Unification of the Case-law within the Civil Procedure System of Romania

The present article contains the main legal practice unification mechanisms, as regulated by the Romanian legislator in accordance with the current Civil Procedure Code, as well as those partaking to the Supreme Court jurisprudence in conjuncture with the lower courts by granting a uniform settlement on the legal issues comprised by the litigations referred to. The presentation starts off with the referral in the interest of the law, a traditional instrument within the national civil procedure legal sphere of activity, it continues with the notification of the Supreme Court for settling certain legal matters, a novelty at national level and of whose practical utility has already been recognised, and it ends by making reference to the second appeal, as an extraordinary means of challenge, with a relatively reduced efficiency, at present, in settling the different interpretations of the legal norms.

Dogmatyka prawa wobec politycznej opresji. Czy historia myśli prawnej może nas czegoś nauczyć?

One of the contemporary views formulated and popularized mainly by authors from the socalled critical theory of law is the belief in the inevitable, mutual relationship of law (theory of law and dogmatics of law) and legal practice (adjudication) with politics and the political. This position is strengthened by the observation of contemporary disputes — especially visible in Poland — with the participation of politicians and lawyers: politicians accuse lawyers of political motivation of actions taken to defend the judiciary and the rule of law, while lawyers defend themselves by arguing the need for autonomy of their professional practice, including its apolitical nature. In this text, I explain the arguments of the latter party to the dispute. I choose the dogmatics of law as the field of illustrating the issues raised, since it occupies a special place in the continental legal scholarship, acting as an intermediary between the jurisprudence and legal decision-making practice. I am trying to show — by referring to two examples from general history, i.e. the eleventh-century investiture controversy and the nineteenth-century debate in the background of the German reunification idea — that law and politics (lawyers and politicians) have always been forced to compete and cooperate with each other. Thus, it confirms the thesis of the critical theory of law. At the same time, however, I try to show that the legal community had the ability to “learn” from the political disputes of the past, which led to the formation of independent jurisprudence and legal practice in the face of current politics, and thus also to apoliticality. What is more, I argue that such an apolitical nature is a condition for the survival of legal culture in its present shape — and here, my path diverges from the critical legal theory claims. However, in my opinion, the contemporary arguments made within this theory about the political science of law and jurisprudence should be treated with all seriousness — as another experience from which our community, as one can hope, will be able to draw informative conclusions.

“The Merchandise Has Appeared on the Market”: The Typology of Plunderers, Schemes of Illegal Realization, and Legal Practice in Soviet Lithuania (1945–1947)

This research focuses on plunder from variuos co-operative or state institutions (mostly those which had belonged to the Ministry of Internal Trading or the Unity of Co-operatives of Lithuanian SSR) in the first post-war years (1945–1947) in the Lithuanian SSR. The primary source for this article is comprised by 54 criminal cases from the archive of the Supreme Court of the Lithuanian SSR. Cases used in this study were chosen based on one important criteria: that there were not only acts of plunder but also the realization of stolen goods. This would most likely be achieved by selling the goods through various marketplaces (looking from the Soviet point of view, the plundered items belonged to the black market anyway – even if the market activities were not forbidden). Also, the practices of punishment applied in the cases of plunderers and speculators are analyzed. The research shows that even in the very first years of the post-war period, illegal economic processes were widespread in Soviet Lithuania. Plunderers were hitting the Soviet economy hard – despite the harsh practice of punishment, the Soviet government would lose tens of millions of rubles in the Lithuanian SSR each year.

The rights of performers in the legal practice of the Russian Empire: an agreement between the Joint-Stock Company “Gramophone” and the Society of periodicals and literature personalities

The article is devoted to the history of formation of the mechanism for protecting the rights of performers in Russia in the pre-revolutionary period. Analyzing one of the first agreements between participants of copyright and related rights’ market, the author examines the specifics of their relationship in the absence of legal protection means, enshrined in the law.

Assessing the Need of Using Artificial Intelligence within Legal Practice

The objective of the article is to analyze the content and particularities of the use of artificial intelligence in legal practice. Historical and legal, epistemological, and comparative scientific methods are used. It has been clarified that artificial intelligence is the ability of a computer (machine) to simulate human intelligence while solving certain tasks. This type of intelligence is also designed to solve complex integral tasks related to the collection, processing, storage, generalization, and other actions with information. It has been argued that the introduction of artificial intelligence technologies in all spheres of public life requires adequate legal regulation of all aspects of their use. The main guidelines for the development of artificial intelligence in legal practice have been identified, namely: development of innovative cybersecurity systems; determination of the list of administrative services, the decisions of which can be made by automated systems using special information processing algorithms; development of digital systems for the identification and verification of persons; use of artificial intelligence technologies to detect illegal activities in computer systems, registries, other socially dangerous phenomena; protection of personal data; development of technologies for e-government.

The Challenge of Taliban Ideology for International Politics: Religious Competition, Counterterrorism, and the Search for Legitimacy

This paper examines the Taliban vision of an Islamic polity posing a challenge to neighboring Central and South Asian states as well as more distant ones in Eurasia and the Middle East. As a potential magnet for militants across these regions, Taliban Islam represents an alternative to forms of piety and legal practice in states that have signifi cant Muslim populations and where each government claims some degree of religious legitimation and control over Islamic authority and interpretation. Author claims the Taliban ideology poses a dilemma to regional actors, too, in that it makes all parties who might cooperate with the movement vulnerable to criticism based on human rights discourse. At the same time, the presence of the Islamic State – Khorasan Province (ISKP) has permitted the movement the opportunity to seek to reframe its international standing and its relationship to violence. The Taliban have adapted their critique of ISKP to the claim that they share a counterterrorism mission with other governments, an assertion that allows the movement and its partners to defl ect criticism from various quarters and normalize relations with other states. Author concludes that, seeking international support, the Taliban have adapted their ideological claims to position the movement simultaneously as a competitor to other visions of militant jihadist politics and as a counterterrorist force laying the groundwork for the legitimation of their place in a rapidly evolving global order.

Ibn Taymiyyah and his fatwas on forbidden (haram) and permissible (halal) issues

Recently, the study of the legacy of a medieval religious scholar Ibn Taymiyyah, who lived in Syria at the turn of 14th century, has become particularly relevant due to the growing activity of various radical groups. Notably, some parts of his teachings became the foundation of the ideology of various modern extremist sects such as Wahhabism. However, his answers to religious questions regarding the forbidden (haram) and the permitted (halal) remain understudied. Ibn Taymiyyah's ideas contradicts the unanimous conclusion of Islamic theologians on more than 60 issues. His opinion on certain issues provoked lively discussions to the point of even forbidding him to make conclusions on certain religious issues. In addition, his belonging to the Hanbali madhhab in Islam is questionable. Another problem of the study is its contradiction to the traditional Islamic concept of God. The main purpose of the study is to investigate the ideas of Ibn Taymiyyah on some issues of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), to compare his views with the opinions of Islamic theologians and to define erroneous ideas about jurisprudence. In this study, the main approach was to study the works of Ibn Taymiyyah and compare them with the works of Islamic theologians, representatives of different madhhabs. It was found that a certain number of religious and legal opinions of this religious scholar in matters of halal and haram contradict the legal norms of the vast majority of Muslims. This study proves that the teachings of Ibn Taymiyyah contradict the Islamic concept of God and religious and legal practice