Abstract: As the distinction between interpretation and politics diminishes, the need for pluralism in interpretation increases. The Article argues, first, that the rule of law requires that no one tribunal possess the power to subordinate a whole legal system to its politicized rule. The...

Abstract: The issue of DNA database legislation is one of the most delicate challenges of legislative harmonization at the European level. The balance between the right to privacy, and the right to security and to fair trial is hard to be achieved and it depends a lot from the cultural,...

Abstract: The Lisbon Treaty marks the end, at least for the foreseeable future, of the project of a European Constitution. But does it also mean a rejection of the tradition of Western constitutionalism? The author addresses the question outlining, first, the main elements of the modern Western...

Abstract: The paper explores the impact of the great enlargement of Europe (European Union and Council of Europe) to the east on the judicial interaction between the EU, the ECHR and the Member States legal orders. In order to appraise the dynamic and prospective nature of the enlargement, in...

Abstract: The paper examines the theory of horizontal effect of fundamental rights and freedoms, known also as Drittwirkung . It introduces relevant doctrines in Germany and Poland in order to then focus on the EU theory shaped in the case law of the European Court of Justice, most notably in...

Abstract: The transformation of family law, presently spreading  throughout the entire land of Europe with different stages of development, questions the law discipline in a multifaceted way. The scope of this paper is to approach this delicate issue from the point of view of the competences...

Abstract: Constitutionalism has developed in the last two centuries almost exclusively in context of the state. Particularly, its categories and institutional solutions have been fashioned in respect to the functional concerns progressively assumed by the state form of government. In the current...

Abstract: The paper compares French and Dutch legal approaches in regulating the use of headscarves in public institutions as examples of divergent liberal legal cultures and national policies towards immigrant minorities. It shows that in France the principle of laïcité or state secularity...

Abstract: The fundamental freedoms of the EC Treaty prohibit tax discrimination—harsher tax treatment of cross-border economic activities than purely internal activities. Critics of the ECJ argue that the Court’s broad interpretation of the EC freedoms causes it to find tax discrimination...

Abstract: This Article evaluates the widely held view that American constitutional rights jurisprudence is exceptional.  Its thesis is that while the conventional wisdom is largely correct about the content of a few specific constitutional rights, it is largely wrong about the more general...