The Charter of Fundamental Rights, proclaimed on 7 December 2000, has the nature of an inter-institutional agreement and is not a legally binding document. The strength of the Charter lies in: - its comprehensive approach to the protection of the individual's rights; which extends to all categories of rights and to all persons sojourning within the EU territory, not only EU citizens; - standardization of concepts concerning fundamental rights; - establishing the mechanism for fundamental rights protection within the EU. The flaws of the Charter are as follows: 1. A new controversial typology of fundamental rights. The Charter does not refer to the categories of the individual's rights currently existing in both international law and domestic law of several states. Instead of previously applied typology, it establishes six categories of rights which correspond to its initial six chapters. In consequence, there is little evidence that new standards are introduced and that they have resulted in a relatively uniform meaning of the rights either in a widely understood European law (i.e. that of the European Union and that of the Council of Europe) and domestic law of the EU Member States. 2. The principles are not precisely defined. This new typology overlaps with the distinction between the fundamental rights and principles established by the Charter. The Charter lacks consistency and, contrary to the declaration contained in its title, it refers not only to fundamental rights, but also to principles. However, no distinct group of principles is separated in the Charter, and no such distinction can be derived from its content. 3. The Charter's possibility of stimulating the extension of competences of the EU institutions and organs. The ambiguity of relations between the system of protection provided by the Charter and the national systems of the EU Member States may have dual consequences. Either the EU institutions and organs are competent to decide in all the situations where there are any doubt arises about competence of national organs to deal with such matter, or in the case of any such doubt the ability to decide is granted to the national authorities. The former variant seems more likely to appear, which shall mean a de facto extension of EU competences. 4. The means for protection of rights guaranteed by the Charter are not specified in a sufficient detail.
To increase the powers of the Constitutional Council was one of the most important amendments to the constitution, proposed by the committee on the modernization and rebalancing of the institutions of the Fifth Republic. The functions of the Council had to be considerably extended, and its role in the review of constitutionality of law deeply modified. The committee's proposed new wording of Article 61-1 of the constitution establishes a mechanism for submission of a complaint - as an exception - under a court proceedings. This mechanism would include an assessment on the conformity of a statute with fundamental freedoms and rights, thereby excluding the review of parliamentary procedure or the review of the division of normative authority between a statute and a regulation. The above-mentioned procedure would be applied 'as an exception', upon request of the court hearing the case (paragraph 1), but also on request of the person subject to a trial which in a particular process may include administration (paragraph 2), or on request of the Council of State, the Court of Cassation or their subordinate courts, or any other court. According to the proposal presented by the Committee, any district court would submit application to the Constitutional Council. This mechanism would allow to challenge constitutionality of statutes adopted before 1958 and those which avoided review after 1958, particularly because of the lack of the right to submit applications by Deputies (before 1974) and because of the lack of a political will for submission of applications (after 1974). The above-described strengthening of powers of the Council would make it possible to find the desired balance between the review of constitutionality of statutes and the review of conformity with international agreements. What is at stake is the survival of the principle of supremacy of the constitution in the domestic legal order. These innovative ideas are partly consistent with the opinions of present members and president of the Council.
As a result of legislative changes in the issues of dissolution and liquidation of companies, more than 10,000 companies were removed from the Commercial Register. The utility of the adoption of this legislation was the elimination of the so-called inactive companies that do not carry out any economic activity and the legislator's interest in ensuring more efficient performance of the basic function of the Commercial Register. However, the fact that there was also an intervention in the functioning companies cannot be overlooked either. If the company has been removed and the company had business assets on the date of the removal, two options were available, ad primum additional liquidation, or ad secundum renewal of the registration (of the removed company). The situation provoked, inter alia, legal theoretical discussions about the nature of a legal person. Although the legislation treats legal persons as a subjects of law and evokes in us a rational argument supporting the right to fundamental rights of legal persons, the scope of these rights is vague. In the article, the author deal with the idea of a legal person as a holder of the fundamental (human) rights in the context of utility and proportionality of the measures taken.
This paper examines whether the use of AI-based decision-support systems in judicial proceedings violates the right to a fair trial. It analyses concerns raised by the Council of Bars and law Societies of Europe (CCBE) and legal scholarship regarding undue influence, judicial independence, and impartiality. Using the COMPAS system and the State v. loomis case as key examples, the paper assesses how algorithmic recommendations may distort judicial reasoning. It concludes that AI support systems, if critically evaluated and transparently justified by judges, need not breach fair trial guarantees. However, improper reliance on such systems may compromise legal safeguards, necessitating stricter conditions for their admissible use in courtrooms.
Although the fundamental right to conduct business under Article 35(1) of the Constitution and the fundamental constitutional principle of protection of competition under Article 55(2) of the Constitution pursue their own purposes, the Constitutional Court has stated that free market entry is a common tool for achieving these purposes. The institution of free market entry thus becomes a catalogue of institutions enshrined in laws governing business activity, which, due to their key importance for the entry and retention of entrepreneurs in the market, acquire constitutional relevance.
By virtue of the Lisbon Treaty, and upon coming into force of this Treaty, the Charter of Fundamental Rights shall be included in the primary legislation of the EU, thereby acquiring the same status as treaties. The scope of application of the Charter, and doubts, expressed particularly by the UK, about its excessive influence on the domestic law, constituted a real problem from the very beginning of the work on the list of fundamental rights protected within the EU. Consequently, several duplicate provisions were included both in the Charter and in the Lisbon Treaty itself. These provisions specify the limits of application of the Charter. Despite all these guarantees, the UK has managed to negotiate a special protocol, later joined by Poland. The reasons for which the two states have bound themselves by the protocol are completely different. For the UK, it was important to reconfirm that social rights constitute the principles and not justiciable rights. By contrast, Poland wanted, above all, to protect its domestic legal system against the standards of fundamental rights protection inconsistent with that system or opposite to Polish sense of morality concerning, inter alia, homosexuality, abortion, euthanasia, family law etc. The protocol has not been adjusted to take account of the needs of Polish law. It is not clearly articulated which may lead to unnecessary confusion. Nor it provides an opt-out capability, which was suggested in the first political comments in Poland. The Charter will be legally binding in Poland, however, its application (with respect to Polish law) will be limited to those rights which are confirmed by the Polish legal system.. This limitation in relation to Poland has, in fact, no significance. Poland's Constitution itself contains a catalogue of fundamental rights, and Poland is bound by all major international agreements protecting those rights. The Polish-UK protocol repeats the same limitations on the application of the Charter which ensue from the Charter itself and from the Treaty of Lisbon. Therefore, it does not introduce much new matter, and rather blurs the clarity of EU law for the individual.
The Constitution of the FRG of 1949 accentuates, in a special way, the need to ensure effective means for the protection of individual rights and freedoms, drawing special attention to recourse to a court as a means of protection of violated fundamental rights (Article 19 paragraph 4). In the light of jurisprudence of the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) the right of recourse to a court, as a separate public right protected by constitutional complaint, provides a 'norm that underlies the entire legal order'. It is also supplemented by a list of detailed guarantees of the proper shape of judicial procedure on the 'rights similar to fundamental rights', including the right to a statutory judge, right to be heard, prohibition on punishment without legal authority and the 'ne bis in idem' principle. In Europe, constitutional complaints have the longest period of application in Germany and Austria. Even if the implementation of this special means of judicial protection to the constitutional system (Article 93 paragraph 1(4a) of the Basic Law) has aroused great controversy, its was given a broad scope of material application. Moreover, the extent of fundament rights protection in the jurisprudence of the FCC was widened. In practice, the entirety of the norms ensuing from the Basic Law was made the basis for the Court's review. However, due to a large number of complaints, the FCC applied a more restrictive approach to statutory requirements, including the requirement to exhaust all legal remedies, thereby emphasizing exceptional character of constitutional complaints. The aim of further amendments of the Federal Constitutional Court Act was to introduce procedural solutions that can be used to select complaints before their consideration. Among the means of fundamental rights protection established by the Basic Law, of particular importance are extra-judicial means of protection. They include the right of petition specified expressly in Article 17 of the Basic Law which authorizes 'everyone' to address written 'requests' or 'complaints' to 'competent authorities' and to the 'representation of the nation'. The same category of means includes the right of petition to be addressed to the Parliamentary (Bundestag) Commissioner of the Armed Forces, who is a typical ombudsman of specialized nature having the powers to initiate and control enumeratively specified matters of military nature (Article 45b of the Basic Law). Moreover, a commissioner for personal data protection is appointed in relation to matters of personal data protection on the federal level. However, in the FRG there is no ombudsman of the Scandinavian type, responsible for a comprehensive (universal) protection of individual rights and freedoms.
This article deals with the issue of protection of human dignity under EU law, in particular Article 1 and Chapter I of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The underlying idea of the obligation to protect human dignity manifests itself in the obligation to respect everyone, even those who lack conscience or are not capable to feel pain, or unable to defend their rights by themselves, the obligation which determines the limits of autonomy and includes the prohibition against infringement of subjectivity and individuality (inalienability of dignity). The level of protection of human dignity under EU law was referred, in the article, to the standard of protection of human dignity specified in Poland's Constitution. Protection of human dignity is an underlying principle of Poland's Constitution, which cannot be violated by direct delegation of competence to the European Union. From the Constitution there ensue the following obligations of the Polish public authorities within the scope competence delegated to the EU: - to negotiate the content of agreements which provide a basis for the delegation of competence in such a way, that they would correspond, to the fullest possible extent, to the constitutional model of protection of individual rights. Failure to follow this procedure will make the act of delegation unconstitutional; - to undertake (by Polish representatives) action within legislative and opinion-making bodies, with an aim to accomplish the constitutional model of protection individual rights and, in particular, to refrain from action which would infringe constitutional standards. Failure to do so would result in constitutional accountability or penal responsibility; - bring actions before the European Court of Justice for the purpose of annulment of secondary legislation or for securing their interpretation in line with primary legislation corresponding with the main foundations of the constitutional model of human rights protection. Failure to do so would result in constitutional accountability; - to interpret, apply and perform the obligations imposed by Community law in a way that would conform with the constitutional model of individual rights protection.
The adoption of the Lisbon Treaty and Poland's accession to the UK protocol, whose intention is to limit the possibility of direct application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, resulted in an increased interest in this document among the Polish public opinion. The author presents the development of the system of fundamental rights protection within the framework of the European Communities, culminated with the decision to draw up and adopt the Charter. It was reminded that the adoption of the Charter was for integration purposes. The EU citizens received a document gathering the rights which are shared by the French, the Greek and the Poles, as well as the citizens of other EU member states. The Charter constitutes important evidence that the Union is not only an economic organization, but also a community of ideas and values. The article presents characteristic features of the Charter and the scope of its regulation, as well as the bodies empowered or obliged by its provisions. In the author's opinion, the Charter represents an important step ahead in relation to the European Convention on Human Rights. The much discussed dilemma whether the EU has to establish its own catalogue or to accede to the Convention was resolved by accepting these two measures as vital for guaranteeing appropriate protection.. The Charter is an important instrument which may improve human rights protection not only within the European Union.. The author examines the legal status of the Charter which, by virtue of the EU Reform Treaty, was incorporated into the primary legislation of the European Union, as well as the issue of EU accession to the ECHR. The final part of the article discusses the significance Protocol 7, on the application of the Charter in relation to Poland and the United Kingdom. In the author's view, Poland's accession to the above-mentioned protocol does not mean that the Charter will not be binding in Poland. Upon coming the Reform Treaty into force, the Charter will become a binding law, also in Poland. The Protocol may only limit its direct application.
The article provides an analysis of the formation and development of the provisions of the Basic Law concerning individual rights and freedoms. In the beginning, the authors of the Basic Law treated it as an interim constitutional instrument, which mostly relates to the above-mentioned issue. However, due to political developments, the FRG has existed several decades before German unification. As concerns individual freedoms, their stability and transformation have resulted from jurisprudence of the supreme courts, especially the Federal Constitutional Court, which not only explained the scope of particular constitutional freedoms, but also led to the recognition, on their basis, of some general principles, above all the principle of complete protection, covering all aspects of the individual's position and the necessity of such protection. Both the explanation of the scope of particular freedoms and examination of their mutual relations are currently founded on the recognition of an objective order of values underlying the constitutional regulation, of which the most important is the protection of human dignity. The problem faced today when interpreting fundamental rights is an increasing Europeanization and globalization of constitutional solutions. The structure of fundamental rights in the Basic Law has proved its effectiveness, enabling their further development and greatly affected the shape of the German state and society.
The Act No. 160/2015 Coll. Civil Dispute Proceedings Code introduces security measure as a completely new institute of the Slovak procedural law. Systematically, it is included among protective instruments whose primary purpose is to support achieving fundamental objectives of the main adversarial proceedings. Extreme brevity of the regulation does, however, raise several serious and troubling ambiguities, and produce unpredictably varying results even in identical case scenarios, as is already evidenced in the practical application thereof by courts of the first instance. This article, therefore, attempts to define the place of security measures in the Slovak legal system and to examine them, particularly, in the context of constitutional limits and distinctive features of similar legal institutes. One of its main intentions is to review admissibility of analogy in gap-filling of the regulation in question, as well as define and analyse the limitations thereof. It also raises imperative questions of functions and effects of the encumbrance created by the security measure. A significant attention is paid to examination whether the regulation provides sufficient level of protection to the rights of other subjects directly affected by such a judicially established encumbrance, particularly other creditors of the debtor, who are not participants in the proceedings. In its final chapter, the article aims to formulate a set of recommendations which – given the present state of the regulation of numerous aspects of security measures, or, more precisely, the lack thereof – should be observed in the decision practice.
The author deals with the issues of the supremacy of the Community law from the view of the Czech Republic and the Lisbon Treaty. The question the author tries to answer is: 'Are the concerns about adoption of the Lisbon Treaty and the Charter of Fundamental Rights justified? Can these documents actually lead to the revision of the national legislation?'. To find answer to this question the article first analyzes the principle of supremacy of the Community law and then deals with the issue of the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms in the European Union. The author concludes that the Charter lays down the new standard of the protection of fundamental rights, but this will apply only in relation to activities falling within the competence of the European Union. The revision of national legislation is therefore excluded even after the effective date of the documents mentioned above. The article outlines the present attitude of the Czech Constitutional Court to the principle of supremacy.
The study analyses the methods of the protection of fundamental rights in Hungary. Article 8 of the Hungarian Constitution had been the basis of the protection of fundamental rights until the new Fundamental Law entered into force on the first January 2012. The new Fundamental Law textually implemented the former practice of the Constitutional Court based on Article 8 of the Constitution regarding the tests, methods of evaluation of the constitutional protection. The paper shows how the Constitutional Court formed the content of these tests during the almost two decades after the transition. The rule is explained by way of an item-by-item analysis of the terms of this paragraph and its interpretation by the Constitutional Court. The analysis shows that the fact that the protection of fundamental rights is a primary obligation of the state is not merely a declaration, but a regulative principle of constitutional democracy.
In case of private parties the arguments against their direct bond by the rules on free movement (especially the danger of excessive transgression of their private autonomy) are strongly prevailing over the arguments for such a direct bond (especially the need of much more effective realization of the internal market's idea). Nevertheless, the values and principles included in fundamental freedoms of the internal market should be in force in case of horizontal relations between private parties as well, namely on the ground of the concept of 'duty of protection' and the concept of 'indirect third party effect' (the latter being the part of the former concept) which were elaborated in some constitutional legal orders of the Member States in regard to fundamental rights. Being bound by the 'duty of protection' Member States are obliged to combat such conducts and acts of private persons which form an obstacle in the free movement. The concept of 'indirect third party effect' obliges the courts of Member States to interpret and to apply of the provisions of the national private law in the light of the fundamental freedoms. Materializing the fundamental freedoms within the relations between private parties the Member States are also obliged to respect the private persons' fundamental rights which are here involved and must therefore thoroughly outweigh fundamental freedoms and fundamental rights in all situations in which this appears to be necessary.
Protection of fundamental rights of the competition actors acquires increasing significance mainly in connection with dawn raids in business premises of undertakings applied as an effective tool in detection of anticompetitive behaviour. Need to balance public interest on protection of competition with legitimate rights of undertakings bring o lot of problems and open questions. Especially the courts both on European and national level are confronted with the problem of conflicting interests. The article is therefore focused on case law of the ECHR, the EU and Slovak courts.
This post includes considerations of the application of the provisions of the ombudsman law in response to the articles of the Constitution of the Slovak Republic governing the circle of those entitled to initiate proceedings before the Constitutional Court, namely the locus standi of the ombudsman. The author in this issue focuses on examining the resolutions of the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic in which the Constitutional Court decides on the adoption of the draft of the ombudsman to act because in recent months the application of these provisions and the Constitution regulating the locus standi of the ombudsman seems especially problematic in the context of petitions submitted to the Constitutional court by the ombudsman. The Constitutional Court in those cases dealt with the question of locus standi of the ombudsman to initiate proceedings about the unity of the legislation in the art. 125 paragraph. 1 of the Constitution.
The aim of the contribution is to point out the relevance of the constitutional right not to be prosecuted without the existence of a legal reason, from which the principle of criminal prosecution for legal reasons derives, and which also deserves preference over other principles of criminal procedure. The principle in question contains the redundant term “accused” for decades, until the Czech legislator removed this term from the principle in the past, thereby achieving compliance with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the Czech Republic. In addition to the fact that the contested term is misleading with reference to the doctrine of positive state obligation arising implicitly from the Constitution of the Slovak Republic and international treaties to which the Slovak Republic is bound. At the same time, the legislator overlooks the normative meaning (de lege ferenda) of the basic principle of criminal procedure. It follows from the decision-making activity of the ECHR that it chose the material concept of the term “accusation”, since its applicability is connected with the moment of official notification to a specific person that he is suspected of a crime. A legal definition of this time-non-existent term “suspect” in the criminal code would contribute, among other things, to legal certainty. A fortiori is the significant fact that the Slovak legislator refused the possibility of filing an appeal against the resolution to initiate criminal prosecution, which undoubtedly represents a serious interference with basic human rights.
The article deals with the principle of proportionality, which, despite being very well-known and widely used in other European countries, has received quite a reluctant treatment in Slovakia. It was only in 2009 that the principle of proportionality was dealt with in an upto-date fashion by Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic in two cases concerning freedom of speech. The article uses these cases as an example through which it tries to explain the structure, origins and ideas underlying the principle of proportionality with special regard to Robert Alexy’s theory of balancing of constitutional rights.
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