The topic of this dissertation focuses on the arrangement of the court system in the Czech Republic. The aim of the thesis is to present a basic, comprehensive view of the organisation of the system of courts, elaborated with a closer analysis relating to the personnel composition and overall functioning of the individual courts. The introductory section of the thesis deals with the historical development of the judicial system within the territory of today's Czech Republic, in particular the organisation of the court system during the period of the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918-1938). The court system of the First Republic followed on to a large extent from the legal arrangement of the Austro-Hungarian judicial system, on the basis of the adoption of the Reception Act no. 11/1918 Coll. A gradual unification took place regarding the different arrangement of the court organisations in the Czech lands and in Slovakia. The court system of the First Republic was distinguished by a high degree of specialisation, the courts were divided into regular, specialised and arbitration courts. The system of general courts is formed by district, regional and high courts, the Supreme Court and the Supreme Administrative Court. The thesis also includes a description of the functioning of judicial councils, the...

After the concept of human dignity has spread into a large number of constitutions from all over the world, detailed examination of this phenomenon is steadily gaining importance. This thesis finds three autonomous approaches to human dignity in constitutional law, namely a subjective human right, the source of human rights and an objective constitutional value. Each of these approaches is based on a particular historical view on human dignity. The key argument of this thesis states that the connection of the three aforementioned legitimate approaches leads to the creation of dangerous and undesirable hybrid forms of human dignity. These forms tend to be axiomatic, preventing from the rational legal argumentation as well as from the use of the proportionality principle. The implementation of the concept of human dignity in such an axiomatic way is an argumentative foul, unfortunately so frequently made by both judiciary and doctrines. The thesis further focuses on the examination of the axiomatic human dignity phenomenon with respect to the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic decision-making specifically. Using quantitative methods, it first comes to the conclusion that the problem of axiomatic human dignity-related argumentation does not only exist in the Constitutional Court's...

Precedentes são decisões anteriores utilizadas como guia para novas decisões. No âmbito jurídico, precedentes funcionam não só como elementos conferidores de segurança e previsibilidade, limitando o grau de discricionaridade dos juízes, mas seu uso também está relacionado à garantida de igualdade. Apesar de serem tradicionalmente colocados em segundo plano quando estudados em sistemas de civil law, os precedentes aparecem com grande frequência na fundamentação de decisões judiciais em muitos destes sistemas jurídicos, dentre eles o brasileiro. A fim de determinar qual é o papel desempenhado pelos precedentes na fundamentação das decisões do Supremo Tribunal Federal, a pesquisa voltou-se à análise do papel desempenhado pelos precedentes nas decisões do tribunal envolvendo o conflito, ou a restrição, de direitos fundamentais. A partir da diferenciação de duas funções exercidas hoje pelo Supremo Tribunal Federal, já que nele estão concentradas as funções de última instância do Poder Judiciário e de Corte Constitucional, foram estabelecidos comportamentos esperados do tribunal com relação ao uso de precedentes em cada uma dessas funções. A análise da jurisprudência do tribunal foi realizada em duas etapas. Num primeiro momento, a seleção de um conjunto de decisões do STF relativas ao tema de direitos fundamentais foi seguida pela reconstrução das redes de precedentes nas quais elas se apóiam, método de pesquisa que permite a visualização da jurisprudência da Corte em termos de conexão entre decisões e padrões de citação de precedentes. Em seguida, foi analisado o papel que as citações aos precedentes representavam na argumentação dos ministros, indicando assim qual o peso atribuído às decisões passadas. O conjunto das análises realizadas levou à percepção de que o tribunal atribui uma função específica aos precedentes, fruto de uma visão positivista dessa ferramenta. Assim, a utilização dos precedentes caracteriza-se pela formação de uma jurisprudência de reiteração de soluções, mais do que pela construção argumentativa de Standards orientadores da atuação judicial em casos difíceis. A consolidação dessa visão positivisa de precedentes baseia-se especialmente na necessidade de eficiência da atuação judicial, que se encontra em constante crescimento, sendo solucionada por meio de mecanismos de uniformização da jurisprudência. Se de um lado esse papel atribuído aos precedentes aparece como uma importante solução para a atuação do Supremo Tribunal Federal como última instância do Poder Judiciário, ele deixa lacunas no que se refere à atuação do tribunal como Corte Constitucional responsável pelo desenvolvimento do direito. / Precedents are past decisions, which are used as a guide for new decisions. Within the juridical scope, the use of precedents not only assures security and predictability, by limiting the amount of judges leeway, but also helps grant equality. Despite having been traditionally given relative importance when studied in civil law systems, precedents frequently appear in the opinions of court decisions, as in the Brazilian legal system, among many others. In order to determine what the role played by the precedents is in the statements of arguments which introduce the decisions made by the Brazilian Supreme Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal - STF), this research focused on the analysis of the use of precedents in the decisions which involve the conflict or the restriction of fundamental rights. Considering the distinction between the two present functions of the STF, since it acts both as Supreme Court and as Constitutional Court, expected behaviours concerning the use of precedents have been identified for each of such functions. The analysis of the former court decisions was conducted in two stages. First, a set of decisions made by the STF, all related to the subject matter of fundamental rights, was selected and the network of precedents on which they were based was reconstructed. Such research method allows for a clear visualisation of the precedents, the connections between decisions and the patterns of citation of precedents. In sequence, the role played by the reference to precedents in the judges reasoning was analysed, so that the relevance given to the former decisions could be evaluated. The series of analyses accomplished led to the perception that the Court credits a specific function to the precedents, as a result of a positivist view of such tool. Thus, the use of precedents is characterised by a jurisprudence which reiterates solutions, rather than setting argumentative standards to guide judicial action in difficult cases. The consolidation of such positivist view of the precedents is deeply related to the continuously growing necessity to achieve efficiency in the judicial action, which is solved by the use of mechanisms that allow for the standardisation of jurisprudence. So, on the one hand, the role assigned to the precedents provides an important solution for the STF action. On the other hand, though, it leaves blanks in the action of the STF as a Constitutional Court, which should be responsible for the development of Law.

Quand, dans le cadre des réformes constitutionnelles après la chute du communisme, le Conseil de l’Europe et la Commission européenne demandent à l’Albanie l’indépendance du pouvoir judiciaire comme garantie pour un état de droit, pour une gouvernance limitée par le droit, un juge constitutionnel comme défenseur des garanties de ce principe est demandé en même temps. En tant que principes et institutions de l’état de droit, ils se trouveront face à une culture politique qui rend difficile tant leur transposition que leur application dans la réalité albanaise. Les raisons sont à rechercher dans l’influence que la tradition constitutionnelle et l’idéologie communiste exercent encore sur la classe politique et sa culture politique. Elles poussent plutôt vers le contrôle que vers l’indépendance du juge. Dans ces circonstances, il revient au juge constitutionnel d’être actif dans le jeu de la séparation et de l’équilibre des pouvoirs et dans l’identification et la formalisation d’un judiciaire indépendant. En même temps et aussi souvent que nécessaire, il devra défendre directement les garanties constitutionnelles de cette indépendance en fonction de sa propre indépendance. / When, as part of the constitutional reforms, after the fall of the communism, the Council of Europe and the European Commission require from Albania the independence of the judiciary, as a guarantee for the rule of law, a constitutional court, as a defender of the guarantees of this principle, is demanded simultaneously. Nevertheless, during the years of the democratic transition, these principles and institutions of the rule of law will be confronted with a political culture that makes difficult both their transposition and their implementation in the Albanian reality. The reasons lie in the influence that the constitutional tradition and the communist ideology still exert on the political class and its political culture. They grow towards the control rather than the independence of the judiciary. In these circumstances, it is up to the constitutional court to be active in the game of separation and balance of powers and in the identification and formalization of an independent judiciary. At the same time and as often as necessary, it will directly defend the constitutional guarantees of independence and will do so according to its own independence.

Constitui objeto de investigação da presente tese o suprimento das omissões legislativas inconstitucionais pelo Supremo Tribunal Federal por meio do mandado de injunção. Pretende-se demonstrar que a Constituição, ao instituir o mandado de injunção, não apenas sinalizou que as omissões inconstitucionais merecem censura, mas também estabeleceu meio próprio para que o cidadão possa impugná-las. No controle concreto das omissões legislativas inconstitucionais por meio do mandado de injunção, defende-se que há uma reserva de jurisdição constitucional do Supremo Tribunal Federal. Para demonstrar essa assertiva, a tese desenvolveu, em sua primeira parte, uma reflexão sobre o processo de aplicação do direito e a função da legislação nesse mister. A conclusão a que se chegou é de que a legislação ainda constitui uma peça relevante no processo de interpretação e aplicação do direito. Num segundo momento, tendo como eixo de investigação o princípio da separação de Poderes, observar-se-á que a Constituição de 1988 e a prática constitucional que se estabeleceu sob seu marco instituíram a jurisdição constitucional como mais um mecanismo de controle do poder político e consagraram o Supremo Tribunal como Tribunal Constitucional. Na última parte da pesquisa, busca-se demonstrar que há competência exclusiva do Supremo Tribunal Federal no controle das omissões legislativas em face da Constituição Federal. O mandado de injunção, nesse cenário, é importante instrumento de acesso direto do cidadão ao Supremo Tribunal Federal para suscitar esse controle. Essa leitura que se faz da Constituição se justifica pela identificação da omissão legislativa como fenômeno que não se confunde com o da simples ausência de lei ou de indeterminação semântica do direito, merecendo métodos próprios de enfrentamento. Além disso, essa leitura da Constituição encontra razão de ser pela forma que se concebe a jurisdição constitucional, como sendo uma atividade política prudencial, que permite que se estabeleça um diálogo institucional não apenas entre o Supremo Tribunal Federal e o Poder Legislativo, mas também entre a jurisdição constitucional prestada pelo Supremo Tribunal Federal e a jurisdição ordinária. / The thesis deals with the process of constitutional adjudication in case of legislative omissions (legal gaps that violate constitutional determinations or unconstitutionality by legislative omission). It gives special attention to the constitutional remedy called writ of injunction (mandado de injunção), which allows citizens to directly access the Brazilian Constitutional Court in case of violation of constitutional rights and freedoms that result from the lack of an enabling legislation. The research seeks to provide a theoretical guidance to understand this problem and its possible solutions. It is argued that the problem of legislative omission is fundamentally a problem about the relationship between the legislative and the courts, and about the limits to constitutional adjudication. The challenge is to guarantee the effectiveness of constitutional rights without undermining democracy (and the powers of the legislative branch). It is argued that, within the Judiciary, only the Constitutional Court has the power to review legislative omissions. The techniques to judge legislative omissions should improve the institutional dialogue between the Constitutional Court, the Legislature and the ordinary courts. I argue that the control of legislative omissions is compatible with constrained judicial review (weak judicial review). Facing a case of unconstitutional legislative omission, the Constitutional Court has a privileged but not unlimited role in interpreting the Constitution. Ruling on constitutional questions about legislative omissions, the Constitutional Court should either call for legislative action or be open to legislative revision in the short run.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:23:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Clint Rodrigues Correia.pdf: 1800436 bytes, checksum: 766821a03b377601c297987dfc242a44 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-09-14 / This paper aims at demonstrating the theoretical and practical surpass of the negative legislator as a paradigm employed by jurisprudence in the Supreme Federal Court, which gives way to access by technology to constitutional law in the so-called non-typical decisions, and in particular in additive judgments. The survey is based on an assumption of the inadequate argument brought about in rulings by the Brazilian Supreme Court with regard to the Court being unable to act as a positive legislator. Based on this statement, the outcome is the instrumental access by Constitutional Justice to the so-called non-typical and intermediate rulings. Special attention is dedicated to one of the types of such decisions the additive judgments by examining their conceptual restrictions and key features, chiefly as of their development by the Italian Constitutional Court, as well as some of the limits commonly detected by doctrine that justify their lawful use by the Constitutional Court. To this end the paper employed inductive and deductive methods and was based on bibliographical research of a descriptive and jurisprudential nature / O presente trabalho tem por objetivo demonstrar a superação teórica e prática do legislador negativo enquanto paradigma seguido pela jurisprudência do Supremo Tribunal Federal, permitindo-se, com isso, a abertura tecnológica da jurisdição constitucional para as chamadas decisões atípicas e, em especial, para as sentenças aditivas. A pesquisa tem por premissa a inadequação do argumento suscitado em julgados do Supremo Tribunal Federal a respeito da impossibilidade de a Corte atuar como legislador positivo . A partir dessa constatação, a consequência é a abertura instrumental da Justiça Constitucional para as chamadas sentenças atípicas ou intermediárias. Dedica-se especial atenção a uma das espécies dessas decisões as sentenças aditivas , estudando-se sua delimitação conceitual e principais características, sobretudo a partir do seu desenvolvimento pela Corte Constitucional italiana, bem assim alguns dos limites comumente identificados pela doutrina a justificar sua legítima utilização pelo Tribunal Constitucional. Para tanto, o estudo se valeu dos métodos indutivo e dedutivo, tendo contado com pesquisa bibliográfica de caráter descritivo e jurisprudencial

This thesis aims to analyze legislation of the Czech legal order concerning religious freedom. The work is divided in 4 parts. The first part of the thesis deals with the definition of religious freedom in the first place. Afterwards the thesis describes the Constitutional law relating to the religious freedom (especially the Article No. 15 and No. 16 of the Charter of the Fundamental Rights and Freedoms of the Czech Republic), international conventions relating to the theme (e.g. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights etc.) and further statutory provisions and legislative rules guaranteeing religious freedom in the Czech Republic. Major part of the thesis relating to the statutory provisions and legislative rules deals with the act No. 3/2002 Coll., on Freedom of religion and the status of churches and religious societies, as amended. The act No. 3/2002 Coll. constitutes basis of regularization of the freedom of religion in the Czech Republic. Various provisions of the act No. 3/2002 Coll. were subject to review of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic due to their unconstitutionality. The second part of the thesis discusses various decisions of the...

Precedentes são decisões anteriores utilizadas como guia para novas decisões. No âmbito jurídico, precedentes funcionam não só como elementos conferidores de segurança e previsibilidade, limitando o grau de discricionaridade dos juízes, mas seu uso também está relacionado à garantida de igualdade. Apesar de serem tradicionalmente colocados em segundo plano quando estudados em sistemas de civil law, os precedentes aparecem com grande frequência na fundamentação de decisões judiciais em muitos destes sistemas jurídicos, dentre eles o brasileiro. A fim de determinar qual é o papel desempenhado pelos precedentes na fundamentação das decisões do Supremo Tribunal Federal, a pesquisa voltou-se à análise do papel desempenhado pelos precedentes nas decisões do tribunal envolvendo o conflito, ou a restrição, de direitos fundamentais. A partir da diferenciação de duas funções exercidas hoje pelo Supremo Tribunal Federal, já que nele estão concentradas as funções de última instância do Poder Judiciário e de Corte Constitucional, foram estabelecidos comportamentos esperados do tribunal com relação ao uso de precedentes em cada uma dessas funções. A análise da jurisprudência do tribunal foi realizada em duas etapas. Num primeiro momento, a seleção de um conjunto de decisões do STF relativas ao tema de direitos fundamentais foi seguida pela reconstrução das redes de precedentes nas quais elas se apóiam, método de pesquisa que permite a visualização da jurisprudência da Corte em termos de conexão entre decisões e padrões de citação de precedentes. Em seguida, foi analisado o papel que as citações aos precedentes representavam na argumentação dos ministros, indicando assim qual o peso atribuído às decisões passadas. O conjunto das análises realizadas levou à percepção de que o tribunal atribui uma função específica aos precedentes, fruto de uma visão positivista dessa ferramenta. Assim, a utilização dos precedentes caracteriza-se pela formação de uma jurisprudência de reiteração de soluções, mais do que pela construção argumentativa de Standards orientadores da atuação judicial em casos difíceis. A consolidação dessa visão positivisa de precedentes baseia-se especialmente na necessidade de eficiência da atuação judicial, que se encontra em constante crescimento, sendo solucionada por meio de mecanismos de uniformização da jurisprudência. Se de um lado esse papel atribuído aos precedentes aparece como uma importante solução para a atuação do Supremo Tribunal Federal como última instância do Poder Judiciário, ele deixa lacunas no que se refere à atuação do tribunal como Corte Constitucional responsável pelo desenvolvimento do direito. / Precedents are past decisions, which are used as a guide for new decisions. Within the juridical scope, the use of precedents not only assures security and predictability, by limiting the amount of judges leeway, but also helps grant equality. Despite having been traditionally given relative importance when studied in civil law systems, precedents frequently appear in the opinions of court decisions, as in the Brazilian legal system, among many others. In order to determine what the role played by the precedents is in the statements of arguments which introduce the decisions made by the Brazilian Supreme Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal - STF), this research focused on the analysis of the use of precedents in the decisions which involve the conflict or the restriction of fundamental rights. Considering the distinction between the two present functions of the STF, since it acts both as Supreme Court and as Constitutional Court, expected behaviours concerning the use of precedents have been identified for each of such functions. The analysis of the former court decisions was conducted in two stages. First, a set of decisions made by the STF, all related to the subject matter of fundamental rights, was selected and the network of precedents on which they were based was reconstructed. Such research method allows for a clear visualisation of the precedents, the connections between decisions and the patterns of citation of precedents. In sequence, the role played by the reference to precedents in the judges reasoning was analysed, so that the relevance given to the former decisions could be evaluated. The series of analyses accomplished led to the perception that the Court credits a specific function to the precedents, as a result of a positivist view of such tool. Thus, the use of precedents is characterised by a jurisprudence which reiterates solutions, rather than setting argumentative standards to guide judicial action in difficult cases. The consolidation of such positivist view of the precedents is deeply related to the continuously growing necessity to achieve efficiency in the judicial action, which is solved by the use of mechanisms that allow for the standardisation of jurisprudence. So, on the one hand, the role assigned to the precedents provides an important solution for the STF action. On the other hand, though, it leaves blanks in the action of the STF as a Constitutional Court, which should be responsible for the development of Law.

L'objet de la présente thèse est de procéder à l'étude comparée des doctrines et jurisprudences françaises et allemandes consacrées au principe de la séparation des pouvoirs. D'origine philosophique, ce principe n'est pas, aujourd'hui, dépourvu d'effets juridiques pratiques, comme le montrent les problèmes récents, soulevés dans la jurisprudence du conseil constitutionnel et de la cour constitutionnelle allemande. Toutefois, on ne saurait comparer la mise en oeuvre d'un principe dans deux ordres juridiques différents sans faire l'effort d'un retour nécessaire sur la genèse doctrinale de ce principe, sans apporter au travail comparatif une dimension d'histoire de la culture juridique dans les pays comparés. Le point essentiel de ce travail serait d'expliquer les développements jurisprudentiels les plus récents à la lumière de l'histoire des doctrines. Si notre travail sera essentiellement centré sur une comparaison franco-allemande, il doit rester ouvert à toute perspective intéressante que pourraient fournir, sur le sujet, d'autres jurisprudences nationales et européennes. / The thesis focuses on the german constitutional case law and doctrine relating to the principle of the separation of powers. The analysis of the problems concerning the meaning of the rule deducted under article 20 paragraph 2 of the German Basic Law of 23 May 1949 point up its practical application today. The interpretation of the solutions of the Federal Constitutional Court constitues the main part of this research however it is impossible to globally appreciate and understand the principle of the separation of powers without make the necessary effort to explain its genesis in the german constitutionnal law. Ergo, the theories of the Vormärz also the thought of the legal scolars of the Empire and the Weimar Republic are an important key stage that permit to grasp the present form of the principle in the decisions of the judge. The functional justice or the theory of the substantial decision complete the definition of the constitutional separation of powers. The concretisation of these integral elements of the principle create the system of checks and balances that govern the conflicting relations between legislative, executive and judicial powers.

Before 1994 administrative law was dominated by parliamentary supremacy which dictated that Parliament is the supreme law-making authority in the state. This position was radically changed by the new democratic order. To protect the rights of citizens a Bill of Rights was introduced in South Africa. This research focuses on the uncertainty pertaining to the application of the audi alteram partem rule to the proceedings of commissions of inquiry. Section 24 of the interim Constitution, section 33 of the final Constitution and the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act 3 of 2000 were introduced to safeguard the individual against unfair administrative action. These legislative measures as well as applicable case law are analysed in order to establish whether they have brought about greater clarity concerning the application of the audi alteram partem rule to the proceedings of commissions of inquiry. / Thesis (LL.M. (Public Law))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2004.