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.

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 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 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.

Very high frequency of facts consisting of possession and sale of cigarettes from smuggling, as well as significant damage to the state budget by committing such acts with adverse consequences exacerbated in the current economic climate, require a consistent jurisprudence to prevent and effectively combat such deeds. Building on the diversity of solutions pronounced by the courts on the legal classification of the offense of possession, outside a fiscal warehouse and by an authorized warehouse-keeper, of unmarked excisable goods for which duty has not been paid and originate form smuggling, the author points out the need to promote a referral in the interests of the law and identifies a possible solution to unify the judicial practice, holding that the said deed meets the constitutive elements of the offenses provided for in art. 2961 par. (1) l) of the Fiscal Code, art. 9 para. (1). a) of Law no. 241/2005 on preventing and combating tax evasion and art. 270 para. (3) of the Customs Code.

Any scientific approach which seeks to understand the meanings of “rule of law” must be an interdisciplinary approach based on the philosophy of law. This study carries out such an analysis in order to highlight the many theoretical meanings for this concept, and the relationship between principles and legal rules, respectively the regulatory value of law principles. Such analysis is a plea for relating to principles in the work of law establishment and enforcement.