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• The Legal Status of Victims of Sexual Violence in International, European Union and Domestic Law

  Klaudia Viktória Zsiros

  Views:

  50

  The study describes the concept and the legal status of the victim of sexual violence in view of the fact that the definition of victim in criminal procedure law is not the same as the broader definition of victim used in criminology at domestic or international levels. The Me Too movement drew attention to a problem in 2017 that is still waiting to be solved years later: preventing and eradicating violence against women, as well as making the role of the victims during procedure and their legal options more effective. A brief, overview categorization of this legal situation shows what emerging tendencies can be discovered in the European Union’s legislative process nowadays, and based on these, what the problematic areas are in domestic law where change is needed.

• Legal position of the roma minority under International and European Law : Thoughts on the monograph of Anikó Szalai

  166-170

  Sándor Szemesi

  Views:

  155

  Book review on Aniko Szalai's book, the title is Protection of the Roma Minority under International and European Law. (Eleven International Publishing, the Hague, 2015.)

• Withdrawal from the European Union: Article 50 TEU and Brexit

  97-117

  Lilla Nóra Kiss

  Views:

  450

  The unilateral right of a member state to withdraw from the EU is an entirely new feature of EU Law introduced by the Lisbon Treaty. The practical application of the withdrawal clause was placed on the agenda as a result of the 23 June 2016 Brexit- referendum in the UK. The exit raises some non-legal and legal, theoretical and practical issues which – as we are talking about an unprecedented event – have to be elaborated on now. The paper analyzes Article 50 TEU by analytical methods, summarizing the incomplete frameworks, the main procedural rules, and those issues that require the interpretation of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The paper aims to highlight the points of the withdrawal clause that have interpretative gaps, which might not have been unintentionally left by the EU legislator.

• Luxembourg v Strasbourg – Legal Impediments in the Process of the Accession of the EU to the ECHR

  101-119

  Zoltán Angyal

  Lilla Nóra Kiss

  Views:

  117

  The accession of the European Union (EU) to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has been on the agenda of the EU for long. Although the Lisbon Treaty settles this question in theory by obliging the EU to accede, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) resorted to its rights laid down in the Treaties and published its Opinion 2/13 on the matter by the full Court. This opinion scrutinizes the draft document concerning accession. According to the opinion the EU cannot accede to the ECHR in the present form because the draft document is not in compliance with the special characteristics and features of EU law, therefore it would require the amendment or reorganisation of the whole EU legal system. By this judgement the ECJ outlines the legal impediments in the way of the accession. The main objective of our article – after summarizing the brief history and legal framework of the accession – is to present and evaluate the critical elements of accession determined by the ECJ and predict the decision’s possible consequences.

• Harmonization of Arbitration Laws in some Asian and European Countries

  68-77

  Gauri Nirwal

  Views:

  162

  The present paper studies the relationship between domestic and international arbitration laws and the harmonization factor amongst some Asian and European jurisdictions. During the last decades, there has been a significant change and globalization in the world and with the expansion of businesses and trade a better dispute resolution mechanism is required in order to maintain the harmony in international trade. It has become a necessity to balance the domestic arbitration laws with the international ones. This brief paper identifies and comments on some of the areas where differences remain including differences in recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards in various jurisdictions over the public policy defence, and where further examination and research to reach and solve disputes amicably might be useful.

• Issues of Public Social Responsibility in Great Britain and Hungary

  122-136

  Nóra Jakab

  Zsófia Ráczi

  Views:

  330

  Social responsibility has undergone significant development in recent years. The concept has spread into every aspect of life: personal life, the economic sphere and finally the public sector. It is proven that currently many states are struggling with various problems in the public sector. We believe that public social responsibility is one of the guidelines that is able to help, for example, in the realization of a comprehensive public administration reform. This paper examines public social responsibility in Great Britain and Hungary. Even though we have the example of the United Kingdom to follow, their way of practicing PSR may not be suitable for the rest of the European countries because of the fundamental differences in our legal systems and mindsets.

• Work of Costantino Mortati in the Field of Public Law

  23-41

  Katalin Egresi

  Views:

  94

  The aim of my article is to present an overview of certain stages of Costantino Mortati’s scientific work (Constitutional Court’s judge and professor of law) on the basis of Italian bibliography. His most popular work, entitled “the Constitution in material sense” (1940) conforms to problems and methodology of Italian constitutional law, while it reflects to contemporary schools of European jurisprudence and changes of institutions and theories of modern state. Behind Mortati’s theories about the State and the Constitution, the Italian liberal state regarded as heritage of risor- gimento, and the symptoms of its crises, birth and fall of the totalitarian state and the fundamental public law-aspects of the democratic and republic state can be found.

• Detrimental effects of tax havens and the case of the Dutch tax system

  45-67

  Tamás Zoltán Wágner

  Views:

  249

  Nowadays, multinationals have become so strong that they can easily compete with states. Consequently, they have the opportunity to develop several tax minimalization strategies such as transfer pricing, inversion, hybrid entities etc. All these have a negative impact on the world economy and state budgets. Despite detrimental effects, certain countries try to cooperate with multinationals by transforming themselves into tax havens. In this framework, they provide multinationals with various kinds of tax advantages such as deductions, low tax rates and preferential tax rulings (“sweetheart deals”). Although, the general attitude towards tax avoidance in the European Union is negative, particular member states’ tax systems display several characteristics of tax havens. In this regard, it should be noted that multinationals regularly use the loopholes and other advantages of the Dutch tax system to minimise their tax liability. The following study – after a brief view to the characteristics of tax havens– will illustrate these options by highlighting the fact that the country – despite the denial of the respective governments – still displays several characteristics of - tax havens.

• Social Dumping in the Face of Cross-border Collective Agreements and Actions: A Dilemma of the European Legal Practice on the Edge of Law and Economy in the Light of the Framework of International Standards

  180-202

  Attila Gábor Kószás

  Views:

  148

  In this paper I outline the objectives of the ILO, the conventions relevant to collective bargaining and action, and furthermore the pronouncements of the ILO supervisory bodies. After describing social dumping I examine the jurisprudence of the European Union regarding the collision of fundamental freedoms and collective labour rights in the light of international labour standards. My observation is that the hierarchical relationship between fundamental freedoms and labour rights in favour of the former cannot be maintained even based on EU law.

• Old and new challenges: poverty, migration, criminality

  96-107

  Andrea Domokos

  Alexandra Bognár

  Views:

  194

  Intensive economic, social and political changes cause local and global effects, which means that both universal (including the un, european union and other Igo’s) and national responses are necessary and shall be harmonized. Individual responses, without taking into consideration the other universal and national actor’s steps can cause more problems than they solve. According to the official un statistics, people who are forced to leave their country of origin, flow mostly from the region of Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq to the EU Member States. This means that their legal, cultural and religious background are different from the EU standards, which can be considered as sources of additional social (and sometimes criminal) problems. It is clear that all the states have right to take legal steps against crimes committed by these people (independently from the question whether their presence in the territory of the country is lawful or not), enforcing all the international and national standards of fair trials and humanity during the procedures started against them. The topic is extremely hot nowadays in Hungary and in the European Union.

• Hungarian legislative changes induced by the case-law of European Court of Human Rights

  109-122

  Andrea Klemencsics

  Views:

  144

  Indisputably, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has an effect on national legal systems. In this study I examine the type of this effect in the Hungarian legal system through the case law of the year 2014, and as an outcome, I would like to demonstrate that the ECtHR has both direct and indirect impacts on the national legislation in Hungary. As a result of the judgments’ direct impact, changes are made in the national legislation, meanwhile the indirect impact can only be detected in the decisions of the Hungarian Constitutional Court or domestic courts. Obviously, the direct impact is the most significant and most noticeable, however, the significance of indirect impact has been gradually increasing in the recent period. Based on this idea, I would like to point out that both effects are present in the Hungarian legislation, and seem to show an increasing trend, although the judicial bodies mean an exception in this practice. Nonetheless, according to the European practice, the judicial bodies will most likely refer to the international norm and the case law of the ECtHR in the near future.

• Neighbouring Rights of Press Publishers: Issues Relating to Transposition

  Gábor Polyák

  Klára Szalay

  Views:

  206

  Press publishers spend billions on producing quality journalism each year. While the costs of producing well supported, quality journalism manifest in producing the original content, i.e. the very first copy, further costs – due to digitization – are negligible. Parallel to this, prosperous business models thrive on re-using articles in press publications, as well as optimizing them for search and social media platforms attractive enough to generate huge amounts of advertising revenue. But not for the those who actually make the content. The European Union seeks to persuade large digital companies to take part in the financing of European content, mainly through competition law or by taking steps to improve the competitive position of European companies. The rules relating to press publishers of the EU Copyright Directive of 2019 intend to serve this purpose and will be analysed in this paper.

• Advertising Bans in the Internal Market: Limits of State Competence on the Example of the Advertising Ban on Foreign Gambling in Hungary

  12-23

  Franz Leidenmühler

  László Fodor(Translator)

  Judit Balogh(Translator)

  Ildikó Bartha(Translator)

  Views:

  202

  Die ungarischen Werbebeschränkungen für Glücksspiel-Dienstleistungen aus anderen Mitgliedstaaten der EU sind nicht mit den Vorgaben aus dem Unionsrecht vereinbar und können daher aufgrund des Vorrangs des Unionsrechts den Werbenden nicht entgegengehalten werden, die sich auf die Freiheit der Dienstleistungserbringung nach Art. 56 AEUV berufen können. Entsprechend der ständigen Rechtsprechung des EuGH erstreckt sich die Vorrangwirkung auch auf Strafbestimmungen, die an unionsrechtswidrige Normen anknüpfen. Die Unanwendbarkeit der unionsrechtswidrigen Bestimmungen bezieht sich nicht nur auf den in einem anderen Mitgliedstaat ansässigen Dienstleistungserbringer, sondern auch auf die inländischen Werbepartner.

• Review of the Book “Posted Workers in EU and Hungarian Law” by Gábor Kártyás

  209-220

  Dóra Takács

  Dóra Varga

  Views:

  79

  In today’s globalized labour law, where borders, especially within the European Union, seem to be increasingly blurred, cross-border situations are becoming more common. Due to digitalisation and technology, which is evolving at a rapid pace especially in the present situation, working abroad can now be carried out without the worker actually moving away from his desk, namely not physically entering another country. In view of this, the topicality and exciting nature of the processed topic can hardly be questioned. Following a holistic approach, the reviewed book guides the readers with unique detail and provides them with a sure point of reference on the swampy ground of the posting, which is surrounded by many challenges and conflicts of interests. In our review, we will describe and evaluate the content of the monograph along these sure points of reference.

• A Case Study on the Interaction Between the General Data Protection Regulation and Artificial Intelligence Technologies

  45-57

  Gizem Gültekin Várkonyi

  Views:

  208

  This paper presents a general overview of the problems regarding the regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) raised in the official published works of the European Union (EU) and interprets these problems from the perspective of the Hungarian experts as a case study. Even though a new regulation on AI has already been proposed at the EU level, the paper evaluates specific rules and principles regarding data protection since data is the lifeblood of AI systems and the protection of such data is a fundamental right enshrined in the EU legislation via the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The result of the study shows that the application of the GDPR on AI systems in an efficient and uniform way might be at stake since different outputs were generated by the experts to the same legal questions deriving from a scenario presented.

• The Observation, Review, and Possible Modification of the EU Environmental Liability Directive in Hungary

  29-41

  Gábor Kecskés

  Views:

  173

  The main secondary legal source of environmental liability in the European Union is the Directive 2004/35/CE of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 April 2004 on environmental liability with regard to the prevention and remedying of environmental damage. Even though it was modified several times since then, it still remains the basic norm in the environmental field by establishing the regulatory frames by means of the polluter pays principle and the principle of prevention. The present study makes an overview of recent and potential further legislative steps in Hungary with regards to its implementation.

• Public Hearing as a Safeguard of Fair Trial in Criminal Proceedings

  46-61

  Tamás Háger

  Views:

  143

  The primary aim of my paper is to examine the questions related to the institute of public hearing. As we know, publicity is one of the most important safeguards of fair trial in criminal procedure. In my opinion, it is necessary to examine these procedural questions in a scientific depth in the light of both the case decisions of the High Courts and the practice of the European Court of Human Rights. The study examines one of the important pledges of a fair trial, the effectiveness of the basic principle of publicity in the criminal procedure. It explores the principle from a dogmatic point of view, and also in the light of both the European standards and the regulations currently in force. It mentions the limitation and exclusion of publicity, and the legal consequences of violating publicity in a great detail. Classic legal institutes are shifted into new dimensions by the technical improvements of the modern world and the media broadcasts from courts, and the paper points it out that for the sake of having an undisturbed court hearing and verification, some modifications on certain legal regulations may be justified. The study also mentions the standpoints of legal literature regarding the notion of publicity in detail, and by summarizing them it attempts to define the notion of the given basic principle as per aspects of law science, considering the characteristics of the 21st century. After the establishment of law theory principles, besides introducing the regulation in force and touching upon court practice, my paper analyzes questions that are more and more current, especially due to the reports by the electronic media, which sometimes cannot only disturb the order of the court, but also the procedure of verification. So, after the examination of basic hypotheses and the legal institute, it draws the conclusion that the development of the legal institute justifies the modification of the procedural law in the future, especially in connection with informing the press.

• White Book and Strategy: AI Regulation Initiations in the European Union and Hungary

  119-137

  Dániel Mazsu

  Views:

  307

  Artificial Intelligence (AI), alongside green solutions and the suddenly exploding COVID-19 pandemic, is one of the most important buzzwords of the 21st century in a growing number of areas of society and economy. Despite this, the regulation of technology is still in its infancy in all parts of the world, and neither the European Union nor Hungary are exceptions. But there are already documents and proposals that will form the basis for future legislation in the aforementioned territories. This article analyses these from several perspectives, as well as comparing them with the hopeful goal of bringing them closer to each other.

• Current challenges of the European legislation on agricultural law

  98-104

  Annamária Csilla Gyüre

  Views:

  127

  Book review on the book ed.: Csák Csilla, Novotni Kiadó, Miskolc, 2010., the title is Az európai földszabályozás aktuális kihívásai.

• Technology in Legal Regulation’s Service? Efforts in the Field of Data Protection

  33-45

  Zsolt György Balogh

  Attila Kiss

  Gábor Polyák

  Tamás Szádeczky

  Gergely László Szőke

  Views:

  184

  The interaction between technology and data protection is quite well-known and widely accepted in the legal literature concerning privacy protection. This essay tries to sum up the efforts to line up the technology itself to defend one’s privacy, often threated by technological development. The essay first shows the relevance of the Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs), and the basic concept of the Privacy by Design principle, and then analyses both the current and the proposed European legal regulation focusing on these issues.

• The Nature of the EU Labour Market and Its Regulations

  89-104

  Moe Thazin Khaing

  Views:

  157

  Labour market regulation to prevent labour migration easily becomes protectionist, thus violating the rights of migrant workers. This paper focuses especially on the role of the labour market regulations relating to migrant workers in the EU. General labour market regulations will be analysed in the first section. When we talk about the labour market, the regulations will be assessed as to whether they are strong or not and to what extent the workers will get their rights protected. EU labour migration is large around the world and can be handled with labour legislation and the labour market. Therefore, EU labour market regulations and policies, especially active labour market policies, are analysed in this paper.

• Energy audit: EU-Law and its implementation in Germany

  29-41

  Jan Hoffmann

  László Fodor(Translator)

  Views:

  179

  The Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) No. 2012/27/EU establishes a set of binding measures to help the EU to reach its 20% energy efficiency target by 2020. Energy audits are an essential tool to achieve adequate energy savings (see art. 8. EED). The current study focuses on the EU legal requirement on Energy Audits and its implementation in Germany by the 2015 amended Act on Energy Services and other Energy Efficiency Measures (Gesetz über Energiedienstleistungen und andere Energieeffizienzmaßnahmen – EDL-G). The analysis is still relevant because of the infringement proceedings against Germany by the European Commission based on fragmentary transposition of the EED.

• The Legal Status of Macro-prudential Authorities in the Member States of the European Union

  János Kálmán

  Michal Janovec

  Views:

  40

  The study examines the main components of the organisational framework for macro-prudential management in the Member States of the European Union. The organisational design of macro-prudential management is a matter for the Member States, which can themselves be grouped into different models. The study first presents the international and EU standards and recommendations on the status of macro-prudential bodies in the Member States, then summarises the basic, theoretically relevant features of the status of macro-prudential bodies in the Member States, presents the analytical methodology of the study and finally analyses the features of the status of macro-prudential bodies in the Member States according to the methodology defined. The study concludes that there is a tendency for the EU macro-prudential body to standardise the basic elements of the status of macro-prudential bodies. However, the process of unification of the content of the institutional framework is still at an early stage and a variety of legal solutions can be identified for each of the substantive aspects. The study concludes that the institutional framework of macro-prudential policy can be described by a coordinated unification of the substantive pillars, with different formal features, but with different legal solutions.

• Environmental Liability Law: Environmental Civil Experts’ view

  86-112

  Sándor Fülöp

  Views:

  135

  Environmental liability legislation, both the ELD in Europe and CERCLA in US, is burdened with significant compromises, but even if so, they are too leniently implemented. Moreover, rather scarce data are available on the liability cases and on the status of polluted sites, therefore the system is unable to amend itself. There is no reason to be surprised: expenses of protection or remedy of the polluted sites are enormous, the concerned industries would get into a poor competition position in the market if faced with too stringent liability. In the exceptional cases when their deeds are revealed and enforcement actions start, they still might retreat behind the bastions of limited responsibility of their companies. In such situations public participation is a vital element of any progressive outcomes. In the present study we examine the efforts of J&E, a network of public interest environmental lawyers to contribute to moving out the European environmental liability systems from their stalemate position and enhance their effectiveness.

• The British Isles and the Arctic: Episodes from the Past and Present

  159-170

  Daniel Haitas

  Kitti Antal(Translator)

  Views:

  95

  The article explores certain past and present aspects of Britain’s engagement with the Arctic. More specifically, it looks at English and Scottish connections with the area of Spitsbergen (present-day Svalbard, Norway), focusing on exploration and whaling, as well as competition with European powers. Certain legal issues that subsequently arose over the course of time regarding the area are also looked at. Additionally, it examines modern tensions surrounding Svalbard, between the European Union and Norway in the aftermath of Brexit, specifically due to the allocation of fishing quotas. This illustrates the impact that Brexit has had in various different areas. The study also deals with the United Kingdom’s present engagement with the Artic, including Scotland’s attempt at formulating an independent Arctic policy.