As the author herself states, the purpose of this study is to identify the sources of the international law which grounds the interdiction of the „hate speech”, as well as the manner of their perception and application at European level, particularly in the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights. In this respect there are presented: the foundations of the interdiction of the „hate speech” at universal and European level; the elements analyzed in this respect by the European Court of Human Rights (reference to the context of the speech; instigation to hatred on grounds of race and religion; negativistic and revisionist speech); the regulations adopted by the Council of Europe and by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance; the normative framework of the European Union on racism and xenophobia, and, finally, the reference of the current Romanian criminal legislation to international exigences.

Announced in theory, present in practice, and recognized everywhere, „flexible law” is seeking its own accreditation at a doctrinal level. Covering a number of highly heterogeneous normative instruments (directives, advices, charters, codes of conduct, et al.) having as a common element the fact of being imposed not by constraint, but by the adhesion of its recipients, it manifests itself specifically in international law (as „soft law”), EU law (as a method of governance), or internal order (as a lever of achieving the functions of the state). In relation to proper law („hard law”), flexible law manifests itself either as its precursor, in the process of adoption, a companion in its enforcement, or, in certain situations, as a substitute. Knowing diverse national experiences, flexible law presents itself as a factor of simplification and improvement of the quality of legal regulations.

In this study, the author, having regard to the provisions of Directive 98/5/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 February 1998, as well as to the jurisprudential situations in this matter of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in the end comes to the conclusion that, in case a Romanian citizen obtains the professional qualification in one of the Member States of EU (or of the European Economic Area or of Switzerland), other than Romania, and he wants to practise in Romania, under the professional title thus acquired, the Romanian legal regulations referring to this legal classification (in this case, of Chapter VIII of the Law No 51/1995 on the organization and practice of the profession of lawyer) will become applicable.

The article analyzes the advantages which the settlement of disputes by means of arbitration has to offer. Arbitration is an exception from the principle that administration of justice is done by the courts and represents that effective legal mechanism, designed to ensure a fair, faster and less formal, confidential trial finalized by judgments subject to enforcement. Most patrimonial and non-patrimonial causes may be settled by way of arbitration, so that this method of settlement of disputes can be chosen by parties, instead of the common law justice. The conclusion that can be drawn is that, in order to relieve the courts of their role, arbitration is a viable alternative of settlement of disputes.

Environment protection represents a more and more important issue in terms of multiplication of the risk factors for the ecological balance, necessary for the normal course of life, so that it is required to act with more determination in this field, by increasing the weight and the severity of the repressive means against those who significantly prejudice the specific values. As such, the author shows that it is necessary that the role of the criminal law be amplified in order to sanction the deeds that seriously damage the environment, with negative consequences for the quality of life of the human beings and of the other living beings.

Analyzing the jurisdiction of the courts as it is regulated by the new (Romanian) Civil Procedure Code (Law No 134/2010, republished, entered into force on 15 February 2013), the author comes to the conclusion that this Code regulates a single case of alternative jurisdiction of public order, that is Article 113 (1) point 1 („Besides the courts provided in Articles 107–112, there shall also be competent: 1. the court having jurisdiction over plaintiff’s domicile, in the applications concerning the determination of filiation;...”).

Referitor la perioada de timp în care inculpatul poate fi tras la răspundere penală, potrivit art. 154 teza finală C.pen. anterior [art. 186 alin. (1) teza finală C.pen. actual], luna și anul se socotesc împlinite cu o zi înainte de ziua corespunzătoare datei de la care au început să curgă. Altfel spus, ceea ce se calculează potrivit art. 122 rap. la art. 154 C.pen. anterior este perioada de timp în care inculpatul poate fi tras la răspundere penală, ceea ce se situează ulterior acestei perioade urmând a intra pe domeniul prescripției speciale a răspunderii penale.

Prin Decizia nr. 269/2017 a Înaltei Curți de Casație și Justiție (completul de 5 judecători)1 a fost respins recursul împotriva hotărârii Consiliului Superior al Magistraturii referitoare la sancționarea disciplinară a unui judecător, constând în diminuarea indemnizației de încadrare lunară pentru abaterea prevăzută de art. 99 lit. l) din Legea nr. 303/2004 privind statutul judecătorilor și procurorilor2. Persoana sancționată a criticat hotărârea amintită, printre altele, pentru că instanța disciplinară a făcut o aplicare greșită a dispozițiilor art. 46 alin. (7) din Legea nr. 317/2004 privind Consiliul Superior al Magistraturii3, cu privire la termenul de prescripție a aplicării sancțiunilor disciplinare, precum și a dispozițiilor art. 99 lit. l) din Legea nr. 303/2004, care instituie abaterea disciplinară, constând în „imixtiunea în activitatea altui magistrat”.

In this article the author presents the journalistic portrait of a prominent representative of the Transylvanian intellectuals’ elite – Camil Velican, whose biography belongs to the model of Transylvanian Romanian intellectual from the turn of the 19th century to the 20th century. Following his family’s tradition, Camil Velican opted for legal studies, heading at first for the Hungarian capital, where he attended, at the Royal Hungarian University, the classes of the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences (1897–1900). The model of the best Romanian students in Budapest attracted him to the Academic Society „Petru Maior”, where the talents of the national literature were formed. He continued his studies starting from 1900 at the „Ferenc József” University in Cluj, where he obtained his Ph.D. in Law in 1902, after which he dedicated himself to the profession of lawyer. Camil Velican was acknowledged as a prominent representative of the Romanian lawyer profession, a profession he practiced at the Bar of Alba, whose member he has been since 1903. With a rich political activity, he was the first Romanian Mayor of Alba Iulia after the Union of Transylvania with Romania on 1 December 1918. He had a successful career, both in administration and in the legal field, and he contributed, through his knowledge, to the economic and cultural development of the community to which he was fully committed. It must be noted that Alba Iulia was the first city where, on 20 November 1918, it was installed a Romanian administration, in which Camil Velican served as mayor. The activity in the role of mayor was a special one and contributed to the development of the city, which had become a very important one for the whole country, given the historical event which took place here. On 12 June 1937 it was prematurely interrupted the thread of a life during which he could have continued a prodigious activity in the most diverse areas of public life: politics, administration, economy, culture. Subsequently, under the communist regime, the name and activity of Camil Velican were intentionally forgotten, as well as of other achievers of the Great Union. Moreover, his family has been subject to some political persecution, specific to those regrettable old times. Even the change of paradigm in the Romanian society after 1989 did not change the old state of facts, the memory of the one who was Camil Velican being still ignored. Moreover, the house of the Velican family, which was one of the main places established for the reception of delegates and for assembly of the Transylvanian leaders in order to organize the day of 1 December 1918, continues to be nowadays in an unjustified and unjust state of decay.

In this study, based on solid historical and legal documentation, the author argues that the completion of the Romanian unitary national state in 1918 was achieved during a long process of unification: first, the Romanians from the two main countries, Muntenia and Moldova, were united in 1859 in a national state, and then, those from other Romanian historical provinces, which were illegally encroached in the borders of neighbour empires, acted with perseverance for the accomplishment of their national and state unity. The study is divided into four distinct parts. In the first part, the author presents, based on documents, testimonies and memoirs, the idea of Romanian national and state unity as an essential coordinate of the history of the Romanian people. The acts of unification of the Romanian historical provinces with the Romanian Kingdom have legal base on the principle of nationalities and their right to free determination, rights recognized by the victorious powers of the First World War as a basis for solving the territorial aspects generated by the dismantling of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the Tsarist Empire. The acts of union, carried out by popular will expressed in large representative national assemblies, were ratified by acts of national sovereignty by the Romanian State and recognized as such by the 1919–1920 Peace Conference in Paris. The second part emphasizes on the constitutive character of the acts of union with Romania, voted by the constituent national assemblies of Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania during 1918. The article contains documentary data and information about the national liberation movement of Romanians from the three provinces, Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania, and the actions taken for their unification with the Kingdom of Romania at the end of the First World War. In each of the three Romanian historical provinces, various assemblies in which the participants declare their determination for union were formed. The Moldavian Soldiers’ Congress, attended by 800 delegates, represented a large representative body of all social strata and ethnic groups in Bessarabia. The Congress delegates voted for the political and territorial autonomy of Bessarabia. The Congress also decided to establish the council of the country, a parliamentary body made up of representatives of all the nationalities existing on the territory of Bessarabia. On 14/27 March 1918, the council of the country adopted a resolution in which was proclaimed solemnly the eternal union of Bessarabia „with the mother Romania”.

The amendment of the procedural rules concerning the access to justice of the European nationals, by the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon (1 December 2009), has required a rapid and effective reaction of the Court of Justice of the European Union; from this perspective, the new configuration of the criteria of admissibility of the actions brought by the so-called unprivileged applicants – natural or legal persons of private law – needed a reassessment of the aspects of material law (regarding the European acts that can be challenged) and, at the same time, of processual law, especially regarding the temporal application of the procedural rules. Despite the relatively short time interval, the Court in Luxembourg captured, in its recent case law, the much more flexible character of the rules of admissibility of the action for annulment, as provided in Article 263 paragraph 4 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

The Government Decision No 196/2016 has approved the preliminary thesis of the draft Administrative Code. The Government’s intention to give an incentive to the adoption of the Administrative Code, although it is salutary, is not the first. In recent years, several other proposals circulated in Romania for the adoption of an Administrative Code, which however have not been successful, so that, more than 25 years after the change of the political regime in our country, the practitioners, as well as the theorists of the administrative law are confronted with an unsystematized legislation, lacking coherence here and there and generating very different jurisprudential solutions, as well as administrative practice solutions. Within this study, the author intends to discuss some specific issues raised by these theses of the draft Administrative Code, namely: the unity and the ideological and, implicitly, terminological coherence in the administrative law; the organisation of the central public administration, including of its relations with its decentralized structures; the status of the civil servants, as well as the status applicable to the contractual staff of the public administration and the organization, functioning and disputed claims of the public services.