787 (5) of the Civil Procedure Code]. Therefore, the processual means of invoking the defences before the court of validation are analyzed, being questioned the admissibility of the garnishee’s filing of a counter claim aiming at the cancellation of the juridical act from which the relationship between him and the debtor arose. The defences of the garnishee are analyzed starting with the distinction between defences on the merits and the processual and procedural ones, in relation to the possibility conferred to the third party to invoke against the creditor all the pleas and defences that he may oppose to the debtor, to the extent that they are prior to the establishment of garnishment [Article 790 (3) of the Civil Procedure Code].
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The Law No 95/2006 on the health reform stipulates, in Article 653 (2), that: „ the medical staff shall be liable under the civil law for the prejudices caused by error, which also include negligence, recklessness or insufficient medical knowledge in the exercise of the profession, by individual acts within the prevention, diagnosis or treatment procedures”. The text of law finds its applicability in the cases that raise for discussion whether the doctor’s diagnosis was a correct one and the chosen therapeutic conduct was necessary to restore the patient’s health condition. However, even under the terms of subsistence of the situation of error of diagnosis, this does not unconditionally engage the legal liability, an approach that makes necessary a distinction between the guilty diagnosis error and the excusable diagnosis error. In this study the authors intend to identify and analyze the hypotheses in which the doctor’s legal liability can operate/intervene in case of an error of diagnosis.
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The purpose of the author’s approach is to determine the real meaning of the contestation for annulment in relation to the other means of appeal regulated in the new Civil Procedure Code. In this respect, the author considers, in full agreement with the current case law and doctrine, that in the processual system in force the contestation for annulment has as a fundamental objective the correction of some procedural mistakes, and not of some substantive errors. In this study additional arguments are presented in favour of the thesis according to which the contestation for annulment regulated by Article 503 (2) point 2 of the new Civil Procedure Code can not have the meaning of envisaging the substantive mistakes, whereas such an approach does not have any support in the provisions of the legislation in force. The author expresses reservations also with regard to the establishment of an extraordinary means of appeal, of the sort of the former extraordinary recourse, which would make possible to remedy some substantive mistakes. In this respect, the author has noted that the trend of modern times is not one that would lead to the multiplication of the means of appeal, as it happened in our country in the last three decades, but to their rationalization and achievement of efficiency. However, an establishment of a new means of appeal could only be discussed in the context of a substantial reform of our judicial system.
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Under the old civil law, the registration of a property right in a land registry was a follow-up phase to the fulfilment of the obligation to give, that is, to transfer the property. In that sense, the registration thus carried out was only intended to ensure to third parties the publicity of the legal transaction transferring the right of property, making the new owner known, similarly to other law systems in Europe. Currently, under the Civil Code in force, things have remained relatively under the same conditions. The Civil Code regulated the constitutive system of registration rights in the land registry, but the implementing law postponed those provisions until the completion of the cadastral measurements. However, we consider an apriorical analysis of the constitutive system of rights to be helpful in anticipating and clarifying the legal issues that may arise in the future, but also in determining the legal nature of the interim period between the conclusion of the contract and the time of registration in the land registry, that is to say, until the time of complete fulfilment of the obligation to give. Last but not least, we will analyze aspects of the eventual liability that could be committed because of the faulty fulfilment of the obligation to apply for registration in the land registry, therewith identifying the persons who can apply for the registration and the persons who have to apply for it.
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Paulian action represents, alongside oblique action and direct action, one of the most important means of protecting creditors in general. However, unlike direct actions, this legal mechanism provides general protection to all creditors, not just a few that are mentioned by the law. Against this backdrop, in the light of economic development and the many contracts concluded lately, especially in recent years, the knowledge of rights and the means of creditor protection should be of interest to all creditors. Unfortunately, although the paulian action is expressly provided for by law, creditors rarely resort to this legal mechanism to ensure the protection of their own claims. This reluctance is likely to arise from the fear of a long and cumbersome move to promote a litigation in the form of a paulian action. From this point of view, we hope that the present study will provide practitioners, theorists, and creditors with detailed information about this legal mechanism, to encourage the promotion of a paulian action whenever borrowers act against patrimony in order to avoid enforcement.
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Concluded on 12 December 2015, and entering into force on 4 November 2016, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change establishes the new international legal regime of the global response to threat of climate change. Contributing to the application of the Framework Convention of 1992, the Agreement adds the objective of adaptation and breaks the tradition of the Kyoto Protocol (1997), by imposing a new approach in this field, having in its center the limitation to 2°C and, whenever possible, 1,5°C of the growth of global average temperature, in relation to preindustrial levels, determined national contributions, and a transparency mechanism in ensuring the compliance of the self-assumed commitments. Accepting climate change as a „common concern of mankind” with scientific legitimacy of the conventional process and a specific legal value, being neither a „convention” nor a „protocol”, the Agreement has a universal nature, and it completes and transforms the international legal regime of the global climate action. Innovating principles are consecrated: intergenerational equity, climate justice or progression principle, new market mechanisms, with limited action, the facilitating mechanism, periodical evaluation, et al. An important role in imposing the new strategy and the new mechanism of action in climatic matters is held by the negotiations related to the post-2015 Conferences of Parties, designed to establish the „roadmap” and the proceedings for the preparation and enforcement, after 2020, of the Paris Agreement. Part of the new international conventional context regarding the new global challenges, the Agreement completes and updates the climate regime, as part of the international environmental law, bearing important specificities.
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Acțiunea tatălui de a-l extrage pe fiul său minor dintr-un mediu impropriu dezvoltării armonioase fizice și psihice de la domiciliul stabilit provizoriu de instanța de judecată la mamă nu constituie infracțiunea de lipsire de libertate în mod ilegal, prevăzută de art. 205 alin. (1), (2) și (3) lit. b) C.pen., și nici infracțiunea de nerespectare a măsurilor privind încredințarea minorului, prevăzută de art. 379 C.pen. (cu notă aprobativă).
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This study discusses a novel issue in the field of theory and case law of the criminal law. It deals with the necessity to apply the complementary punishment of prohibiting the exercise of the right to pursue the activity of babysitter in the case of the persons who, acting in this capacity, have committed the offence of theft of goods located in the building in which they had access. The author claims that such necessity exists because, in this way, those persons will no longer be able to commit offences acting in the capacity they had throughout the incidence thereof.
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The attenuating circumstance of the challenge is provided by the Criminal Code in force in Article 75 (1) a). By the challenging act of illegitimate nature it is affected the physical integrity or dignity of the person, so that, although punished by the criminal law, the offender’s deed is merely a reaction, a disproportionate response to an illegitimate action or inaction. The challenge can only be retained if the conditions relating to the offence committed under the auspices of a powerful disorder or emotion, respectively the conditions relating to the challenging act are cumulatively met. Without claiming to exhaust the subject, the paper aims to emphasize also some controversies regarding: the proportionality and the time interval between the challenging act and the offence; the distinction between the challenge and some justificative causes or causes of non-imputability; the possibility of retaining the challenge concurrently with the premeditation.
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Unpaid community work has received multiple valences in the Romanian criminal law system, representing either an obligation in the content of the probation measures or a way of executing the penalty of the fine or an obligation that accompanies the abandonment of the criminal prosecution. The complexity of the institution, together with its novelty, has generated a series of difficulties including in respect of the performance of the unpaid community work, this article emphasizing some of these difficulties and proposing solutions for their removal.
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The Civil Procedure Code entered into force on 15 February 2013, when neither the fax nor the e-mail were unknown anymore in the field of communication. However, the procedural provisions have proven to be tributary to some classical origins, even obsolete in some cases. The interventions of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, of the Constitutional Court, in the matter of law analyzed by the authors in this article, did not have the role of modernizing nor of improving the efficiency of the act of justice. The given interpretations have taken into account the letter of the law and not its spirit, probably starting from the strict application of the procedural provisions. Without disregarding these principles, the authors criticize in an argumented manner the solution pronounced by the Decision No 34/2017 of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, the Panel for the settlement of some legal issues, ruling in the sense of qualifying the procedural act sent by e-mail or fax, after the court’s work schedule, but until 24.00 of the last day of the procedural term, as being done in due time.
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The relation between the civil servant and the public authority or institution in which he occupies the public office arises and is exercised on the basis of the unilateral administrative act of appointment, issued according to the legal provisions, and not by a contractual act. That is why the public function and the status of the civil servant have been regulated in the public law, separately from the labour relations specific to the private law, at the same time also determining the establishment of a specific sanctioning system, which takes into account the distinctive features of the way in which the public office is exercised. In this study there are analysed, from a dual perspective, theoretical and practical, the conditions of each form of the legal liability governed by the administrative law. At the same time, we also consider the cumulation of the disciplinary liability with other forms of legal liability of the civil servant for the damaging consequences of his deeds. A few aspects of novelty brought by the codification of the legislation on the liability of the civil servants in the Draft Administrative Code complete our research.
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The content of the medical legal relation includes all rights and obligations of the provider and of the beneficiary of the medical service. Among these, only the rights of the patient benefit by an explicit and ample special regulation and by a growing doctrinal interest. However, this does not mean the lack of specific rights in favour of the doctor, but only the necessity to identify the existence and the determination of their content by analyzing the nature and/or the implicit effects of the legal provisions and of the jurisprudential solutions. Thus, the patient’s acceptance by the doctor, based on Article 663 (1) of the Law No 95/2006, is the equivalent of the informed consent of the patient, expressed pursuant to Articles 660–662 of the Law No 95/2006 and Articles 13–20 of the Law No 46/2003; the interruption of the relation between the doctor and the patient, pursuant to Article 664 (1) c) (ii) of the Law No 95/2006, as a result of a hostile and/or irreverent attitude towards the doctor, would be impossible in the absence of an obligation of gratitude of the patient, correlative to a right to gratitude of the doctor; and the jurisprudential consecration of the liability of the sanitary unit for the damage suffered by the doctor due to a nosocomial infection is due precisely to the existence of a right to security of the doctor.
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What we intended on this occasion is to discuss the rules that are used to determine in the concrete situations, related to the case, the legal inheritors of de cuius and the meanings of these rules. The topic seems interesting to us, because on the way in which it is dealt with, on the answers given to some questions, which are raised or can be raised in this regard, depend the adequate theoretical perspective and the rigor of determining of the inheritors in a given case, not only of the lawful ones, but also of the testamentary successors, each category of heirs being able, either alone or with the other, to access the inheritance.
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The institution of the penal clause, regulated in Articles 1538–1543 of the new Civil Code, still encounters different interpretations, even contradictory sometimes, in the judicial practice and in the solutions of the courts. In particular, the interest of the practitioners and of the specialized doctrine is based on the possibility conferred to the court of law to reduce the penal clause in the two cases provided by the legislator, namely when the main obligation has been executed by the debtor to the benefit of the creditor and when the penalty is clearly excessive in relation to the prejudice which might have been foreseen by the parties on the conclusion of the contract. This study aims to analyse thoroughly the two hypostases in which the judge is allowed to defeat the principle of binding force of the contract and to intervene in the decrease of the quantum of penalties, an analysis materialized both from a theoretical point of view and especially from a practical point of view, offering relevant solutions from the recent judicial practice.
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Presumptions have been playing an important role in the civil trial, their necessity and utility being recognized both in the doctrine and in the judicial practice. Recently, in order to remove any doubt about the quality of means of evidence of the presumptions, the legislator of the Civil Procedure Code enumerates them among the means of evidence and, at the same time, establishes their legal regime, and the legislator of the Civil Code has extended the scope of the legal presumptions. The reason behind these regulations is based precisely on the necessity to find out the truth also in the cases in which the judge does not have available direct evidence. Certainly, as we have stated on another occasion, the presumptions are indirect means of evidence, as the conclusions drawn imply eo ipso the prior proof of a fact that is neighbouring and related to the unknown fact. As we shall further show, the Romanian legislator has understood to classify the presumptions into legal (established by law) and judicial or simple (left to the enlightments and wisdom of the judge), with the mention that, in this study, we shall refer in particular to the legal presumptions.
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The study is devoted to the legislative convergences and divergences existing at the level of the European countries regarding the functioning of small and mediumsized companies. The first part of this approach emphasizes the important role of small and medium-sized companies within the national economies, including their contribution to the formation of the gross domestic product. In the author’s opinion, the support granted by the political and legislative powers, including by the doctrine, is not in accordance with the contribution brought by the small and medium-sized companies to the development of the national economies. Starting from the finding that the typical legal form of functioning of the small and medium-sized companies is represented by the limited liability companies, the author presents the most relevant aspects regarding their establishment, organization and functioning. A particular analysis is also carried out in relation to Directive 2017/828/EC, a European document that is likely to significantly promote appropriate normative convergences. The author also emphasizes some positive trends manifested at the level of the European Union, such as those represented by the elimination of the fixed minimum share capital or by the reduction thereof. Among the legislative divergences, the author analyzes those determined by the conflicts of interests between the members of the limited liability company. In particular, the author takes into account the divergences concerning the right of the minority members, whose interests are threatened by the actions of the majority members, to freely exit that company.
