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In this study, the author aims to highlight a number of manifestations of the principle of availability in civil proceedings that have been sanctioned for the abuse of procedural law. From the analysis of the judicial practice, we identify a multitude of situations in which the person’s right to file a lawsuit is exercised for purposes other than the one for which he was recognized by law, which was sanctioned by the application of a judicial fine. The right to sue and the right to appeal must be exercised in good faith, in accordance with the purpose enacted by the legal provisions, and not to pursue the production of a detrimental result to the adverse party. -
Based on art. 6 para. 1 of the (European) Convention of human rights and fundamental freedoms and art. 21 para. (3) of the Romanian Constitution (revised and republished), the author reviews numerous texts in the new (Romanian) Code of Civil Procedure (Law no. 134/2010, published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, No. 485 of July 15th, 2010, yet unenforced), which implements, specifically, the principle of the right to a fair trial within optimal and predictable delay. -
The authors look at the equipollence principle – related to the moment when the period for the enforcement of a mechanism of redress starts to run – mostly in terms of the case law. Starting from the publication, a short time ago, of the decision issued in a case by the Criminal Section of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, note is taken of the fact that the case law of the supreme judicial authority in criminal matters has varied in this respect in time, starting by the acceptance and enforcement of this principle, followed by the denial of its applicability, and then by its re-enforcement. As regards the same principle, the judicial practice of the High Court of Cassation and Justice in the civil trial-related matter is unitary and constant, meaning that the equipollence theory strictly applies to the cases expressly regulated by law, and no cases when equipollence is also applied for other assumptions as well are identified. The conclusion is that the inconsistencies between the criminal and civil trial-related matters in terms of legislative, doctrine-related and case law approach of this principle, underlined throughout the analysis, should be eliminated both by legislative amendments and by judicial practice unification mechanisms. -
The principle of equality of arms is a jurisprudential principle of the European Court of Human Rights and is an integral part of the right to a fair trial enshrined in the (European) Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Within this article, the author set herself to undertake an analysis of the evolution of this principle, both in terms of jurisprudence and legal point of view. -
As subject of public international law, the European Union is committed not only to observe, but also to develop the public international law and, within this framework, it is established the principle of equality between the Member States, within the limits of the treaties of the Union. The institutional structure of this intergovernmental international organization and the procedure of adoption of the legal acts reflect a nuanced equality between the Member States, which however emphasizes the specificity of the Union. „United in diversity”, a motto to which, according to the Declaration No 52 to the Treaty of Lisbon, not all Member States have subscribed, the European Union promotes an enhanced integration and a political cooperation in which the States act in accordance with the Treaties and, in certain cases, for the purpose of supporting the national interest. The transfer of competences from the States to the Union was achieved gradually, with the economic and political evolution at national and international level, pursuant to the state sovereignty. Equality between states within the European Union is a principle whose application in the current European and international context might reflect a new approach of the European integration and positioning of the Member States within the Union. -
The promotion and protection of the rights of the child has always been one of the main objectives of the European Union, but it is also a result of international commitments. All Member States of the European Union have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the rules and principles of this Convention guide the policies and the actions of the Union that impact on the rights of the child. The Lisbon Treaty has conferred greater importance to the objectives of the European Union, and by Article 3 (3) of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child it was explicitly established the imperative obligation to promote the protection of the rights of the child. In addition, the rights of the children are enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which by Article 24 recognizes children as independent and autonomous holders of rights, also considering the best interest of the child as paramount in relations with the public authorities and the private institutions. The transposition of the European and international objectives, as well as of the fundamental principles referring to the protection of the rights of the child took place naturally through the adoption of new national regulations reflecting the acquiescence of Romania to the European objectives and its constant concern for the protection of the rights of the child. However, in many cases there are encountered in practice situations where, although there are both the legal basis and the mechanisms necessary for its implementation, the rights of the children are not respected and/or are not given due importance. This paper aims to draw attention once again to the essential rights of children and to emphasize the fundamental principles referring to the promotion and protection of rights of the children, with particular regard to the principle of the best interest of the child, as regulated at European level.
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The European Union law principles can be source of Community law, as they have the same rank as the treaties in the hierarchy of the EU law sources. These principles are compulsory both for the EU institutions and the Member States. These binding principles include the principle of legality of indictment and punishment. Therefore, whenever a Community act requires Member States to establish punishments to be used in the event an offense provided for in that act, they must comply with. There are also some exceptions to this rule (the compulsoriness for the European Union Member States): the criminal liability of the person who committed the offense cannot be determined nor can be aggravated by breaching the Community act independently of a domestic law adopted by a Member State in view of its implementation. In this study, the authors analyze the exceptions to the principle of legality of indictment and punishment, which have a particular interest in criminal matters, given the contradictions in the Romanian and foreign criminal doctrine. -
Article 5 of the Civil Procedure Code1 regulates the fundamental principle of free access to justice and the obligations that the legislator establishes as duty of the judge are meant to outline this principle2 . Free access to justice is a fundamental principle of the organization of any democratic judicial system, being enshrined in an important number of international documents, therefore it has special meanings both for procedural law and for the constitutional law3 .
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In this article, the author aims to analyze the theoretical foundations of two essential principles for the state of law and how to balance the relations between the three powers: the principle of constitutional loyalty and the principle of loyal institutional collaboration between the public authorities vested with the governing powers. The two principles are not formally provided in the text of the Constitution, but can be deduced by way of interpretation from other constitutional principles. As for the first principle, the author shows that it has its source in the obligation freely assumed by each member of a community of individuals organized according to the principles of social hierarchy, or imposed by the public authority with supreme force in the community, to respect a summum of legal norms, whose purpose consists in the regulation and harmonization of the social relations. The origin of the second principle is found in the principle of separation of the three powers in the state, which in the governing process are obliged to collaborate loyally with each other, within the institutional framework prescribed by the constitutional norm. In the end, the author concludes that the substance of the principle of constitutional loyalty includes not only the general obligation of citizens and of both public authorities and institutions to respect the will of the Constituent Legislator formally expressed in the text of the Constitution, but also the obligation of the STATE and of each public authority provided in the Constitution, to be loyal to the CITIZEN. Otherwise, the relations between the state and the citizen are compromised, or will take the form and content of totalitarian-type relations, in which the individual is deprived of rights and absorbed by the state as a dehumanized form of life. The author considers that the loyalty of the state towards the citizen is an obligation of constitutional rank and, on this basis, he proposes, de lege ferenda, its express inclusion in the text of the Constitution at a future revision thereof. -
This doctoral research investigates the case law development of the principle of loyalty within the framework of the invisible constitution theory. Uncodified counterpart of written constitutional rules, the invisible constitution belongs to a broader understanding of the concept, specifically the constitution in its material sense. Contemporary examples are found within the British constitutional order (e.g. constitutional conventions and case law), the French bloc de constitutionnalité (i.e. complementary unwritten rules) and the case law of the Hungarian Constitutional Court (i.e. the Sólyom model). Assuming a national invisible constitution exists, the paper aims to demonstrate that the principle of loyal cooperation belongs to such an invisible dimension of the Romanian constitutional order.
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The national legislation on social security provides for different standard retirement ages for women and men, and this aspect does not contravene the principle of non-discrimination on the basis of sex in social security matters, enshrined in Directive 79/7/EEC of 19 December 1978 on the progressive implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women in matters of social security, nor the principle of equality of citizens, enshrined in Article 16 of the Romanian Constitution. However, failure to apply the more favourable age conditions, laid down for women, to people who have changed their gender identity from woman to man may give rise to discrimination on the grounds of sex. The rationale for maintaining different standard retirement ages is based on the socio-professional disadvantages of women in Romania in relation to men, so that being a woman during their working lives justifies the application of a lower retirement age, regardless of whether at the time of retirement, following the change of gender identity, the beneficiary of the pension is a man, and not a woman. As national law does not regulate this issue, it is for the national courts to interpret social security legislation in accordance with the principle of non-discrimination on grounds of sex. The existence of different standard retirement ages for women and men does not automatically lead to the de jure termination of employment relationships as a result of retirement at different ages, as Article 56 of the Labour Code regulates the possibility of termination of employment relationships, for both sexes, at the same age. Nor does the change in gender identity give rise to different treatment, on the basis of sex, on the date of the termination of employment relationships as a result of the fulfilment of retirement conditions. -
The principle of opportunity is applied in all criminal legislations, although some leave it unmentioned and others expressly establish it. The author analyses the evolution of this principle, starting from the former criminal legislation to the criminal legislation in force, pointing out the advantages of the new regulation. -
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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Unele considerații asupra separării puterilor în stat. În literatura de specialitate se acceptă că doctrina separării puterilor în stat s-a dezvoltat în secole întregi de evoluție politică și filosofică1. Originea sa poate fi identificată în secolul al IV-lea î.H., când Aristotel, în tratatul său intitulat „Politici”, a descris trei agenții ale formei de guvernare: adunarea generală, funcționarii publici și autoritatea judiciară. Și în Republica Roma exista un sistem asemănător bazat pe adunarea generală, senat și oficialii publici, toate funcționând pe baza principiului „verifică și echilibrează” (checks and balances). După căderea Imperiului Roman, Europa a devenit fragmentată în state-națiuni și de la sfârșitul Evului Mediu până în secolul al XVIII-lea structurile de guvernare au constat în forme de concentrare a puterii, determinată de rațiuni ereditare. Singura excepție a perioadei este considerată dezvoltarea Parlamentului Englez (Parlamentul) în secolul al XVII-lea2. -
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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The article briefly analysis a series of implications of transparency principle in public procurement. Firstly, the article highlights a legal loophole determined by the absence of a legal definition of this principle in the main internal enactment. The practical applicability of this principle is shown both at the regulation level and the case law. To sum up, the transparency principle imposes drafting all the relevant information for an award procedure in a precise, clear and unequivocally manner and communication of the said information to all third parties. Transparency creates the premises of equality of treatment between bidders and subsequently allows an accurate verification of compliance with the said rules.
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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. -
The issue of fighting corruption has been and still is a constant concern of the Romanian and foreign legal doctrine, as „corruption” takes various forms of manifestation punishable by criminal law as separate crimes. From this perspective, the author considers it useful to see the evolution of criminal law on fighting corruption in our country, by comparing the crime of corruption in the current criminal law with those regulated in the new Criminal Code. The article also emphasizes on the crime of buying influence, as a specific means of corruption crimes. -
The Romanian State assumed by the New York Convention adopted on 10 June 1958 only the obligation to recognize and ensure the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in the situation where the foreign arbitral award is pronounced on the territory of a signatory state of the Convention, and the dispute which has been settled by the respective foreign arbitral award may be qualified as being commercial by the national legislation. We appreciate that the Romanian State complied with this obligation by ratifying the New York Convention, by the Decree No 186/1961, and we emphasize, in this context, that the respective Convention is binding on the Romanian State only with regard to foreign arbitral awards that fall within its scope of application. Thus, for the foreign arbitral awards that do not fall within the scope of application of the New York Convention, the Romanian State is not bound by any conventional obligation, the state having the freedom to regulate legal provisions other than conventional ones regarding the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. Consequently, the existence of some domestic legal provisions contained in the Civil Procedure Code, other than the provisions of the New York Convention, on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, is in no way likely to engage international responsibility of the Romanian State, since, as we noted in this study, the Romanian State complied with its conventional obligations assumed by the conclusion of the New York Convention, even the provisions of the mentioned Convention (Article 7.1) allowing the existence of some national provisions other than conventional regulations, since only in such a hypothesis there is the possibility of invoking by the interested person the more favourable national provisions (if the normative provisions were identical, in no case could the problem of applying some more favourable legal provisions be raised).
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In the above study, the author, carrying out a critical analysis of articles 1216–1218 of the new Romanian Civil Code (Law no. 287/2009, which became effective on the 1st of October 2011), namely, regarding the contents regulating the violence (as a vice of consent) in this Code, considers that their wording is not adequate and that is why finally, the study, de lege ferenda proposes a new wording of the contents, such as formulated by the author. -
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. -
Expertise is the activity of research of certain facts or circumstances of the case, which requires specialized knowledge, activity carried out by an expert or, in the cases provided by law, by a specialist in a specific field, designated by the court at the request of the parties or ex officio, and whose findings and/or conclusions are reported in a written document, called an expertise report. As such, the expertise and the expertise report are two interdependent operations, since the expertise report is the follow-up of the expertise, its final act, and the expertise is the research activity on which the expertise report is based. Although the legislator establishes that the evidence can be provided, among others, by means of the „expertise” (Article 250, Articles 330–340 of the Civil Procedure Code), which constitutes the means of proof, from a legal point of view, is the expertise report, and not the expertise itself. The expertise can only concern factual circumstances on which the expert is asked to give clarifications or to ascertain them, circumstances which require specialized knowledge and which help to solve the case. The legal norms cannot form the object of the expertise, because the judges must know the law in force in Romania. However, the content of the foreign law is established by the court of law through „attestations obtained from the state bodies that have enacted it”, by „expertise opinion” or by another appropriate way [Article 2562 (1) of the Civil Code].
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The motivated findings and conclusions of the expert or of the laboratory or specialized institute from which the expertise has been requested will be recorded in a written report. Exceptionally, when the expertise is carried out in front of the body that disposed/ordered its execution, the expertise report may be oral. The form of the expertise report also depends on the nature, as well as the specificity of the problem that generated the expertise. In all cases where the expertise requires time, documentations, travels, researches, analyses, laboratory tests, etc., the expertise report will take the written form. In case the expert can immediately express his opinion on the factual circumstance whose clarification requires specialized knowledge, he will be heard during the meeting, and his opinion will be recorded in a minutes, according to the provisions relative to the recording of the witness statement, which apply accordingly. As such, the expertise report is the document by which the expert informs the court of all the legally collected information which clarify (bring light on) the issues to be examined, being, therefore, the means by which the evidence is presented to the judge. The expert must limit himself to reporting what he has perceived, without expressing his opinion on the consequences of fact and of law that might result. The text of the report will include clear, short and dense phrases and sentences, using accessible vocabulary, without ambiguous formulations or terms and without references to proceedings outside the file. The technical terms, which are difficult to access, will be explained at the bottom of the page or in brackets, in order to facilitate the understanding of the conclusions.
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The new Romanian Code of Civil Procedure (Law no. 134/2010, as republished on 3 August 2012 and coming into force on the 1st of February 2013) supersedes the previous Code of Civil Procedure (of the year 1865) regulating (in articles 303-320) the witness-based evidence. In this study the author makes a wide-ranging analysis of this regulation, from the triple perspective of the admissibility, of the administration, of the appreciation of this mean of evidence, comparing the new provisions in this matter by those set forth in the previous Code of Civil Procedure.
