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The paper analyses the right to be exempt from jurisdiction (immunity) under customary international law and European civil procedural law following the interpretation of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The aim is to research the balance between this right and the right of access to the courts as its potentially restrictive factor in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union and to compare it with the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. In deciding the LG and Others v. Rina and Ente Registro Navale as the most important case in this regard, the Court of Justice of the European Union states that the national court before which the issue of exemption from jurisdiction arises, must be persuaded that there will be no violation of the right of access to the courts, if it accepts the immunity objection. In this way, the Court determined the limit of exemption from jurisdiction by allowing the waiver of jurisdiction for reasons of compliance with international legal obligations and noting the need to preserve fundamental rights. However, as to the terms of that limitation, the Court remained vague.

In the European Union the liability of producers for harm caused by defective products manufactured or imported by them is regulated in Directive 85/374/EEC of 25 July 1985 on the liability for defective products. The purpose of Directive is to lay down a system of producer liability for damage caused by a defect in its product. Crucial is that it sets out a system of strict liability, so that the injured person does not have to show evidence of fault on the part of the producer. The injured person will have to prove the defect, the damage and the causal link between these. However, when it comes to the damage caused by vaccines, in case law the causal link has often been almost impossible to prove because in the scientific literature there are a number of opposing views on the risk of vaccination. Nevertheless, to the facilitation of the victims burden of proof could contribute the judgement of the Court of the European Union according to which a national court may consider that vaccination has led to the disease or damage even when there is no proof based on medical research. But, if there are other serious, specific and consistent evidence, such as the temporal proximity between the vaccination and the occurrence of a disease, the lack of personal and familiar history of that disease, together with the existence of other reported cases of the disease that occurred after such vaccines being received. Still, the Court retains caution by opposing any presumptions and warns that such cases are extremely fact-specific and require careful case-by-case considerations. In this article the author discusses the aforementioned judgement about liability for vaccine injury and its implications in the European Union.

Alternativni načini rješavanja sporova danas su prepoznati kao dobrodošlo sredstvo za ublažavanje međustranačke napetosti, ubrzanja postupka, kao i smanjenja parničnih troškova. Europska je komisija usvojila niz mjera koje predviđaju primjenu određenog oblika izvansudskih načina rješavanja sporova. U Republici Hrvatskoj cjeloviti pravni okvir za nesmetano odvijanje alternativnih načina rješavanja sporova prvi put je izrađen 2003. godine, kada je donesen Zakon o mirenju. Osim tim Zakonom, mirenje, kao postupak koji prethodi parnici, u Republici Hrvatskoj predviđa i niz drugih zakona, a neki od njih propisuju i obvezatnost njegove provedbe. Međutim, iako je postojanje pozitivnih iskustava stranaka postupkom mirenja značajno, programi dobrovoljnog mirenja i dalje pokazuju nisku stopu njegove iskorištenosti. S druge strane, iako obvezno mirenje može biti korisno, prema njemu se iznose i značajne kritike, stoga je cilj ovog rada istražiti u kojim će to slučajevima prethodna provedba postupka mirenja biti obvezatna te može li jedno takvo obvezivanje, s obzirom na svrhu samog postupka mirenja, uopće biti u skladu s pravom na pristup sudu. ; Alternative dispute resolutions are perceived as a useful means for mitigating inter-party tensions, speeding up the procedures and reducing litigation costs. The European Commission has adopted a series of measures aimed at implementation of a particular form of non-judicial means of dispute resolution. Comprehensive legal framework for stable functioning of alternative dispute resolution in the Republic of Croatia was created in 2003 when the new Mediation Act was passed. In addition to this law, dispute resolution as a procedure that precedes the trial is regulated by a number of other laws, some of them stipulating its obligatory enforcement. The rate of the cases solved in voluntary mediation in Croatia is still low. There is no doubt that mandatory mediation may be useful but on the other hand the question arises if rules on mandatory mediation have the capacity to prevent equitable access to justice. The primary aim of this paper is to examine different legal situations in which mediation is mandatory and ratio which stands behind it. The author will also analyse the extent to which rules on mandatory mediation are in accordance with the right of access to court. ; Alternative Weisen der Konfliktlösung sind heute als willkommene Mittel zur Milderung der Animosität zwischen den Parteien, zur Beschleunigung des Verfahrens und Verminderung von Verfahrenskosten erkannt. Europäische Kommission hat eine Reihe von Maßnahmen getroffen, die die Anwendung einer bestimmten Form der außergerichtlichen Lösung von Streitigkeiten anordnen. Zum ersten Mal wurde in der Republik Kroatien ein einheitlicher Rechtsrahmen für ungestörte Entwicklung der alternativen Weisen von Konfliktlösung im Jahr 2003 geschaffen, als das Mediationsgesetz erlassen wurde. Als einem Gerichtsverfahren vorläufendes Prozess wurde die Mediation außer von diesem Gesetz auch durch eine Reihe anderer Gesetze in der Republik Kroatien vorgesehen. In einigen dieser Gesetze wird auch die Verbindlichkeit der Durchführung des Mediationsprozesses geregelt. Obwohl positive Erfahrungen der Parteien in Bezug auf das Mediationsverfahren beträchtlich sind, weist die Analyse von Programmen der freiwilligen Mediation noch immer auf eine niedrige Stufe ihrer Nutzung hin. Andererseits wird die verbindliche Mediation trotz ihrer Nützlichkeit auch heftig kritisiert. Aus diesem Grunde ist das Ziel dieser Arbeit, zu untersuchen, in welchen Fällen die vorläufige Durchführung des Mediationsverfahrens verbindlich sein sollte und ob die Verbindlichkeit mit Rücksicht auf den Zweck des Mediationsprozesses mit dem Recht auf Beitritt zum Gericht überhaupt im Einklang steht.

The subject matter of this paper will be the protection of fundamental human rights from false and offensive information and hate speech on the Internet. The authors analyze the regulations and case law of the national courts of the Republic of Croa-tia, the ECtHR and EU Court of Justice. In conclusion, the authors note that the legal framework governing the protection of human rights in the digital environment has not been precisely developed, either at the national or at the international level. Nor has the case law thus far demonstrated clear and unambiguous precision in the interpretation of existing regulations. It is extremely difficult and challenging to achieve the right balance between the freedom of expression of the media and the right of individuals to protection of personality rights. The media should react to inappropriate content in a timely manner, but the general obligation to 'filter' comments of online media users is incompatible with the freedom of expression. Excessive control of information can easily turn into censorship. However, we believe that it is necessary to clearly regulate the rights and obligations of participants on the Internet because transparency and predictability of accountability is the only way to establish protection of fundamental rights of individuals and certain vulnerable groups.

In Avotiņš v. Latvia, the European Court of Human Rights (from now on: ECHR; Court) was questioning whether the Conventional right to a fair trial applies in cases of mutual recognition of judicial decisions on EU level. Without dealing with errors of fact or law allegedly made by a national court, the Court found it necessary to determine whether the national court has infringed the rights and freedoms protected by the Convention. Although the applicant claimed that the national court breached the Brussels I Regulation and thus violated the right to a fair trial, the ECHR concluded that it is not up to the Court to decide on the compliance of national law with international treaties and EU law. As it can be understood from the judgment, the ECHR holds that interpretation and application of the provisions of the EU regulations fall under the jurisdiction of the national courts and the Court of Justice of the European Union (from now on: the CJEU). However, the ECHR reaches a conclusion that the Contracting States are obliged to take care of the parties' procedural rights when applying the EU law for the reason that provisions of the EU law must not be applied mechanically, without bearing in mind the duty of taking into account the rights protected by the Convention. In this paper, the authors shall analyze the relationship between the ECHR and the CJEU taking into account and resorting to the ECtHR's findings in the case of Avotiņš v. Latvia.