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Constitutional-formative status of political parties & political pluralism has a major impact on shaping political will in democracies. Croatia, as a country caught in the process of a (democratic & liberal) transition to democracy, must carefully contemplate how to constitutionally institutionalize, ie, legally secure recognition for political parties as the key actors in shaping peoples' political will, but at the same time by laws to legally & precisely restrain the scope & methods of their activity. In line with this, the author analyzes & evaluates the experience of the Italian First Republic & the French Fifth Republic. The constitutional standardization of political parties in those regimes took place in, for us, comparable social & political circumstances of the so-called extreme & polarized pluralism, which, according to Sartori, inevitably leads to a deeply seated crisis or even a civil war. While the Italian Constitution of 1947 recognizes that centrifugal type of political pluralism, the French Constitution of the Fifth Republic of 1958 envisages the function of its political parties in the same manner to overcome the polarized pluralism of the Fourth Republic. The Italian Constitution defines political parties as instruments above the state, providing guidance ("they determine the national politics"), while the French Constitution reduces their function to the electoral process & stipulates that they have to respect national sovereignty; ie, they have to be a "democratic" influence in the state, ancillary political participants in the democratic political process. The constitutional changes that established the Croatian Third Republic meant that the French institutional arrangement (semipresidential plurality system) was renounced as a way of overcoming polarizing party dynamics. If the French Fifth Republic was a response to the impasse of the Fourth Republic's "regime of parties," why was Croatia's Second Republic (1990-2000) forsworn & the Third republic instituted, modeled after the unequivocally failed regime of the French Fourth Republic? 61 References. Adapted from the source document.

There are prima facie reasons why political parties should be recognized as public law persons of the Croatian legal system: Political parties play a leading role in the creation & implementation of the state's will. Continental European legal systems distinguish between public & private law: the Croatian Constitution prescribes that political parties are associations with the features typical of public law persons. What requires analysis is the nature & consequences of the public law personality of political parties. Aristotle's theory of justice is still a useful starting point for distinguishing between public & private law, & between public & private law persons. The theory demonstrates that both the political community & the economic market presuppose standards of conduct that regulate interaction of their members. The standards include two essential types of legal acts, namely, statutes, which are fundamental acts of public law, & contracts, which are fundamental acts of private law. The dichotomy of legal acts implies virtually all the criteria that Roman & Continental lawyers have found important for distinguishing public & private law (source, bindingness, hierarchy, interest, subjects, etc). The division of a legal system into private & public law can be positivized in several ways. However, a liberal, democratic, & social legal system ought to meet the following principles, which guarantee the public law status of political parties: explicit recognition of the public law personality; justiciability; constitutionality; transparency; democracy; solidarity. The principles are followed by the Draft Bill on Political Parties, which was prepared by the Croatian Law Center in May 2002 & was adopted, with some changes, by the Committee on Constitution, Rules of Order, & Political System of the Croatian Parliament in July 2002. 90 References. Adapted from the source document.

This paper looks into the concession granted for the new commercial TV station that began broadcasting in May of 2004 on the former 3rd HTV channel. The author was a member of the tender-collecting body. She poses several related questions. In the first part of the paper, she examines the final decision concerning the concession grant in the light of the dubious quality of the so-called media laws in Croatia. In the second part she analyzes the role of the public media in relation to the rampant commercialization of programming. In the third part she looks into the new ownership relations on the media markets & the relentless ownership concentration. By granting this concession, Croatia became the 24th country in which the RTL, a branch of the media giant Bertelsmann AG, is broadcasting. The global trend of the emergence of the media empires has spread even to those markets that have only recently & after much struggle got rid of their former owner: the state. Where does this rise of the new centers of power lead to & what are their goals? 1 Table, 10 References. Adapted from the source document.

This paper looks into the concession granted for the new commercial TV station that began broadcasting in May of 2004 on the former 3rd HTV channel. The author was a member of the tender-collecting body. She poses several related questions. In the first part of the paper, she examines the final decision concerning the concession grant in the light of the dubious quality of the so-called media laws in Croatia. In the second part she analyzes the role of the public media in relation to the rampant commercialization of programming. In the third part she looks into the new ownership relations on the media markets & the relentless ownership concentration. By granting this concession, Croatia became the 24th country in which the RTL, a branch of the media giant Bertelsmann AG, is broadcasting. The global trend of the emergence of the media empires has spread even to those markets that have only recently & after much struggle got rid of their former owner: the state. Where does this rise of the new centers of power lead to & what are their goals? 1 Table, 10 References. Adapted from the source document.

The author's starting point is Locke's classical thesis that the rulers & the ruled are subject to universal laws & that their abuses are prevented by the institutional means of power sharing. The rule according to which nobody can be a judge in their own affairs unconditionally applies in all court or administrative proceedings. The problem arises when this legal thinking is applied to parliaments. Namely, in parliamentary work the incompatibility of the mandates of the legislative & the executive branch is annulled since the executive power gains the upper hand in the composition & substance of the legislature. Besides, The basic law (Grundgesetz) provides MPs with indemnity in their voting behavior & guarantees to them immunity from punishment for certain acts that other citizens would not be able to get away with. This relative freedom & independence of MPs is corrected by the rule books on the behavior of MPs that envision the necessity of their ethical conduct. The violations of the rules are sanctioned not so much by moderatorial law as by political means. The author's opinion is that deciding on their own affairs cannot be universally granted to parliaments. Constitutions allow, even call for, certain decisions on one's own affairs to be made. However, due to insufficient outside control, self-control must be increased, which implies legal obedience on the part of MPs so that laws become meaningful for all participants. Besides the ethical & political pressures that force the MPs to behave in a law-abiding manner, laws also exert positive pressure on them to see to it that their decisions serve the public good. Adapted from the source document.

Privacy protection & data security become important part of business practice. In the same time customers are concernd about personal data missusage. Regarding this, in the world, & finally in Croatia, new laws & codes have been created to regulate & recommend how to communicate with customers & for those who do not respect decency, discretion & safety to set penalties. In direct marketing straight communication with prospective buyers & customers is essential. Target marketing campaigns are based on data base (which f.e. include consumer name, address, information about purchase behaviour etc.). Mailing lists are important for direct marketers because they send advertising materials to the potential buyers. Sometimes consumers are not satisfied with marketing activities because they are frightened of inappropriate data usage, privacy disturbance & bothering. References. Adapted from the source document.

In this text the author deals with the analysis of the fundamental legal texts regulating local self-government & administration in the Republic of Croatia & to what extent they are 'the fall guys' to be blamed for the state the systems of local self-government & administration are in. He concludes that these laws are a major generator (though not the only one) of the crisis of local self-government & administration in the Republic of Croatia. 16 References. Adapted from the source document.

Mixed government, which is commonly regarded as a distinctly medieval form of government, is relevant also to contemporary constitutional states. It is the best form of government, since the aristocratic element is a continuous source of virtue, especially of justice, & a check not only on the executive, as the monarchical element which is the seat of political power, & the legislature, as the democratic element which expresses the will of the majority, but also groups & institutions that have the might & will to impose themselves as oligarchies. Mixed government is also the form of government that is practiced by most developed contemporary constitutional states: US, UK, France, Switzerland, Germany, etc. European nobility is the original aristocratic institution, by virtue of the fact that it was a system for the transfer of both virtue & general conditions of life. Three institutions that emerged in the late Middle Ages assumed structures & functions of the nobility. The first is the clergy. When, as a result of the differentiation of feudal society ethical & intellectual virtues of the nobility could no longer maintain general conditions of life, the clergy, by virtue of their abstract knowledge that ranged from philosophy & theology to law & medicine, became a class of new experts in generalities & thereby a new aristocracy. The second modern aristocratic institution is the judiciary, which has a structure & function similar to earlier aristocracies. The task of judges is to establish the highest virtue of constitutionalism. It is justice by law, which regulates general conditions of life in the state & society. What qualifies judges for the task is expertise in the new generality. The expertise includes not only education & experience in law but also impeccable private life & demonstrated professional ethics. The third modern aristocratic institution is the profession, whose most important instance is the legal profession. It shares its structure & function partly with the judiciary & partly with other professions. It seems that modern professions are degenerating. In the key area of data processing, due to rapid changes of technology, professions as systems of the transfer of virtue do not even seem to be possible. Professional aristocracies are replaced increasingly by oligarchies of capitalists & technocrats. Adapted from the source document.

In Croatia, the issue of the legal status of the sources of journalists' information as well as the status of journalists who publish sensitive information is increasingly gaining prominence. This is a subject that includes elements of constitutional, media, labor, civil, & penal law. The essay is limited to people as information sources. The sources can be divided into internal & external. The rationale for the sources' confidentiality privilege lies in the fact that journalists serve public goals & their sources can find themselves imperiled. According to the author's classification, the risks of this privilege are faced either by the sources (direct or indirect manipulation, smear campaigns, misapprehensions) or by the journalists ("protecting" a fictional source, subsequent blackmail of the source, misapprehensions). In Croatia, the protection of the information sources is defined in Article 12 of the Law on Public Information. The author outlines the major comparative systems of regulation of this field, the examples of antinomies among different Croatian regulations (the principles for their resolution are also offered) & analyzes the position of certain types of sources in relation to the Croatian law. And finally, the author compares the regulations of the Croatian law with the comparative systems, analyzes the representation of certain forms of responsibility of certain types of subjects & lists the principles he deems most important regarding journalists' work (the necessity of protecting the sources, the responsibility of journalists toward their sources, the different legal status of journalists & their sources, the protection of privacy, the verification of confidentiality, the more dominant interest, the importance of administrative ethics, the familiarity with the regulations, the adequate legal definition of a secret). 30 References. Adapted from the source document.

The author argues that democracy is not appropriate for the resolution of the relationship between law & the democratically conditioned state authority in the multinational Europe. The so-called democratic deficit should be understood not only as the empirical fact of a multinational Europe, but also as a paradoxical structural attribute of modern political thought from Kant until today. The author claims that the people should not rule as they might violate all the laws they enacted themselves. Thus the question of the equality of citizens cannot be a democratic one but legal & constitutional. Democracy cannot lay claim to be the sole provider of the legal equality of citizens just as law cannot be the only arbiter in making democratic distinctions among them. Since democracy should be understood as an independent autopoietic & autoimmune medium relatively independent of political power & legal constraints as its setting, the author concludes that the existing forms of immediate & representative democracy, as well as of the traditional form of democratic decision/making represent a risk of regressive progress in Europe in the direction of democracy limited by nation, religion or by class. Adapted from the source document.

The private vs public sources utilized in financing electoral campaigns & political parties in various countries are compared, focusing on the situation in Croatia & major Western democracies. A table showing the introduction of public financing of political parties in individual countries in the second half of the 20th century is produced, & the enactment of laws & regulations limiting the amount of donations by individuals & corporations, controlling the raising & spending of funds, & ensuring a transparency in the finances allocated for electoral campaigns is discussed. In the US, political parties & elections are financed largely from private funds, although public matching programs are available & legal mechanisms are in place imposing limits on private donations & regulating their use. Similar processes are at work in Canada, Australia, & some European countries, eg, the Netherlands. In Austria, Italy, Germany, & Sweden, political parties rely mostly on subsidies from the state budget. In the UK, the Labour Party is financed by labor unions, while the Conservative Party by big business. Unlike in the West, the financing of political parties in Croatia remains unregulated. The absence of proper laws & regulations removes the funding of the parties & their electoral campaigns & the ways in which they raise & distribute donations from public scrutiny. 1 Table, 25 References. Adapted from the source document.

The author looks into the notion of the rule of law from the functional/logical, & not historical standpoint: he starts from the hypothesis that there is the functional logic of managing social behavior & social developments by means of legal norms. This logic, with some preconditions, creates certain institutions. The recognition of members of a society as free & equal is the fundamental assumption. It means that government agencies have the right of independent action but are at the same time also disempowered. This requires the quality of laws to be evaluated on the basis of rationality & normativity. The second part of the text lists the institutional conditions for the rule of law: division of power, legal restrictions of all government institutions & independent judiciary. A guarantee of basic right must be included in these functional elements. The author thinks that our future is to be marked by social pluralization, the need for security & the concurrent processes of globalization, & individualization. These processes are surely going to affect the institutions of the state of law. 43 References. Adapted from the source document.

The author analyzes the position of journalists at the time of elections. It turns out that they are subject to pressures by politicians, who try to use the media for their promotion. Electoral reporting is extremely & precisely regulated; it would be hard to find some other field of journalism with such clearly elaborated recommendations & rules. Nevertheless, journalists are exposed to various methods of manipulation & pressures. Legal provisions are necessary, but it is also vital to understand the laws of the journalistic profession & the media. Also important is advertising or hidden advertising. The author concludes that reporting about elections could be professionalized primarily by decreasing the influence of political parties on the media, strengthening the institutions of civil society, & permanently educating journalists. 15 References. Adapted from the source document.