Summary

In last few decades, cross-border road traffic has significantly increased. Consequently, the number of accidents where at least one party is not resident of the country of accident has grown proportionally. The visiting victims, i.e. the victims of accidents that occur outside of their state of residence must be aware of the fact that being damaged outside their national borders could influence on the compensation that they could expect. Also, it sometimes differs from the one that they might get if the accident had occurred in their home country (Renda, Schrefler, 2007).

1. Taking away the right to vote

As a form of punishment for social deviance, some European jurisdictions impose ancillary penalties for serious criminal offences, which entail the loss of some civic rights, such as the right to vote and to stand for election. Such penalties usually result in the removal of the convicts from electoral lists, preventing them from registering for any elections, consequently banning them from voting. Nevertheless, the right to vote is one of the fundamental rights conferred by Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 of European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (hereinafter ‘ECHR’). Striking between the principle of sovereignty and the protection of this fundamental right, the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter ‘ ECtHR’) has on many occasions assessed whether the restriction of the right to vote is acceptable (see for instance Hirst v. UK, Scoppola v. Italy, Greens and M.T. v. UK, Firth and Others v. UK etc.).

The establishment of the single market in 1992 led to another chapter for the European Community. The aim of it was to create more jobs, bring competition for businesses and strengthen Europe in political and economic ways against the challenges of the world economy. The idea of free movement of capital, goods, services and workers without internal frontiers or tax duties within the EU became central in achieving this. It is important to note that even though the single market was officially introduced in 1992, it took many years before and big efforts afterwards in order to set up properly functioning single market that would be competitive with other world economies (European Commission statistics website, 2013).

The online discourse has rapidly become one of the driving forces in political change around the world, becoming a tool for social justice. By not providing affordable internet access to everyone, we might be blocking democracy and political power. However, confusing Internet Access – inherently a tool in this House’ perspective - with the fundamental right of freedom of speech, freedom of expression and access to information can do a lot of harm, particularly misusing the political and social capital necessary in order to ensure the respect and enjoyment of the already recognized fundamental human rights.