Suchergebnisse

Freedom of expression enjoys a particular protection in the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights. According to the Court, freedom of expression constitutes one of the essential foundations of a democratic society, and one of the basic conditions for its progress and for the development of every man. Moreover, it is applicable not only to 'information' or 'ideas' that are favorably received or regarded as inoffensive or as a matter of indifference, but also to those that offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population, since these are the demands of that pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness without which there is no 'democratic society'. This high valuing of freedom of expression is particularly striking when it comes to the political speech, the free political debate being a distinctive feature of a democratic society. Nevertheless, the European Court considers that whoever exercises his freedom of expression undertakes 'duties and responsibilities', and that the freedom of political debate is undoubtedly not absolute in nature. More concretely, when the hate speech is at issue the Court underlines that the tolerance and respect of equal dignity of all human beings constitutes one of the essential foundations of a democratic and pluralist society, and that in a democratic society, in principle, it may be considered necessary to punish and even to prevent all forms of expression which propagate, incite, promote, or justify the hate based on intolerance. Taking into account the notion of prohibition of hate speech in the constitutional system of the Republic of Serbia, and the place of the European Convention on Human Rights in its hierarchy of legal sources, this paper follows the evolution of the European Court's case-law as to the understanding and definition of conditions under which it may be considered necessary in a democratic society to restrict freedom of expression because of hate speech. This legal standard - necessary in a democratic society, is then compared to the clear and present danger test, which has been developed for almost a century in the case-law of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, and which application is sometimes recommended in Europe.

This dissertation treats the competence of Constitutional courts in settling the disputes of jurisdictional conflicts, both in theoretical and historical as well as practical, sense. It is common knowledge that the Constitutional court is the most efficient mechanism for protecting the constitutionally determined separation of power. The role of the Constitutional Court is especially significant with regard to the fact that the separation of power does not exclude the possibility of interweaving jurisdiction of different levels of state power. By settling disputes of jurisdictional conflicts, the Constitutional Court gains competence for the determination of clear boundaries of state power organs in terms of their constitutional authorisation. Given the fact that the jurisdictional conflict is mainly motivated by political agenda, the Constitutional Court must settle an originally political dispute by implementing the constitutional norms. The jurisdictional conflicts are a common competence of Constitutional courts. They are a direct representation of the government, or the constitutionally determined separation of power. A distinction between horizontal and vertical disputes can consequently be made. Various factors cause these disputes, including the following: state power, government, political parties system, level of democratic development, the level of precision of constitutional norms determining the boundaries of state power, etc. The constitutional disputes of jurisdictional conflicts should, however, be thought of in a broader sense as well. The Constitution commonly views these disputes as a separate jurisdiction of Constitutional courts. If the disputes of jurisdictional conflicts are regarded as a factual violation of constitutionally proclaimed separation of power, then the other constitutional disputes can be seen as an infringement of the power separation principle as well. In that way the Constitutional court indirectly settles a competence dispute while simultaneously carrying out normative control, its basic duty. Assuming that the separation of power is based on the idea of preventing the abuse of state power by guaranteeing the fundamental rights and freedoms, one can say that, while deciding on the protection of rights and freedoms proclaimed by the Constitution, the Constitutional court indirectly protects the power separation principle. The matter of jurisdictional conflicts can decided upon by the court when the court is asked to give an interpretation of the constitutional provisions. If the fact that this jurisdiction is a necessary consequence of federal division of the state is exempted, one can say that in the countries without federal division the settling of competence disputes, also represents a separate jurisdiction of Constitutional courts. The guiding principle for all the countries was the fact that the abuse of power or the realisation of its separation (or balance) can only be reached through the operating system of an independent and unbiased institution, as the Constitutional court itself is. An analysis of various countries' Constitutions and the practice of Constitutional courts in settling competence disputes has shown that Constitutional courts have made a significant contribution to the realisation of power separation, especially in the transitional processes of non-democratic regimes to democratic ones. Naturally the real effects of the constitutional jurisprudence depend on the political climate-the relationship between the political institutions and the one these have with the Constitutional court, as well as their willingness to abide by its decisions-and this is a fact one should not neglect.

Court activism occurs when courts do not only dabble in pronouncing sentences but also want to take part in the creation of social policies and thus come into contact with many more people than when solving cases on an individual basis. Activism of a court is measured by the degree of its "authority" over the citizens, the legislature, and the administration. The author defines the concept and the elements of court activism on the example of several developed constitutional democracies. He concludes that court activism in the form it is known in the contemporary constitutional democracies, is lacking in Croatia. (SOI : PM: S. 114)

A decade ago, Serbia has carried out the reform of judicial control of public administration - by establishing the new Administrative Court. The expected results, however, have not been achieved and the problems that caused the reform have not been resolved. Therefore, a decade later, a new reform is in sight. The planned changes include establishing more administrative courts and introducing a two-instance administrative dispute. The aim of this paper is to discuss these changes, but in a slightly different way. Instead of their uncritical acceptance and justification by European legal standards, they are analysed having in mind the legal nature of the administrative dispute. Successful administrative dispute reform cannot be achieved if European legal standards are blindly accepted and copied literally from classical court proceedings. Only the legal nature of the administrative dispute and the features that make it special and different from the usual court disputes can lead us to a successful implementation of the changes.

Using the most recent archive sources, the author describes the organization of the judiciary and the courts in Zadar and Dalmatia after the Italian occupation in 1918. In violation of the Ceasefire agreement, the Italian occupational authorities reorganized the judiciary institutions, defined the new territorial jurisdiction of courts in order to establish judiciary control over both the occupied and the unoccupied parts of Dalmatia. The purpose of this new organization of the courts and the constant propaganda was to prove that Zadar and Dalmatia belonged to Italy - culturally, civilisationally, and politically. (SOI : S. 222)

The author discusses provisions of the German Constitution and the practice of the German Federal Constitutional Court relevant for ratification of the Maastricht treaty and German membership in the European Union. In that context, the Manfred Brunner case decided by the Federal Constitutional Court is discussed. The mentioned decision has removed constitutional obstacles and has confirmed the constitutionality of the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty. The author suggests that the Constitutional Court has strengthened its position and defined itself as a safeguard of German state sovereignty and an obstacle for creeping extension of powers of the Union at expense of its Member States. At the same time, Constitutional Amendments were adopted in order to protect the German federal structure and affirm the role of the German Federal Countries in supranational decision making processes. The author suggests that the practice of the German Federal Constitutional Court fits well into the general trend of strengthening the role of the judiciary within both the national and supranational balance of power. (SOI : PM: S. 255)

Political parties are an indispensable factor in any modern parliamentary democracy. It would be impossible to parliamentary democracy to function properly without them. Political parties are a constitutional category and they have to act in accordance with constitution, but due to their importance it is already observed that sometimes they go beyond constitution. Each country should find its own way in order to face that challenge. Germany is a good example for that, by giving political parties the freedom to act on the basis of the provisions of the Basic Law, but with the care that the entire system does not endanger itself. That could be seen in three examples. First example is the relationship between the parliamentary group as the emanation of political parties in parliament and deputies. Second example is banning of anti-constitutional political parties. Third example is the election process of judges of the Constitutional Court. The paper concludes that it is necessary to find an ideal formula for the freedom of their actions, according to which political parties are allowed to perform any action that is beneficial to the constitutional order, while not all of them are forbidden, but only the actions that have a devastating effect on the system as a whole.

The paper deals with the issue of regulation of the right of natural and legal persons to environmental information, in relevant international legal documents. There is a survey of certain international conventions which envisage this right in their field of regulation. The right to access the information is in details regulated in the Aarhus Convention, which comprises significant part of this paper. This kind of regulation of the right to environmental information has performed a significant influence on states and international organizations, which created their domestic and international rules, using the solutions from this Convention. The European Union has enacted a significant number of directives on the right of a public to receive environmental information. The special emphasis will be on the work of the Aarhus Convention's Compliance Committee which has a significant role in supervising and deciding about the compliance with the application of the Convention in its member states.

The development of both conventional and written legal rules that were governing the roots of the administration, has run in parallel with the development of the country. The development of legal state was going parallel with the development of constitutional state. The legal state can not be imagined without pandering Administration under the law, but precisely because of it stems judicial control of management, which is necessary for the full realization of the principle of legality and the protection of rights and legal interests of citizens. Administrative action presents a means to protect the rights and interests of citizens, but on the other hand it is also an effective tool for ensuring the legality of administrative operations. Pandering administration under the law is linked to the French Revolution from 1789, in this respect, France is a country that is the first to introduce an administrative dispute. The development of an administrative dispute in France can be followed through the occurrence and development of the State Council, which was formed during Napoleon time in 1799. The legal institutionalization of the administration is not done in the same way everywhere, in that sense we distinguish two big legal systems, Anglo-Saxon and European-continental. In Anglo- Saxon law legal institutionalization of the administration included the procuring administration under the legal norms of general law, management control exercised by courts of general jurisdiction. In the European-continental law legal institutionalization of the administration departs from pandering Administration under the legal standards that belong to a specific branch of law administrative law. In the European- continental system there is a difference between private and public law, and an important part of the legal regime are special administrative courts. The development of an administrative dispute actually juridical control of administration in Serbia can be traced back to the second half of the 19th century. Although Serbia has created very early the State Council following the example of France, in a formal sense the administrative dispute in Serbia was fully introduced by the Constitution from 1869. At our place administrative activities are controlled by the courts, which are an integral part of the judiciary and acting under special rules, rules of administrative law. Depending on the positive law of certain countries, the subject of administrative dispute is defined broadly or narrowly. According to French positive law the subject of administrative dispute may be not only single authoritative legal acts of administration, but also the general acts of administration - implementing regulations issued by the administration, as well as administrative objections. According to French positive law the subject of administrative dispute is defined very broadly, unlike the German and Austrian positive law, where an administrative dispute can not be conducted against all acts of general administration. Regarding that in the comparative law we meet a number of different solutions, we believe that in our country we should choose the one that would be the best way to provide protection for the rights of citizens. We lead the administrative dispute in the first place about the legality of final administrative act against other individual legal acts because of the silence of administration, and it may be decided on the request for the return of items and damages. The results of scientific studies will confirm the importance of the need that the subject of the administrative procedure should be complied with the case of an administrative dispute. All acts adopted in the administrative procedure should have directly open the way so the control of legality can be accomplished in administrative proceedings in front of the competent administrative court. What is certainly a major challenge is a control of the legality of administrative contracts. Extended subject of administrative dispute will strengthen the position of the parties in the administrative procedure, in order to guarantee them the quality of court protection in front of the Administrative Court.