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Civil Review: Book Review of “Civil Society in Europe - Minimum Norms and Optimum Conditions of its Regulation”
164-176Views:290Civil society is under pressure in many countries. Governments appear to be less and less tolerant of the opinion of civil society advocates, rights defenders and watchdog organizations. This book is given relevance by Lex NGO which restricts the operation and implementation of the activities of Hungarian non-governmental organizations. The volume of studies defines the minimum standards and optimal conditions that are essential for key players in civil society to be able to achieve the goals set by organizations and to contribute to the formation of democratic public opinion. In my analysis I placed more emphasis on those parts of the volume that may be important in the amendment of Lex NGO and similar legislation.
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The Public Prosecution Service of the Slovak Republic – Constitutional and Legal Background
89-100Views:102A szlovákiai ügyészség alkotmányos jogállása és törvényi szabályozása hosszú ideje vita tárgya. Az érdeklődés egyik oka kétségkívül az, hogy az ügyészség tevékenységének, hatáskörének szabályozása a szakmai és a laikus nyilvánosságot is érinti. A figyelem elsősorban az ügyészség alkotmányos helyzetére, az ügyészség egyes szintjei, továbbá az ügyészség és a közhatalom más szervei közötti viszonyokra, valamint a büntetőügyek területén érvényesülő, s azokon kívüli hatáskörre irányul. Ez a tanulmány is e viszonyok tisztázására, a Szlovák Köztársaság ügyészségére vonatkozó régi és újabb közjogi rendelkezések bemutatására vállalkozik.
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The General Theory of the State and the Relativity of the Force of Law – Comment on the Theory of Georg Jellinek
53-72Views:172This paper makes an in-depth examination of the theory established by Georg Jellinek who – extending the perspective of the jurisprudence of state law based on legal methods – was concerned with issues of public law within the frames of general theory of the state. The author will demonstrate the claim that the special concepts of Jellinek’s general and descriptive theory – like the „presupposition of factual validity” or the idea of the „state’s self-obligation to law” – are the results of Jellinek’s idea that there were no alternatives to the institutional system of the constitutional monarchy.
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Critical Remarks on the Acquittal of Vojislav Šešelj with regard to Instigation, Aiding and Abetting
97-109Views:148Vojislav Šešelj was acquitted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on 31 March 2016. The Trial Chamber of the ICTY assessed evidence on the recruitment of volunteers (who later became perpetrators of international crimes), the defendant’s extremist, nationalistic and public hate speeches, and drew the conclusion that he is not responsible for war crimes or crimes against humanity. The present paper discusses gaps and mistakes appearing in the judgement from the point of view of two criminal liability concepts: instigation and aiding and abetting. After briefly summarizing the standards applied by the ICTY, the author presents a reassessment of the facts referring also to the major arguments of Judge Flavia Lattanzi (dissenting).
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Limits of Environmental Liability: Summary of the Guest Editor
189-198Views:207This summary is an attempt to demonstrate that despite all the differences in how limits of environmental liability are perceived by the authors of this special issue due to different approaches to environmental liability, a common framework can nevertheless be drawn encompassing them all. Each article of the special issue elaborates some of the aspects of the concept of environmental liability. Despite the differences in the evaluation and assessment by the authors of the role of stakeholders and of the facts having an impact on the concept of environmental liability, it is shown that all of them are analysing the very same subject. The apparent differences are due to the different contexts in which environmental liability is examined and evaluated. Thus, the summary underlines that there is a need for system thinking related to environmental liability.
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A Philosophical Approach to Law
11-22Views:171Bjarne Melkevik’s book is one of the best comprehensive treatments of legal philosophy currently available in Canada. First of all, the reader will find in the form of a long introduction a bookchapter translated into Hungarian, which is a general description of Melkevik’s jurisprudential views, provided by Mate Paksy. The chosen chapter organizes the reflexions on legal philosophy into three interrelated ques- tions. Melkevik’s first, thought-provoking question is as follows: why do we need legal philosophy? He views legal philosophy not as foundational legal scholarship, but mainly as an elucidation of public, reflexive argumentation on law which isn’t at
odds either with an empirical methodology. The second question concerns whether studying legal philosophy is useful for lawyers. Here Melkevik endorses again a post-positivist position according to which both law and legal philosophy are essentially practical discourses. Though the third part of the paper is heavy with disciplinary boundary-drawing, which emerges from questioning the place of legal scholarship vis-à-vis other, more empirical branches of social sciences such as history or anthropology, Melkevik’s reflexions here are still inspired by a sort of Neo-Kantian legal philosophy and Habermas’ communicative ethics.
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Law of Sustainable Development
11-30Views:357Sustainability or sustainable development as an objective or as a definitions is wirely used since the 1992 Rio Conference on Sustainable Development. There are many attempts to clarify the content of it, most of them covering inter- and intragenerational equity, integration, the different means and methods of long-term thinking. While it is still a controversial question, it is also difficult or even harder to specify the legal content of such a policy matter. The law of sustainable development shall be able to meet the challanges of clarity, enforceability, thus one should try to be more specific then it is acceptabel in the wider the political context. Several international documents, conventions, even EU legislation wants to come closer to the problem. If we wish to translate the content into the legal language, then there are some elements of such a legal system, which we would like to underline: inter-generational equity and right to environment, public participation, cooperation, integration, precaution and subsidiarity. There is also a newly emerging element of the legal understanding – imported from ecology –, which needs greater attention today, that is resilience.
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Decentralization of Welfare Services in France
65-80Views:135The principle of decentralization is widely applied in public administration. Despite the conceptual insecurity decentralization is often linked to the principles of democracy, participation, efficiency providing a normative value for the principle. Practical experiences, however, show that the advantages and disadvantages of decentralization are influenced by historical, economical, social, institutional and cultural context. Decentralization policy to increase the effectiveness of French welfare services could not change the institutional structure with strong historical roots and to improve the service quality. The strengthening of task and competences of the county level led to the failure of decentralization due to the lack of funding, personal and coordination problems.
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Law and Artificial Intelligence: New character, old solutions? (Thoughts on the book of Jacob Turner)
137-145Views:500Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, buzzwords of the recent times. While the term was created in the 1950s, until recent times it was the domain of sci-fi writers, who tried to explore its impact on society and humanity. The recent breakthroughs in AI technology and the spread of AI based services created the need for lawmakers and legal scholars to try and tackle the problems that AI creates. Although there are a lot of publications in this area, the book from Jacob Turner stands out in the field. The author has researched the subject very well, and using this knowledge he asks and answers not only the most frequent questions, but also those questions that belong to the foundation of AI and law, and which are often overlooked. This review aims to present these questions and answers to the Hungarian public in a shorter form.
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Rule of Law – Active State: Reconstructing the Conception of the Rule of Law in Zoltán Magyary’s Theory
9-26Views:194Zoltán Magyary was an internationally recognised Hungarian professor of law who carried out research in modern theories of administration and state theories. Defending the values of the rule of law and taking action against the anomalies of legal formalism were among his major scientific goals. According to him, one of the most important functions of a legal system is the protection of human rights, therefore he accepted the view that courts must have the authority to review administrative decisions. At the same time, he stated that the effective and productive functioning of administrative institutions and the executive power is a priority in a legal system. Due to the fact that he did not provide a complete analysis of the correlation between the rule of law and the effective functioning of administrative institutions, he opened the possibility for posterity to give various and different interpretations of the issue.
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Regulatory Proposal of the Ombudsman for Future Generations
10-28Views:235The most important provisions of environmental liability are available, but the effective enforcement still requires the regulation of several legal conditions. The ombudsman for future generations, following a wide professional and social coordination issued a complex regulatory proposal. The proposal is based upon the EU Environmental Liability Directive within the framework of the existing liability scheme, with a broader understanding of liability, and with the most inclusive approach of the polluter pays principle. Among other elements it covers the financial guarantees, the formation of the financial coverage of state intervention, the implementation of environmental liability attached to the real estates, the availability of and access to the environmental information, the more effective enforcement of environmental liability, and also the setting of conditions of implementation within public administration. The main objective is to promote responsible environmental behaviour.