Opinia prawna w sprawie rekomendacji Komisji Weneckiej dotyczących wyborów w stanach nadzwyczajnych i ich znaczenia dla wyborów prezydenckich w Polsce w 2020 r.

2021 ◽  
Vol 2(163) ◽  
pp. 243-265
Author(s):  
Dariusz Dudek

The author presents a constitutional regulation of the Polish model of presidential election and states of emergency and relates them to the specific situation of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Then, he analyses in detail the content of the recommendations of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) of 26 May 2020 (Respect for Democracy, Human Rights and the Rule of Law during States of Emergency – Reflections), regarding the elections in states of emergency and its significance for the presidential election in Poland in 2020. The opinion positively evaluates all the Commission’s recommendations and considers that the existing and new exceptional Polish electoral law regulations respecting the principles of democracy and rule of law are fully complaint with them.

2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-34
Author(s):  
Е. Є. Сілантьєва

Comprehensive analysis of approaches to understanding the essence of the categories of “rule of law” and “formal clarity” has been carried out within the framework of the conducted research. The author in order to properly understand the category of “rule of law”, has provided the views of both international and domestic researchers, who determine its essence. The author of the work has determined the content of the concept of the rule of law on the basis of the characteristics of the rule of law. A comprehensive analysis of the reports of the European Commission and the Venice Commission on the elements of the rule of law has been conducted. Particular attention has been also paid to the essence of the rule of law principles, which are reflected in those documents. The main requirements relating to the rule of law principle, as well as the main purpose of this principle have been provided. The author has conducted the analysis of approaches to understanding and clarifying the essence of formal clarity provided to this category by both domestic and international researchers. The main requirements for formal clarity have been provided. The procedural requirements inherent in formal clarity have been also separately mentioned in the research. On the basis of the conducted complex characteristic and defining the essence of the categories of “rule of law” and “formal clarity” the author has carried out the analysis of their parity. The approaches of domestic and international researchers in this regard have been provided. It has been emphasized that one of the fundamental aspects of the protection of human rights and freedoms is the formal clarity of law. It has been noted in the conclusion that the formal clarity of law implies a set of precise, unambiguous and transparent legal requirements for both lawmaking and law-enforcement processes designed to ensure the realization of human rights, interests and freedoms, as well as protection against possible manifestations of state arbitrariness that makes it possible to avoid a number of mistakes, offenses and misunderstandings of life situations.


2021 ◽  

The years of 2019 and 2020 offered the opportunity to commemorate four anniversaries: On 4 November 2020, it was 70 years ago that the ECHR, was signed. Ten years later, the ECtHR began its work. The Council of Europe had its 70th anniversary on 5 May 2019. Finally, the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) established in 1990, could celebrate its 30th birthday. These jubilees offer a good reason to take a look at how these institutions have contributed to making human rights and the rule of law a matter of common interest in Europe, and what their present condition is. This volume contains the contributions on this topic held at the Walter-Hallstein Symposium on 5 and 6 March 2020. With contributions by Veronika Bílková, Thomas Giegerich, Rainer Hofmann, Stefan Kadelbach, Wilfried Loth, Angelika Nußberger, Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque and Stefanie Schmahl.


Author(s):  
Başak Çalı ◽  
Esra Demir-Gürsel

Abstract This article introduces the Special Issue on ‘The Responses of the Council of Europe to the Decay of the Rule of Law and Human Rights Protections’. The Council of Europe (CoE), a unique international organisation with its commitment to protect and promote human rights, the rule of law, and democracy, has been severely tested by the spread and consolidation of trends posing systemic threats to its foundational goals. The authors of this Special Issue assess how the European Court of Human Rights, the Venice Commission, the Parliamentary Assembly, the Committee of Ministers, and the office of the Secretary General have addressed systemic threats to the foundational principles of the organisation in the last decade. The Special Issue finds that the respective legal-institutional features and capacities of the CoE organs as well as the constraining influence of the broader political context in Europe on them vary significantly, hampering the CoE’s ability to produce timely, consistent, and co-ordinated responses against systemic threats.


2021 ◽  
pp. 159-193
Author(s):  
Daniel C. Thomas

This chapter uses extensive archival evidence to demonstrate how the membership norm adopted by the community around 1970—that only liberal democracies respecting human rights and the rule of law are eligible for membership—shaped its decisions on Greece, Spain, Turkey, and Ukraine over subsequent decades. The democratic governments that took power in Greece and Spain after the collapse of authoritarian rule in the mid-1970s used the community’s membership norm to pressure member states to fast track them to accession despite the hesitation of the European Commission and powerful domestic lobbies. Notwithstanding the growing controversy over Turkey’s membership prospects in this period, the community’s membership norm played an important role in keeping the relationship on track. Finally, the EU’s membership norm impeded Ukraine’s pursuit of closer ties after interdependence in 1991 because of widespread concern within the Union regarding the country’s actual commitment to liberal democracy and the rule of law.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (special) ◽  
Author(s):  
Svitlana KARVATSKA ◽  
Ivan TORONCHUK ◽  
Alyona MANYK

The article aims to study the Venice Commission's role as one of the leading international law interpreters. This role has gradually strengthened in the process of scientifically substantiated promotion of legal norms and standards concerning democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Using system-structural, formal-legal, comparative-legal, empirical, and anthropological methods, one has drawn essential conclusions regarding implementing the Venice Commission's interpretive activities. As a result, it has been proved that the nature of the Venice Commission's interpretive activity demonstrates the existence and growing contradiction between the prevailing interpretive practice at the supranational level and the provisions of the classical theory of law interpretation. Ukraine's ongoing dialogue with the Venice Commission is vital to develop and improve legislation, especially laws, implementing new constitutional provisions on justice, the drafts of which have already been designed or are being developed, as well as indubitable compliance with these laws. Venice Commission's general documents should be for the Ukrainian legislator the source to base the preparation of relevant legislation.


Author(s):  
Harish Narasappa

Rule of law is the foundation of modern democracies. It envisages, inter alia, participatory lawmaking, just and certain laws, a bouquet of human rights, certainty and equality in the application of law, accountability to law, an impartial and non-arbitrary government, and an accessible and fair dispute resolution mechanism. This work’s primary goal is to understand and explain the obvious dichotomy that exists between theory and practice in India’s rule of law structure. The book discusses the contours of the rule of law in India, the values and aspirations in its evolution, and its meaning as understood by the various institutions, identifying reason as the primary element in the rule of law mechanism. It later examines the institutional, political, and social challenges to the concepts of equality and certainty, through which it evaluates the status of the rule of law in India.


ICL Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-69
Author(s):  
Eszter Polgári

AbstractThe present article maps the explicit references to the rule of law in the jurisprudence of the ECtHR by examining the judgments of the Grand Chamber and the Plenary Court. On the basis of the structured analysis it seeks to identify the constitutive elements of the Court’s rule of law concept and contrast it with the author’s working definition and the position of other Council of Europe organs. The review of the case-law indicates that the Court primarily associates the rule of law with access to court, judicial safeguards, legality and democracy, and it follows a moderately thick definition of the concept including formal, procedural and some substantive elements. The rule of law references are predominantly ancillary arguments giving weight to other Convention-based considerations and it is not applied as a self-standing standard.


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