Volume 11 (2011): Edition 1 (June 2011)

Despite the ubiquitous coverage of the Libyan revolution throughout the last six months, very little has been said regarding the legal foundations for the rebels’ actions. Within the international legal framework, it must be asked whether the Libyan people even had a legal right in the first place to overthrow the Gaddafi regime. In fact, the existence of a right to rebel under international law is very much an unsettled matter. Among the sources of international law, a right to rebel is not enumerated in any of the principal international instruments. In truth, the only significant mention of the right is a passing but ambiguous reference in the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A customary right of revolution is similarly absent, as many nations criminalize treason and other insurrectionary activities. Instead, if such a right exists in international law, it must derive from the well-enshrined right of self-determination. Th is right would thus constitute an additional exception to international law’s general prohibition on the use force, standing alongside self-defense and Security Council peace enforcement. Yet establishing a right of revolution would mark a significant departure from these other exemptions. In essence, the right of revolution represents an allowance for non-state actors to resort to force unilaterally for the protection of human rights. For this very reason, contemporary international law likely does not recognize a popular right to revolt. In light of international law’s fi rm restrictions on lawful uses of force, there is no evidence that the law currently acknowledges a novel exception for the individual enforcement of human rights. Th us, in the absence of a change in the law, the proper legal remedy for the Libyan people was not rebellion but rather an appeal to the international community.

Th e aim of this article is to point to insufficiencies of the current legal regulation of the appellate review proceeding in civil cases, when the court competent to deal with the appellate reviews is not able to fulfill its function of a unifier of case law and the defender of lawfullness of decision-making any more. Th e proposed amendment of the Civil procedure code which is being prepared by the Ministry of Justice reacts to many of these insufficiencies. In the article we have only focused on crucial conceptual problems of the proposed legal regulation and we have avoided other deficiencies requiring deeper analysis and the knowledge of Czech legal regulation.

This paper examines judicial review and judicial power in Nigeria under the 1999 Constitution in relation to the constitution itself and in relation to the political branches of government. Th is is essentially to locate where lays supremacy between the branches and the judiciary particularly the Supreme Court with its final appellate jurisdiction. Judicial review and supremacy of the judiciary had been of recurring academic discuss in some jurisdictions with written Constitutions, particularly the United States from where Nigeria largely borrowed its presidential constitutionalism. This thus suggests that there is a need to examine the controversy within the context of Nigeria’s experience; is it really in the Constitution that creates branches of the government and that is proclaimed to be supreme over all authorities including the judiciary? Is it in the judiciary whose oversight function cuts across the political branches and whose interpretative decisions are binding on the constitution itself and the other branches? Is it in the executive that appoints and removes Justices of the court subject to confirmation by the Senate, or is it in the legislature? The paper argues that the overriding effect of the judicial power of the Supreme Court over all persons and authorities including the Constitution puts the judiciary in supreme position, that being the natural consequence of the power so vested in the judiciary by the “People Themselves.”

In the last several years, the European societies, that in their majority were fairly uniform as far as race, culture or religion, have been converted into intercultural places where many different visions of the world live together. Together with a factor of exogenous plurality, produced by the increase in immigration, an internal desegregation should also be highlighted in our own societies. In this new environment of diversity, it is without a doubt, difficult for the Law to accommodate all the different ethical, religious or cultural demands of the people. In my paper I study the means of accommodation rooted in our legal tradition such as: the conscientious objection, the agreements of the State with religious groups, mediation and arbitration as a way of accommodation of plurality in the field of Family Law, etc. I conclude by stressing the fact that allowing space for diversity does not mean giving up our own values. Quite the opposite, accommodation comes from our own values: that is, from the respect for freedom and non-discrimination, founded on the dignity of the person.

The article deals with the phenomena of human migration, especially migration from the rural surroundings to the city structures and legal approach to it. Author describes the acknowledgment and legal regulation of the migration into the city structures in ancient world (e.g. in Roman law), deals with the contemporary legal concepts related to this sort of migration in Polish law and evaluate the impact of EU law approach to this question. Finally author pleads against the protective and closing regulations and call for the open approach to the in-city migration flows.

The functioning of modern public administration must necessarily be related to the audit of its activities. The Polish legal system stands out because of the following criteria, which are made in the supervisory system, namely: the legality, economy, reliability and usefulness.

The article deals with the problem of fighting the drug trafficking and drug abuse within the European Union. It describe the background of the issue and deals with the impact of the abolition of border controls within the Union on the increase and character of the drug turnover. She moreover points on the other negative side-effect, i.e. the increase of criminality caused by the abuse of drugs. Th en she analysis the contemporary legal regulation of the drug trafficking and drug abuse in Poland and within the European Union and compare both regulations. She critically calls for the establishment of the comprehensive common strategy to avoid the negative outcomes of the “free drugs turnover” within the territory of the Union.

Aim of this article is to point out the recent development of the principle of abuse of rights in tax and administrative law. Subject of this article is not abuse of discretion, abuse of rule of law, abuse of power or eventual other abuses. Although abuse of rights is traditionally category of private law, we could observe application of this institute in European public law including the Czech public law.

The European Union was aware of unwanted side-effect of the free movement of persons which has been the equally free movement criminals. With regards to Tampere European Council conclusions the traditional extradition procedures were replaced by the surrender procedure within Member States of the European Union. Th e article answers the question how the surrender procedure differs from classic extradition. It deals with the comparison of the surrender procedure and the extradition mechanism focused on innovations of the European arrest warrant. It points out at necessity of simpler and faster procedure in the EU. Further, it focuses on the comparison of the legal basis of both procedures and on procedural issues.