The thesis is focused on the legal regulation of protection of personality rights. This topic is up to date not only because of the media exposure, but also with regard to the recodification of private law. The focus of this thesis lies on Act no. 89/2012 Coll., Civil Code, which is compared to the antecedent legal regulation. The personality protection belongs to fundamental human rights therefore the thesis includes the constitutional overlap and interpretation of international agreements. The work is divided into six chapters. The first chapter deals with the development of personal rights from a historical perspective. There is also mentioned legislation of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. The second chapter deals with the interpretation of the concept of personality, the theoretical concept of general personality right and possibilities of its limitations. Part of this chapter shows a non-exhaustive list of values protected by the general personality right, namely the right to physical and mental integrity, the right to personal liberty, the right to a name, the right to likeness, the right to honor and dignity and right to privacy. The third chapter provides an overview of legal regulation of personality rights at the international and constitutional level, the general Civil Code...

Doctor Legum - LLD / This thesis concerns the tension that exists between the principles of certainty and freedom of contract (which includes the notion of contractual discretionary powers) and how this tension impacts on the requirement that agreement must be reached on the price and rental in contracts of sale and lease, respectively. The matter at issue is whether South African law should recognise the validity of contracts of sale at a reasonable price and lease and rental respectively, and/or at a unilaterally determined price or rental as suggested in an obiter dictum of the Supreme Court of Appeal in NBS Boland Bank v One Berg River Drive and Others; Deeb and Another v ABSA Bank Ltd; Friedman v Standard Bank of South Africa Ltd 1999 (4) SA 928 (SCA) and in an obiter dictum of the then Appellate Division in Genac Properties JHB (Pty) Ltd v NBC Administrators CC 1992 (1) SA 566 (AD). Currently, the law requires that the price (in the case of sale) or the rental (in the case of lease) must be certain, in the sense that it is either ascertained or objectively ascertainable. The price is ascertainable if there is agreement between the contractants on an external standard in light of which the price may be ascertained objectively without further reference to the contractants: Westinghouse Brake & Equipment (Pty) Ltd v Bilger Engineering (Pty) Ltd 1986 (2) SA 555 (A). The obiter dicta in the One Berg River and Genac cases suggest that an agreement to a reasonable price or rental or to unilaterally determined price or rental meets this requirement. The basis for both obiter dicta can be found in the principles of freedom and sanctity of contract that form the cornerstones of the South African law of contract. The conceptual framework of public policy forms the outer limits of both freedom and sanctity of contract. The thesis considers whether a development in South African law that recognises the validity of a contract of sale or lease at a price or rental determined unilaterally by a contractant or at a reasonable price or rental, respectively, is contrary to public policy as informed by the values embodied in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 1996 iv and whether it would promote consensus and certainty, which are foundational principles of South African law of contract. Consideration is also be given to the question whether such a development is defensible in law, and desirable as a matter of policy and practice.

Magister Legum - LLM / This mini-thesis is based on the presumption that the Danish cartoons and the anti-Muslim clip posted on YouTube as forms of expression, ridiculed the religious beliefs and practices of Muslims which in turn affected the exercise of religious freedom as it violated the dignity of the bearers of the right to freedom of religion and therefore a conflict between the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression exists. The above incidence of conflict between the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression involves infringing the freedom of religion of the Islamic community. Blasphemy in Islam is speech that is insulting to God, but during the course of Muslim history it has become increasingly linked with insult to the Prophet Muhammad. In Islam the depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in any way is strictly forbidden and is considered blasphemous.

This thesis aims to broaden the discussion about the origins of some of the fundamental theoretical sources for Hayek’s ideas regarding freedom and the state. It focuses on the debates between the Austrian School of Economics and the German Historical School of Economics, as well as the works of Popper, Mill, Humboldt and Hegel in order to identify their positive and negative influences on Hayek’s views of freedom and the state. The originality of the thesis relates to the examination of Humboldt’s political philosophy in terms of its influence over the formation of the components of Hayek’s account of freedom, such as spontaneous order, the rule of law, the role of the state, and the nature of human knowledge. These components have assisted in Hayek’s efforts to prove the superiority of open societies over totalitarian regimes. The thesis explains that Hayek’s intellectual collaboration with Popper played a significant role in identifying many enemies of open societies. Both theorists agreed that historicism was a method commonly used and promoted by the enemies of open society; specifically, they accused Hegel of promoting historicism and, as a result, of being an enemy of open societies. However, this thesis disputes these accusations and argues that Popper and Hayek did not possess adequate knowledge of Hegel’s theoretical work to make such claims. In actuality, Hegel was not an enemy of open societies, he recognized the potential devastating outcomes associated with them and sought solutions. The thesis also explores the idea that Mill was also worried about the detrimental features of industrial capitalism and, as a result, attributed a prominent role to “state activity” in securing the conditions of positive freedom. Hayek, meanwhile, viewed such forms of state interference as obstacles to attaining freedom. This thesis examines the topic whether or not Hayek actually sought to formulate a genuine form of freedom or if he merely valued freedom as a tool for the promotion of open societies over centrally planned economies.

L'éducation d'aujourd'hui en Chine est une oeuvre tant individuelle qu'étatique. Elle rattache strictement le développement de l'individu et l'avenir de l'État. Après une trentaine années du développement depuis la politique d'ouverture et de réforme en 1978, le système éducatif chinois est modernisé et complété. L'État, débiteur du droit à l'éducation, prend enfin en charge son devoir d'organiser l'enseignement public et de surveiller l'enseignement privé, ce dernier étant auparavant interdit dans l'histoire chinoise. L'enseigné chinois bénéficient alors le droit à l'éducation et la liberté d'enseignement. Pour autant, dans la notion de communauté éducative qui se construit, les enseignants-chercheurs apparaissent aussi indispensables pour réaliser les missions de l'éducation. Comment garantir leurs droits et libertés dans leurs vies professionnelles ? C'est une question aussi primordiale. L'indépendance de leur statut, par rapport à l'établissement d'enseignement et aux autres administrations est sans aucune doute une garantie importante. Les enseignants chinois, disposent-ils d'un tel statut ? Et, dans leurs activités d'enseignement et de recherche, jouissent-ils pleinement de la liberté d'expression ? Si ces droits et libertés de l'éducation ne sont pas encore protégés de manière parfaite, c'est parce que la Chine peine à construire un État de droit et une société démocratique. L'adoption d'une législation suffisante et cohérente est un atout considérable dans ce processus de développement. Quelles mesures doit-on prendre pour mettre un terme aux sources de désordre, et, trop souvent d'inégalité ? / Today's education in China is an individual as well as a State's undertaking. It combines the strictly individual development and the future of the State. After thirty years of development since the opening and reform policy in 1978, China's education system was modernized and expanded. The State, as a debtor of the right to education, finally takes charge of this duty to organize public education and supervise private education, previously banned in Chinese history. People taught in China got right to education and freedom of education. However, to achieve this notion of educational community, the teachers and/or researchers must be mainly associated in performing this broad function of education. How to ensure their rights and freedoms in their career? It is also a key issue. Undoubtedly, independence of their professional status with respect to the institution and to other jurisdictions is a fundamental guarantee. Do Chinese teachers have such a status? And, in their teaching and researching activities, have they a complete freedom of expression? If these rights and freedoms of education are not yet fully protected, China struggling to find common ground between rule of law and democratic society, adoption of an adequate and consistent legislation will be a major asset to identify a real development process. What measures need to be taken to put an end to educational disorders, and, too often, inequalities?

Companies running a business in the 21st century are facing heavily turbulent environment full of changes. Highest profiting companies are mainly those that can react to the changes faster and better than their competitors. However, basic work principles and methods of work organizing slowly stop suiting the needs of turbulent and change-demanding business environment. These principles simply aren't flexible enough. The right answer to higher flexibility demand could be freedom at work. This thesis examines the influence of freedom at work on selected economic indicators of companies operating in the field of information technology, especially their performance. The theoretical part describes freedom and responsibility, as well as concept of freedom at work and characterizes typical signs of classical and liberal companies. The empirical part defines a model that is capable of determining a level of freedom of any organization. This model is then applied to the sample of surveyed IT companies. After determining the level of freedom for each of the surveyed companies, companies are subsequently involved in the research examining the impact of freedom at work on performance, productivity and wage cost per employee of IT companies.

Cette thèse propose une lecture juridique, politique et sociale de l’application de la loi anti-blasphème de 1965 dans le plus grand pays musulman du monde, l’Indonésie. Plusieurs controverses sont apparues ces dernières années concernant la nature de la loi sur le blasphème dans la vie religieuse de la société démocratique indonésienne ; cette loi correspond-elle à la prévention des abus en matière de religion et/ou de blasphème, comme il est mentionné explicitement dans son titre, ou bien concernerait-elle plutôt la restriction de la liberté de religion et d’expression en matière religieuse ? En avril 2010, après le procès contrôlant la constitutionnalité de cette loi, une décision de la Cour constitutionnelle indonésienne a établi que la loi examinée ne correspondait pas à cette seconde lecture. Si cette loi a bien pour objectif de restreindre la liberté de religion ou d’expression en matière religieuse, selon la Cour, cela ne signifie pas que cette forme de restriction est inconstitutionnelle dès lors que la Constitution de 1945 en vigueur s’accompagne d’une restriction légale au respect ou à la sauvegarde des valeurs religieuses en particulier, à côté de la moralité, de la sécurité et de l’ordre public. Toutefois, les débats et les tensions au sein de la société concernant l’application de cette loi perdurent sans relâche. Les défenseurs des droits de l’homme maintiennent que l’existence d’une telle loi anti-blasphème est contraire à l’esprit de la démocratie. En revanche, les défenseurs de la censure religieuse s’obstinent à affirmer que cette loi est nécessaire pour éviter les conflits religieux. À travers une analyse de son contenu juridique et de sa mise en application, nous considérons que la loi anti-blasphème de 1965 a visé en premier lieu à entraver le déploiement des courants de croyance spirituelle locale ou des courants mystiques javanais qui, dans une certaine mesure, sont considérés par les musulmans en particulier comme une menace pour les religions existantes et pour la désintégration du pays. Dans un second temps, nous verrons que l’existence de ladite loi est davantage destinée à restreindre le nombre des religions reconnues par l’État d’une part, et à réprimer les courants religieux « dissidents » ou « hétérodoxes » d’autre part. Si les actes jugés comme blasphématoires, parmi lesquels figure la diffusion d’interprétation religieuse « déviantes » de l’orthodoxie, sont des infractions sanctionnées, ce n’est pas la loi anti-blasphème de 1965 qui sert de référence, mais l’article 156a du Code pénal qui trouve son origine dans ladite loi. Ainsi, la loi anti-blasphème de 1965 est plutôt utilisée pour restreindre la liberté de religion et de conviction au sens large, alors que l’article 156a du Code pénal est chargé de limiter la liberté d’expression en matière religieuse. En Indonésie comme ailleurs, le renforcement de l’application de la loi anti-blasphème va de pair avec l’émergence des groupes religieux radicaux qui veulent voir triompher leur conception totalitaire d’une liberté d’expression bridée par le respect de la foi religieuse. Ces derniers utilisent de cette loi non seulement à des fins religieuses, mais également à des fins politiques, notamment celle déstabiliser un régime « laïque » ou bien d’étendre leur influence. L’objectif de cette thèse est non seulement d’analyser la nature de la loi anti-blasphème de 1965, mais aussi de proposer une perspective alternative pour aborder les conflits juridiques en Indonésie concernant les deux droits fondamentaux, à savoir le droit à la liberté de religion et le droit d’expression. La thèse vise alors la prévention des conflits juridiques en la matière et ainsi qu’à trouver un équilibre entre les libertés concernées. / This thesis proposes a legal, political and social reading of the application of the blasphemy law in the largest Muslim country in the world, Indonesia. Several controversies have emerged in recent years regarding the nature of the blasphemy law in the religious life of the Indonesian democratic society. For instance, disagreement remains with regards to the intent of this law, i.e., whether it really aims at preventing misuse of religion and/or acts of blasphemy, as explicitly mentioned in its title, or whether it intends to restrict the freedom of religion and religious expression. In April 2010, after the examination of the constitutionality of this law, the Indonesian Constitutional Court ruled out the second possibility. The court further argues that even if the law has an unintended effect of restricting the freedom of religion or religious expression, it is not against the constitution since the 1945 Constitution is accompanied by a legal restriction to respect or preserve religious values in particular, as well as morality, security and public order. However, the debates and tensions within society regarding the implementation of this law continue unabated. On the one hand, human rights defenders persist in saying that the existing anti-blasphemy law is contrary to the spirit of democracy. On the other, defenders of religious censorship persist in resisting that this law is necessary to avoid religious conflicts. Through an analysis of legal content and its implementation, I argue that the blasphemy law of 1965 initially aims to hinder the development of the local spiritual belief stream or Javanese mystical groups, which to some extent are considered by Muslims in particular as a threat to existing religions and a source of disintegration of the country. Further, I maintain that the existence of the above-mentioned law has the tendency to restrict the number of religions officially acknowledged by the State and to repress “dissident” or “heterodox” religious movements. If acts considered blasphemous, including the "deviant" religious interpretation of orthodoxy, are punishable offenses, it is not the anti-blasphemy law of 1965 that serves as a reference, but the article 156a of the Penal Code, which has its origin in that blasphemy law does. As a consequence, the blasphemy law of the 1965 is rather used to restrict the freedom of religion and belief in the broad sense, while article 156a of the Penal Code is applied to limit the freedom of religious expression. In Indonesia, as elsewhere, the strengthening of the application of the blasphemy law goes hand in hand with the emergence of radical religious groups intend to promote their totalitarian concept of freedom of expression restrained by respect for the religious faith. The latter make use of this law not only for religious reasons, but also for political reasons, including destabilizing a secular regime or extending their influence. The thesis does not only aim to analyze the nature of the blasphemy law of 1965, but also to propose an alternative perspective in understanding and solving the problem of the legal conflicts in Indonesia pertaining to the two fundamental rights, namely the right to freedom of religion and expression. The thesis also seeks to find a balance between two freedoms and to propose preventive measures that can be adopted in the aforementioned legal conflicts.

"Every country has religious minorities. Any study of religious minorities and the protections afforded to them must also examine the significance of minorities per se. Minorities have no internationally accepted definition. Definitions are either broad and with little specificity or narrow and exclusive. Generally, two trends with regard to minority rights can be observed. On the one hand, in many countries, a comprehensive system of the legal protection of minorities has been introduced. Here the biggest problems stem from the difference between formal and informal rights. On the other hand, a number of countries have not legally committed themselves to the protection of minorities; ranging from inadequate safeguards to non-recognition of the minority. National minorities have received broad, although not well-differentiated, reporting in the international media and attention in international organisations and its impact on the discourse on religious rights have been minimal. However, minority religious rights have featured less significantly on the public agenda. The implications of the status of national minorities and religious groups are that many minorities believe that the majority group generally receive privileged status in state structures, while the minorities are viewed with suspicion. The issue of religious representation and safeguards arose within the Constitution of the Republic of Kenya ("Kenyan Constitution") where there is a recently concluded Constitutional Review Commission that had the Christian majority object to the "excessive protection" being granted to the Muslim minority. There was a huge debate as to the extent of inclusion of Sharia in the resultant draft constitution as well as the protection of fundamental principles of human rights and Islam. The question thus arises, should one apply Sharia or enshrine it in the constitution of a country, or will this involve overprotection that may lead to long-term exploitation of the law by the minority. The Arab Republic of Egypt ("Egypt") and the Republic of Kenya ("Kenya") have been chosen as case studies as they are interesting reflections of the development of states in Africa: Kenya with a Muslim minority maintaining a hold on the application of Islamic law where there is a Christian majority, while in Egypt the Copt and Shia Muslim populations are trying to assimilate into the state. Sharia is of imporance both to Kenya and Egypt. In Egypt the entire legal system is premised on the constitutional provision that Sharia is the principle source of law, thus some religious minorities in Egypt look for ways to maintain their identity and circumvent the application of Sharia provisions. Kenya, with a Muslim religious minority, is grappling with the concept of Sharia and how far it should apply to Muslims in a country. Thus these two countries have an inverse mirror image problem of each other as between the two major world religouns, Christianity and Islam. ... Chapter one sets out the content of the research, identifies the problem and applies the methodology. Chapter two discusses the international and regional law on religious minorities with a regional emphasis on African and the Arab region. Chapter three discusses the Islamic law on religious minorities, both Muslim minorities in non-Muslim states and non-Muslim minorities in Muslim states. Chapter four will focus on case studies comparing the protection accorded to the Muslims in Kenya with the Copts in Egypt, and analysing the extent to which Kenya and Egpyt have complied with international and regional law. Chapter five will set out recommendations and conclusions." -- Introduction. / Prepared under the supervision of Dr. Naz Modirzadeh at the Department of Political Sciences, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, The American University in Cairo, Egypt / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2004. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/dissertations.html / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

Over the last few years, the debate on what a secularized state is, and should be have been increasing in both spread and aggression. One of the many topics triggering this debate is the question if call to prayer should be allowed or not. The Islamic call to prayer is a phenomenon that awakes strong emotions and reactions in western society, and it has been well debated in media. The aim of this thesis is thus to investigate this debate and what ideological standpoints the arguments are based upon. sing the theories of Jürgen Habermas and José Casanova, on the theories of secularization, the debate on the permission of call to prayer in Växjö have been analysed. To give a fair representation of the debate, articles from four different, well established Swedish newspapers have been used.    It has been found that one of the most frequently used arguments against a permission is the fear that the allowance of one call to prayer a day will lead to more extreme, and eventually radical, Islamic elements in the Swedish society.  The study shows that the view of what a secularized state is, is diverse but can generally be divided into two categories, the view that proclaims positive or negative freedom of religion.  Among the arguments against the permission, most part are solely emotional, whereas the arguments supporting the permission often are more rational.     The conclusion is that main part of the arguments is based on liberal and democratic values but how they are interpreted varies. On the side supporting the permission, the arguments are based on equality, the importance of the freedom of speech and the belief that multicultural is enriching. On the opposite side, the arguments are based on the conservation of the Swedish heritage, the Christian faith and effective integration. Many arguments against a permission are problematic since they are constructed on an emotional basis. In a secular state, this type of questions should be handled rational, based on the law of freedom of religion.

The diploma thesis deals with media freedom in the Visegrád Group countries (Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary) from the perspective of professional journalists. It aims to map how journalists in these four countries perceive freedom in relation to their profession - how they understand the concept of freedom of expression, what threatens freedom of expression or freedom of the media according to them, how free they feel in their profession and what is the trend regarding media freedom in the coming years in their opinion. The theoretical part thoroughly captures the historical development of freedom of expression, its legal protection in constitutional documents and international conventions, the limits of freedom of expression as well as forms of its restriction. It also introduces the most important non-governmental non- profit organizations monitoring media freedom in the world and presents the media environment in each country. The theoretical part also pursues the perception and approach of professional journalists to freedom of expression, media freedom and other journalistic concepts and values. The analytical part then follows a journalistic professional discourse in the form of a qualitative analysis based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with active journalists from the Visegrád...