The Hungarian public procurement law will be renewed from 1th January 2012. Because of the new Act on Public Procurement (PPA) the development of the legislation of the last years should be reviewed. What kind of problems did the legislature have to solve? How could the specificities of an adequate public procurement act be defined? How does the judicature affect the legislature? This study tries to give answers from the point of view of the judicature. It examines the results of legislation, the experiences of practice, the earlier amendments and the most essential attributes of the new PPA.

There is an ongoing debate on how the role of municipalities should be changed in the local public service sector due to the financial problems present at local level. The debate is mainly related to determine the adequate level and function of local governments. The author introduces the basic elements of a model of public services that shows the relationship between the public actors (state/municipality), the service provider and the user, including how the need is determined, the service is provided, financed and the service provider is chosen. The author introduces the “Hungarian Model” and its main features: the co-existence of three different model (public, quasi private and mixed) of the waste treatment service sector differing in the relationships established among the stakeholders and in the financing system; and the right of municipalities to freely switch between them. It draws the attention to how the changes in the role of the state and the legal framework influenced the models and reshaped the relationships of the stakeholders without dealing with the consequences.

In the last few decades of the 20th century, the modernization of our world started to accelerate. This tendency means a transition to a second modernization. Risk society has posed new and previously unknown challenges for the decision makers of the world. As a result of it, criminal law, with its traditional instruments, often fails to provide the right response to the new types of criminal acts seriously threatening society. Therefore, there is a need for a change of paradigm. The task to be performed among the prevailing circumstances of risk society is to select those acts the frequency of which can still be effectively influenced by criminal law through the analysis of advantages/disadvantages and cost/benefit. Instruments different to those of criminal law are to be used against serious threats that cannot be influenced by criminal law – threats the seriousness of which are not yet known to a large extent.

The Autor examined the sentencing practice of the Regional Court of Appeal of Debrecen in homicide cases. The conclusion of his paper is, based on the examination of relevant case law, that courts regard the medium of the custody range as a basis for sentencing in homicide cares. This practice is independent of the relevant requirements provided by the General Part of the Criminal Code. The author also states, according to the examination mentioned above, that a life impissonment without the possibility of parote, is only exceptionally in the recent practice.

Since its adoption in 1950, the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms has established one of the best mechanism for the international protection of human rights. Because of the continuous increase of the European Court of Human Rights’ workload, the modification of the Court’s procedure was needed. During this reform, a new admissibility requirement is inserted in Article 35 of the Convention, which empowers the Court to declare inadmissible applications where the applicant has not suffered a significant disadvantage. This new admissibility criteria is applicable since 1 June 2010 (when Protocol No. 14. entered into force). The study examines the travaux preparatoires and the current text of the Protocol, and analyzes the case-law of the Court concerning this new criteria.

Book review on The Future of International Environmental Law, szerk.: David Leary és Balakrishna Pisupati, 2010, Tokió, United Nations University