Staying still for a photograph to be taken is one of the requirements for capturing the moment and transforming it into a tangible, visually-clear memory. Since the human passage through this world is always limited, it is no wonder that portraits are seen as immortal tokens of one’s life. Far more than longing to stop time, it is human nature to seek remembrance in everything we undertake, sometimes reaching this outcome through exaggerated means. Perhaps seen as the promise of one’s memory to outlast their body, the early nineteenth century brought a more unusual, yet popular demand for in memoriam family portraits (Hirsche, 2009). This would require for deceased members of the family to ‘pose’ before burial, just as if they were alive, alone or paired with the living. As such, before becoming a profession, taking pictures of dead people was an art.

‘No artist is ever morbid’ (Wilde, 1931), so to speak in defence of the forensic expert which nowadays carries the burden of taking photos when arriving at a crime scene. Fortunately, a recently deceased body will stay still, not at all for artistic purposes, but more as a result of a stage of death setting in, revealing the last position the body was in before the person was left to die. I will continue the compilation by framing the next topic: Rigor Mortis, the second stage in human decay and the accurate estimation of the time of death.

Although the means to apply the mechanism of unpredictability is nowadays one of the most debated subjects in civil law, it is almost impossible not to be tackled in other domains, such as public law. Whereas the theory of contractual unpredictability had been born under the constraints of administrative jurisdiction, it became a lot more popular after its regulation in the Romanian Civil Code. There were numerous reasons to undertake this measure. After the financial crisis of 2008-2009, an institution that could balance the inequity between the parties’ rights and obligations – torn by an exceptional change of the circumstances – was demanded by many people who concluded different types of credit loans. The situation was new, but somehow foreseen. From the perspective of public law, even though there were few specific regulations, the jurisprudence elaborated some theories regarding the means of the harmonisation of economic and judicial realities.

1. Introduction

According to the Romanian Civil Code, the obligation of confidentiality presents itself as a mutual obligation, regardless of the position of the parties sitting at the negotiation table. The legislative system has appreciated the protection of confidential information, which is required to be incorporated explicitly in a legal provision. This must be seen from a dual perspective, first the negative, where the holder of the confidential information is obliged not to disclose the information to third parties. The positive one establishes that the party which possesses confidential information must inform the other party of its nature. It has rightly been held that, regarding confidential information, ‘the parties seek the protection of their private interests, therefore they can abolish or restrict the sphere of its application’.

The Romanian Civil Code provides that part of the deceased’s estate shall be granted, even against his wish – manifested through donations or wills –, to a category of heirs called forced heirs (for the legal regime of forced heirship, see Articles 1.086 – 1.099 of the Romanian Civil Code, 2009). However, since this is effectively a limitation of a person’s possibility to freely dispose of his property and, as such, a limitation of the right to property, a question arises: is this limitation compatible with the right to respect for private property enshrined in Article 1 of Protocol no. 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights (hereinafter referred to as ECHR)?

1. An overview of the legitimacy of the House of Commons

The Parliament is the law-making body of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Even after many reforms in recent years, it remains the main institution responsible for drafting and passing the legislation. As prof. A.V. Dicey points out in his work on constitutional law, the sovereignty of the British Parliament is the dominant characteristic of our political institutions and consists of the monarch, the House of Lords and the House of Commons (Dicey, 1924).

1. Introduction

The presidential elections in Poland are held every five years upon the order set out by the Marshal of the Sejm (which is the lower house of the Polish Parliament) unless for some reason, mainly due to death or resignation, a president's term ends prematurely. As the current five-year term of President Andrzej Duda will end soon, the incumbent Marshal of the Sejm, Elżbieta Witek, ordered to hold the presidential election on the 10th of May. Given the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the government proposed the idea to organise all-postal voting, unprecedented in Polish history, and initiated a bill to this end, which could enter into force only a couple of days ahead of the planned election. Critics, however, voiced serious concerns about the provisions of the bill, pointed to the institutional inability to organise the election in such a short time, and noted that it can still increase the risk of exposing electorates to coronavirus. Under mounting domestic and international pressure, the turbulent legislative process, and unparalleled political and legal incidents, the Polish government decided to postpone the presidential election and the Marshal of the Sejm ordered the election, for the 28th of June.

In light of the on-going circumstances in the past several years, the possibility of restructuring the EU became more and more pronounced. Opening the procedure found in Article 7 of the Treaty of the European Union by the European Commission against Poland (December 20, 2017) and Hungary (September 12, 2018), as well as the United Kingdom, which formally left the EU on 31st of January 2020, points out the tensions caused by the relations between the EU and the Member States that acutely require a balanced solution. We can say that these conflicts mostly revolve around the concept of sovereignty, which shaped international relations since the 17th century. It can be argued that sovereignty has a different meaning now in the EU, but in fact, its meaning has always been changing, depending on the social, legal, economic, and political context. This paper compares the influence of international and EU-law on European states' sovereignty, summarising the most important conventions and a few cases related to the topic.

For a long time after the Maastricht Treaty was adopted (1992), discussions were held concerning the establishment of a prosecutor for the European Union, in order to protect the financial interests of the Union in a more efficient way. Several academic papers and Commission soft law instruments have been published, and those led to the insertion of Article 86 in the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union through the Lisbon Treaty (2007). This provided the possibility to establish a European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO). The Commission published its proposal in 2013 and the Council Regulation implementing enhanced cooperation on the establishment of the EPPO was finally adopted on October 12, 2017. Enhanced cooperation meant that only 22 Member States out of the 28 participated in the establishment of the EPPO.

The establishment of a body of the European Union charged to conduct investigations and prosecutions can only be considered an improvement for the European

1. Introduction

In 2018, the World celebrates 70 years since Eleanor Roosevelt elevated the freshly signed Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR from now on). Shortly after the atrocities of the Second World War, this document was considered a milestone in the history of humanity. Since then, the document - albeit not having a binding force on governments – has helped in the creation of other human rights declarations, constitutions, and other laws. The document faces much criticism, such as its western bias, but the praises are highly outweighing the criticism. To this day, this is the United Nation’s most important document.

‘Genome editing is editing society’
Annelien Bredenoord

Technology got us to the point where, based on our behaviour, we can predict that in just a few decades our planet will face an environmental crisis. Nowadays it is not unusual to grow crops on a large scale in areas where life cannot usually be sustained. We improved most of the contingencies that surround us in order to make life better.
But what about our own improvement, what about the influence of technology in genetic modification? Can we use it regardless of the ethical implications, or does our philosophy hinder the advancement in this field? The aim of this article is to raise a moral quandary by turning the spotlight on the libertarian view on whether we should or should not use technologies like CRISPR and cas-9 to interfere with how the nature designs us.

1. Introduction

Medical law is a developing field of law, which means that there is not much theory nor research done on the topic. All medical errors for which a doctor is imputable can be considered a part of the much wider known term of “malpractice”. There is no such thing as a clear delimitation between civil liability and criminal medical liability, both being considered part of the larger notion of malpractice. Medical malpractice is defined in Romania (Law 95/2006) in accordance with the medical system reform concerning medical misconduct as being “a vocational error committed during the medical or medical-pharmaceutical practice, generating damage towards the patient.

The pharmaceutical industry has deeply contributed to human welfare. Indeed, new drug enforcement has played a vital role in increasing longevity and enhancing the quality of life. For this reason, issues of justice are particularly sharp, especially concerning the accessibility of drugs to the people who desperately need them. 

The question that is raised is whether the drug market should be completely free or be subject to state intervention and if the answer to the question is the second option, it is then necessary to analyse which is the most efficient and right way to intervene. This article focuses on the role of intellectual property rights and patents in the development and accessibility of new pharmaceuticals.