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• The impact of inflation on private law relationships

  45-72

  Tibor Kiss

  Views:

  209

  Not for decades have we seen price rises in Hungary, or in Europe and the world in general, such as those faced by the developed world in 2022. Inflation in Hungary was 24.5% in December 2022 and in January 2023, the indicator stood at 25.7%. This article provides a summary of the key concepts related to inflation, going beyond a definitional approach to inflation to cover its types and the most important principles and methods of measuring it. Economic foundations fundamentally determine private legal relations and legal institutions. In such a situation, crisis legislation is triggered, primarily in areas that have the greatest impact on the functioning of the economy and on consumers' daily lives. The present article reviews those important civil law structures and the rules governing them in the Civil Code and other statutory and governmental regulations, the content of which is justified to be amended in a persistent inflationary environment, but which have not been the focus of the legislator so far, emphasizing the need to adapt private law norms to the changed economic environment. The article examines those legal acts in which the legislator has set out in the text of the act data referring to value or price, nominally defining and quantifying in concrete terms the price or value that plays a significant role in a given private legal relationship. This type of legislation, however, does not take into account the changes in value relations at all, so that in an inflationary environment, the price and value figures nominally fixed in the private law norm are not adapted to economic processes, i.e. they are not in line with the current price level determined by economic fundamentals. The author outlines proposals and regulatory techniques for amending the law to adapt these legal provisions to the changed price and value conditions.

• New Tendencies in EU Law on Air Passenger Rights

  1-9

  Zoltán Angyal

  Views:

  118

  egulation (EC) No 261/2004 depending on the circumstances of the travel disruption, requires air carriers to: provide passengers with assistance, such as meals, refreshments, telephone calls and hotel accommodation; offer re-routing and refunds; pay a flat-rate compensation of up to €600 per passenger, depending on the flight distance; and proactively inform passengers about their rights.
  Under the Montreal Convention (as translated by Regulation (EC) No 2027/97 into EU law), a passenger may be entitled to compensation in case of mishandled baggage (but with a limit of about €1200), except if the airline can demonstrate it has taken all reasonable measures to avoid the damages or it was impossible to take such measures. Airlines often fail to offer passengers the rights to which they are entitled in instances of denied boarding, long delays, cancellations or mishandled baggage, in particular under Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 ("the Regulation") and Regulation (EC) No 2027/97. Case law has had a decisive impact on the interpretation of the Regulation. The Commission Communication of 11 April 2011 reported on the varying interpretation being taken on the provisions of Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, due to grey zones and gaps in the current text, and the non-uniform enforcement across Member States. Furthermore, it is difficult for passengers to enforce their individual rights. With regard to Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, the European Parliament asks the Commission to propose a clarification of the passengers' rights, in particular the notion of ‘extraordinary circumstances’. On 13 March 2013, the European Commission made a proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 establishing
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  common rules on compensation and assistance to passengers in the event of denied boarding and of cancellation or long delay of flights and Regulation (EC) No 2027/97 on air carrier liability in respect of the carriage of passengers and their baggage by air. This paper takes a closer look at this proposal. The proposal aims to improve enforcement by clarifying key principles and implicit passenger rights that have given rise to many disputes between airlines and passengers in the past; and by enhancing and better coordinating the enforcement policies carried out on a national level. Issues covered by the proposal are the following.

  Definition of "extraordinary circumstances"

  Right to compensation in case of long delays

  Right to rerouting

  Right to care

  Missed connecting flight

  Rescheduling Tarmac delays

  Partial ban of the "no show" policy

  Right to information

  Handling of individual claims and complaints

  Better take into account the financial capacities of the air carriers

  Ensure better enforcement of passenger rights with regard to mishandled baggage

  Adapt liability limits in accordance to general price inflation

• Functions and interpretation of principles in the German contract law

  Andrea Csécsy

  Views:

  48

  To describe the functions of principles we can say that all of them are fundamental basis of an area of law. They declare or solve concrete debates between the parties. If there is a problem with interpreting of a rule in the civil code, judges has this helping hand. In Germany the development of principles in the field of contract law has a really unique historical root. At the time of BGB’s birth, the German Civil Code did not accept any exculpation under the rule pacta sunt servanda. Moral philosophers acknowledged that a contract as private interest of the parties needs special protection from the state. It is not only a personal relationship, because self welfare leads to welfare of the public. The law has to regulate this field and give instruments of protection for both parties to ensure peace and equality in the field of public relations and moral.

  After the First World War, Rechtsmark (German currency) had its deepest point in its history. The inflation was so high that the performance of a contract made before the war was absolutely unfair for the supplier. For the cost of one galloon gas anyone could buy the entire stock after the war. There was a too late and too small reaction from the state for this situation. An Act had been accepted in 1925 about revalorization. The main fault of this Act was the strict and very small applicability in the field of contracts. The regulations of it were applicable only for contracts with large economic potential.

  German jurisdiction had to solve the problem. The most difficult part of this process was how to dissolve the strict paradigm of pacta sunt servanda. Oertmann, a German legal expert created the collapse of the foundation of the transaction. It meant that changed circumstances deprive the contract from its ground, the need of the party. Anybody who signs a contract has a need and tries to create all conditions of that specific contract to harmonize with his or her needs and interest. In case of an essential change of circumstances this interest modifies and the original transaction became tremendously onerous for him or her. The doctrine of Oertmann was insisted on pacta sunt servanda, so after the change of circumstances the whole contract failed.

  Jurisdiction in Germany accepted Oertmann’s doctrine with a completion. Judges vindicated the right for themselves to modify the contract to be suitable for the new interests of the parties. This modification meant the implementation of clausula rebus sic stantibus into German contract law. It became applicable worldwide in the field of long term relationship of the parties.

  In this essay I examine not only the development of these contractual principles in Germany but the effectiveness and functions of them. I describe and define the legal interest of regulating contracts and what is the connection between private and public interest in the field of the law of contracts. As a defect of the contractual procedure non-performance and other breach of a contract have special importance in civil law. Good faith is a basic principle of civil law in Hungary too and in most European civil codes. The interpretation of German good faith theory (Treu und Glauben) is significant from the viewpoint of the judicial modification of contracts. In case of clausula rebus sic stantibus if the party wants to ground his or her claim, he or she has to prove the good faith as a moral standard to be an exculpation under the heavy burden of pacta sunt servanda. The conclusion is that in Germany the basic element of private contracts is not the consent of parties but good faith of them. The socially excepted moral appears through the requirement of good faith of the parties. The law has to ensure that in any period of a contractual relationship this good faith exists.