This thesis examines the principle of mutual trust in EU criminal law. Mutual trust has become a household term in the EU criminal justice vocabulary and is widely regarded to be a prerequisite for a successful application of the principle of mutual recognition. But despite its widespread use, the parameters of the concept are not clear. Since mutual trust has become one of the core objectives of the EU's criminal justice policy, and legislation is adopted to build trust, a more substantial understanding is required. This thesis has taken a three-fold approach to substantiate and conceptualise the principle of mutual trust. Firstly, a multi-disciplinary assessment of social science literature to gain a better understanding of what trust is and how it functions. Secondly, a black letter approach combined with a discourse analysis, in order to reveal the practical difficulties that have arisen in relation to (insufficient) trust. This has revealed a number of flaws in the legal framework, as well as in policy documents dealing with trust, mainly due to the strict nature of the trust presumption. Thirdly, a comparative study with the United States of America, focused on interstate cooperation within a federal structure, offers fresh insights. Several lessons and limitations have been drawn from this study that have allowed scrutinising the EU’s trust building policy and logic.The thesis argues that mutual trust, a core principle of EU criminal law, is multi-faceted: a collective notion bringing together various aspects and principles relevant to rendering mutual recognition in criminal law a success. Its constitutive elements can broadly be categorised into social, legal and political elements. The first relates to the inherent subjective character of trust, the latter to its specific application in the legal EU criminal justice context. By bringing these elements together, a principle with a meaning specific to EU criminal law appears, a term of art. Most importantly, the substance of the principle builds on the idea of a similar European legal culture: more specifically of a European criminal law. It furthermore relates to the motivation for Member States to cooperate, i.e. fighting increasing cross border crime and building an Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. But whilst building on a shared legal culture, mutual trust also relates to the ideal to maintain national diversity in criminal law. On the basis of this dual notion, a comprehensive approach is proposed to tackle trust related difficulties. These relate mainly to harmonisation, most prominently of procedural safeguards; non-legal forms of trust building, aiming to enhance the provision of accurate information; and finally allowing the trust presumption to be rebutted, to create a more substantive principle of trust mindful of realities on the ground. Together, these should enable the principle of trust to operate in accordance with its two main functions, namely to facilitate the application of mutual recognition in the criminal justice sphere, while paying due regard to fundamental rights and liberties. / Doctorat en Sciences juridiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Specifics regarding methods of interpretation of the EU law and process of EU directives transposition Abstract This thesis is dedicated to the problematics regarding specifics of the European Union law interpretation methods. While majority of publications dealing with law interpretation adopts the perspective of judges and courts, and thus deals with the interpretations they render, this study adopts the viewpoint of a Czech legislator, who is facing a challenging task of transposing directives into the Czech legal order. In order for the transposition to be conducted properly, a thorough interpretation of the respective directive must precede. There is six standard and non- standard methods of interpretation at the legislator's disposal, including linguistic, logical, systematic, historical, theological and comparative one. Do these methods, however, prove to be fully applicable in case of the interpretation of the EU directives? Possibly, what would be the EU law norms interpretation specifics? This study represents an analysis of the given topic from the perspective of a legal theory and is structured into three main sections. The first section provides a brief definition of the legal interpretation as such and presents an overview of both historical and contemporary approaches towards the...

Scope of EU law This thesis deals with scope of EU law. Scope of EU law in concrete situation is defined by meeting conditions layed down for material, territorial, personal and temporal scope of EU law. The aim of the thesis is to define when those conditions are met and to analyse situations, where it's not clear which legal order to apply and to give the reader an insight into situations when union law applies. This thesis is divided into two parts - first part gives insight and definitions about fundametal terms used in second part of this thesis. Part two deals with topic of this thesis. First chapter of the second part analyses material scope of Union law, thus answers the question in which legal relations has Union law material scope and divides material scope of Union law into two categories: exlusive material scope of Union law and non-exlusive material scope of Union law. This thesis also analyses criteria, which are used to determine, if in specific legal relations has material scope Union law or national law. Second chapter of the second part describes territorial scope of EU law by defining in which territories specific EU legal act can by applied, in which territories Union law has full scope and in which limited scope, whereas it's needed to take into account provisions of specific...

Abuse of European Union law Abstract The aim of this dissertation is to analyze the principle of the prohibition of abuse of EU law and its applicability in various areas of EU law. The dissertation focuses mainly on the analysis of the case law of the Court of Justice, which plays a crucial role in defining the principle and the scope of its application. The following research questions are set out in the dissertation: 1) What practice constitutes the abuse of law under EU law?; 2) Does the Court of Justice apply only one single principle of the prohibition of abuse of EU law or does it apply various principles to different areas covered by EU law?; 3) If there is only one principle of the prohibition of abuse of EU law, how is this principle applied in various areas of EU law? Is the principle applied always in the same manner or are there areas of EU law that are subject to a more restrictive application of this principle? 4) What are the legal means that can prevent the abusive practices of economic operators or more precisely what are the legal means that can reduce the abuse of law? In order to answer these research questions the dissertation is divided into five parts. The first part defines the notion of abuse of law and the purpose of the principle of the prohibition of abuse of law, which finds...

This thesis contains analysis of selected provisions of the European and Czech legislation on value added tax, with attention to a specific role of invoices in VAT mechanism. The purpose of this thesis is an evaluation of the quality of transposition and implementation of the European law to the Czech legislation and analysis of selected rules and their effect on economic practice. The outcome of this thesis is a proposal of specific amendments to analyzed provisions of both European and Czech VAT law in order to secure businesses' burdens reduction and effective tax collection.

This thesis examines whether and how the EU counter-terrorism (CT) policy reconciles the demands of security with adequate protection of human rights. It starts from the assumption that human rights and security are mutually reinforcing and interdependent objectives in the CT fight where the erosion of one objective leads automatically to negative consequences in respect of the other objective. It specifically argues that the reconciliation of these two objectives has to be addressed at two distinct levels: first, in the framework of the EU primary law and, second, in the content of each EU CT provision. Consequently, the thesis examines both levels in order to respond to the research question. In the course of this investigation, the research has demonstrated that the legal framework resulting from the Treaty of Lisbon provides a basis for better addressing the human rights protection and security objectives of the EU CT policy. However, the analysis of three specific instruments – two in force and one at the level of a legislative proposal – provided contrasting results regarding the simultaneous fulfilment of the two imperatives outlined above. Moving beyond questions pertaining to the advancement of preventive criminal law and the possible reinforcement of a surveillance society, the thesis advances the hypothesis that, in the field, we are confronted more and more with what we could term ‘grey laws’ – following Dyzenhaus, Lynch and Reilly – due to their frailties as regards the tests of proportionality and legal certainty. Moreover, the thesis explores the EU’s stance as an actor in the field and the applicability of Wallace’s ‘pendulum model’ for CT decision-making, as well as the position of an individual subject to all the three measures indicated above. Solutions in order to overcome the identified shortcomings as well as further potential areas of research are also explored.

Over the last four decades emissions trading has enjoyed a high profile in environmental law scholarship and in environmental law and policy. Much of this regulatory discussion is promotional, preferring emissions trading above other regulatory strategies without, however, engaging with legal complexities embedded in conceptualising, scrutinising and managing emissions trading schemes. The combined effect of these debates is to create a perception that emissions trading is a straightforward regulatory strategy, imposable across various jurisdictions and environmental settings. This thesis shows that this view of emissions trading is problematic for at least two reasons. First, emissions trading responds to distinct environmental and non-environmental goals, including creating profit-centres, establishing a governance regime aimed at substituting state control of common resources, and ensuring regulatory compliance. This is important, as the particular purpose entrusted to a given emissions trading regime has, as its corollary, a particular governance structure, according to which the regime may be constructed and managed. Second, the governance structures of emissions trading regimes are culture- specific, which is a significant reminder of the importance of law in understanding not only how emissions trading schemes function but also what meaning is given to them as regulatory strategies. This is shown by deconstructing emissions trading discourses: that is, by inquiring into the assumptions about emissions trading that feature in the literature and in debates involving law- and policymakers and the judiciary at the EU level. Ultimately, this thesis makes a strong argument for reconfiguring the common understanding of emissions trading schemes as regulatory strategies, and sets out a framework for analysis to sustain that reconfiguration.

The dynamic interpretation of EU citizenship as a 'fundamental status of all Member State nationals' has opened the door for more horizontal conceptions of equality in European Union law. At the same time, the meaning and purpose of equal treatment in the case of economically inactive and dependent EU citizens has remained ambiguous. The objective of this study is to clarify what normative justifications, other than to eradicate the obstacles to the internal market, can be offered for more just and equal relationships between EU citizens within the existing constitutional order of the EU. What defines EU citizenship as an equal status is how those individuals who hold this status are treated in relation to one another. The thesis discusses in detail how the rationale for discrimination analysis under Article 18 TFEU has changed in parallel with the evolution of EU citizenship. The question of how unlawful discrimination differs from legitimate differential treatment under the so-called 'real link' case law leads to a more theoretical question of what philosophical justifications underlie the EU principle of equality. The democratic theory of equality is used to support the argument that the current bias in favour of 'activity' at the expense of ‘status’ in EU equality law is rooted in a narrow and individualistic view of agency. The thesis, then, argues that recognizing the inherent connection between EU citizens' agency and their subjectivity can provide a justification for a more relational conception of equality even in the absence of a full democratic pedigree in EU law. This analysis contributes a perspective which is usually not there by examining how EU citizenship can benefit from the psycho-dynamic theories of subjectivity that underlie the feminist critique of 'citizenship as agency'.

Non-contractual liability of the EU Abstract The aim of this thesis is to systemize the history of EU non-contractual liability; to analyse in detail the current concept of non-contractual liability of the EU, including procedural and substantive law aspects; to present a brief comparative analysis of selected national legal systems and their role in the regarding the general principles common to the laws of the Member States (and vice versa to reflect on the influence of EU non-contractual liability and its' possible role in the europeanization of administrative law); to contextualise non-contractual liability of the EU (with regard to constitutional, international and national aspects) and to consider compensation for damages caused by the EU as a tool for (un)effective judicial protection of individuals. Research methods are content analysis and comparison. This thesis is divided into seven chapters. The first chapter is introductory and defines the subject of research, the methods used and terminology. The second chapter deals with an analysis of the current state of professional debate on non-contractual liability of the EU. The main part of the thesis focuses on the identification of problems connected to non-contractual liability of the EU and contextualization of those problems. In that regard...

The submitted dissertation thesis analyses the principle of primacy of EU law from the basic point of view of legal theory. It points out different approaches to the primacy principle and examines the arguments on which these approaches are based. The fist part of the thesis deals with the examination of the primacy principle related to its legal basis, using the sources most frequently listed in the literature: the founding treaties, the case law of the Court of Justice, legal theory (Kelsen's basic norm, Hart's rule of recognition and the legal sociology approaches), and international and national law. I have focused on the historical documents (Treaty Establishing the European Coal and Steel Community, Treaty Establishing the European Economic Community), the concepts based on them (doctrine of the conferred powers and the principle of subsidiarity), and the non-ratified Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe and legally non-binding Declaration No. 17 attached to the Lisbon Treaty. I have applied a critical approach to the argumentation of the Court of Justice in the decisions establishing the principle of primacy: Van Gend en Loos, Costa, Internationale Handelsgesellschaft, Simmenthal. Taking into account the existing objections against the arguments used by the Court of Justice, I have...