The Requirements Deriving from the Procedural Aspect of Art. 2 of the European Convention of Human Rightsin the Context of Polish and Russian Investigation Regarding the Air Crash of Polish Air Force Tu-154 in Smolensk

The main aim of this analysis is the synthetic reconstruction of the standards of European Court of Human Rights concerning the procedural aspect of the right to life, and particularly the obligation of conducting an effective investigation in the context of the Polish Air Force Tu-154 air crash in Smolensk on 10th April 2010.The right to life in the system of the European Convention of Human Rights has a particular character. It derives mostly from its paramount importance. Due to the character of the sphere guaranteed by the right to life, the European Court of Human Rights notices the need of protecting it, both in material and procedural aspect. This is also the reason why article 2 of the ECHR is backed up by the wide variety of positive obligations.The standards of article 2 of the ECHR and state’s positive obligations in this respect are fully applicable in relation to the air crash of the presidential Tu-154. State’s obligations focus on both material and procedural aspect of incident causing death. The air crash of Tu-154 concerns particularly the obligation to conduct adequate and effective official investigation. This obligation concerns both Polish and Russian authorities.The main aim of this research is to analyse which obligations are applicable in respect of this particular air crash.

Responsibility of Russia and Poland for the Smolensk Catastrophe from the Perspective of European Convention on Human Rights

Smolensk Catastrophe is not only about the question of clarifying facts, but also the one of responsibility stemming from them on the grounds of European Convention on Human Rights, and being more precise from its art. 2: The right to life. The article includes both negative obligations, such as the prohibition of depriving an individual of life, as well as positive ones regarding the establishing of effective regulations in criminal law, providing legal and administrative procedures aiming at e.g. preventing the acts of life deprivation, including the ones referring to procedural obligations concerning the conduct of a proper and effective investigation. Responsibility is shared by both parties of the Convention: Russia and Poland. The first of them ought to be responsible for depriving the Catastrophe casualties of their lives, not only in the event of an attack and explosion, but also in the context of TU 154 renovation, the manner of organizing the visit, dividing it between 7th and 10th April 2010, the level of securing the quality of service at the North Smolensk airport, conducting the investigation and keeping the evidence (the wreck, black box, etc.), which made it impossible for Poland to conduct the effective investigation. Poland, on the other hand, is responsible for the lack of applying appropriate legal and administrative procedures, as well as preventive and controlling measures, inappropriate conduct of aviation investigation by Military Prosecutor Office, as well as the lack of an effective investigation indicated in art. 2 of the Convention. Poland ought to be held responsible also for the manner of organizing the visit. The responsibility of a state on the basis of the Convention includes detecting, pursuing and punishing individuals responsible for actions and cessations determined as a punishable offence of negligence and not fulfilling ones duties. Therefore there certainly was the situation of breaching the material and procedural obligations stemming from art. 2 of the Convention.

Participation in a Limited Liability Company as an Element of Marital Property

The subject of this study is the characterization of the rights and possible obligations of a spouse of a partner of a limited liability company. Participation in a company with limited liability belonging to one of the spouses sometimes enters into joint property, and in the event of the cessation of this communion, it is divided. The company’s share belongs to the inheritance property.

Standards of Investigation Under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Investigations of Incidents of Historic Significance

In search of international remedies for the investigation of the Tu-154M airplane crash of April 10, 2010, in Smolensk, Russia, standards of effective investigation under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights are examined. Cases of airplane crashes and terrorist attacks are analyzed. Next, investigations of major international incidents of historic significance are examined. The case of UN Secretary General D. Hammarskjold killed in 1961 airplane crash is analyzed. Also, the investigation conducted by the International Commission of Inquiry for Lebanon on the assassination of Prime Minister Hariri is examined. Based on the above, recommendations are made for the most effective international investigation of the Smolensk crash.

Postmortal Issues of Smolensk Tragedy Against the Obligations of Art. 2 of European Convention on Human Rights

The main aim of the study is to analyze posthumous problems that concern the victims of the Smolensk disaster in the context of positive obligations of the state. The first element of the analysis will concern the standards of dealing with the bodies of disaster victims as soon as they occur. The second aspect will include the obligation to notify of death along with other obligations and information on victims. Then, issues related to the transport of corpses and the opening of coffins will be described, and finally the regulations regarding uninterrupted burial. The analysis of the above issue presented in the work will be carried out taking into account regional human rights protection standards and the ECtHR’s judicial practice. Both soft and hard law standards will be included in the analysis.

Polish-Russian Agreement from 1993, Its Omission in the Forming of the Process of Investigation on the Causes of Polish Air Force Tu-154 Crash in Smolensk and the Formula of Establishing the Agreement Between the Governments of the Polish Republic and Russian Federation on the Investigation on Its Causes According to the Rules of the Chicago Convention From 1944

On 10th April 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 carrying the President of the Republic of Poland Mr. Lech Kaczyński, the First Lady Maria Kaczyńska and 92 other high Polish officials and members of the crew, crashed in Smolensk. Following the crash, Polish and Russian governments by series of acts and omissions agreed for the investigation procedure according to the Chicago Convention from 1944, nothwithstanding the existence of the binding Polish-Russian agreement from 1993 applicable to military aircrafts.

Constitutional Resilience Between Rupture of History and Continuity of Resistance

The overture of the paper provides a brief survey of the philosophical positions (from Aristotle to the contemporary debate) focusing the conjecture of the legal and constitutional continuum as a problematic presupposition of theories of constituent power. The positions of the authors that we can call as continuist authors (up to Kelsen and the neo-normativism, including Soviet jurists and theorists of the constitutional cycles) constitutes the dominant part of the theoretical evolution. We discuss it (respectfully) even if we openly criticize it, with a peculiar debate involving that other position called as discontinuist (whose authors are especially Marxists philosophers, anti-fascist intellectuals like Piero Gobetti, and their references in philosophy such as Leibniz and Vico). In the first movement of the paper, we reconstruct the equivoque at the basis of the conjecture of the continuum. It corresponds to a «three-time» scheme of constitutional dynamics: (revolutionary) rupture – transition – constitution. This structure makes useless (conceptually unusable, and perhaps sources of logical contradictions) both rupture and transition. The second and final movement underlines the theoretical demand to consider the transition and the constitution as coextensive domains. Transition is, in other words, already Constitution, and the constitution is always a transition. To the latter ones, we introduce and add another phenomenon characterizing the historical phase of the transition, namely the Resistance. The fact of resistance escapes the constitutionalisation, and imposes upon the latter a necessary character of transition.

Immutable Values – Durability of the Constitution from a Historical Perspective and Contemporary

On the dogmatic basis, many constitutional classifications stand out, some of them have been functioning for hundreds of years based on a few basic statements, others update in different intervals temporal internal political forces of individual states. Factors influencing the durability of basic legal acts are numerous and diverse. The assumption of the construction of constitutional acts is their durability and rigidity of the rules they regulate. The features of constitutional laws are the invariability of provisions, the scope and detail of regulations, the degree of public involvement in the process of making them, and superiority in relation to other legal acts established by state authorities. It seems impossible to indicate the factors implying the necessity to make changes in the basic acts. However, one may wonder how much influence on their functioning exerts, for example, changes in the system of international forces and international law, ongoing armed conflicts or international integration processes. The aim of the article is to indicate the catalog of factors determining the constitution’s durability as a fundamental legal act in the state. The author would like to answer the question whether it is possible in the rapidly changing modern world to maintain the basic principles from a few or several decades ago. The comparative analysis will be based on the indicated objective of the basic laws of selected countries.

Constitutional Sources of Law in the Russian Federation on the Basis of Acts Regarding the Conservation

The constitutional catalogue of the sources of law, clear and unambiguous division of acts into commonly binding and internal ones, is of fundamental meaning for the realization of the state of law rules, i.e. legalism and the rule of law, from the perspective of European democracies. Since it is the essence of every democratic legislation to base its functioning on the law established by organs that have been assigned for that aim, binding its addressees and executed by public authorities, also with the use of the means of coercion. This article aims at presenting the outline of the constitutional system of the sources of law in the Russian Federation and illustrating it, as much as it is possible, with acts regarding the conservation of the environment. In particular, the objective of this work is to determine the name of a given source, an organ competent to issue it, its function and position in the hierarchy, as well as the rule of promulgation. The key research issue here is the distinguishing between the sources of commonly binding law and the ones of internal law, as the regulation of the Russian Federation Constitution does not preordain explicitly. Yet this issue is of crucial significance when it comes to the status of law subjects. Acts of internal character may be directed merely at organizational units submitted to an organ issuing the acts and may not directly regulate the sphere of rights and obligations, neither constitute the bases of decisions concerning citizens, legal entities or other subjects.

Reverse Discrimination – How Fundamental Rights Might be Changed without Notice

This article addresses the issue how meaning of fundamental rights might be amended by international treaties, based on example of non-discrimination principle, in particular context of putting own national in less favoured situation than non-national (reverse discrimination). Two European Union (EU) member states, the United Kingdom (UK) and Poland, were then selected for testing the practice. The main reason for the choice of the UK and Poland lies on their opposite legislation tradition. Polish Constitution expressly prohibit any kind of discrimination, whereas in the UK there is no such an unified act. Firstly, articles defined that the reverse discrimination is. Secondly, it seeks whether the possibility to offset losses from a subsidiary is treated equally to residents and non-residents. National provisions guarantee general rights and freedoms, but their scope and the meaning are continuously modified. Not only judgements of national courts, but also international treaties might define the true meaning of fundamental rights.