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Tyrimo objektas ir problemos aktualumas Tyrimo objektas. Disertacijoje teisiniu požiūriu tiriamas vienas tarpšakinių teisės institutų – priesaika. Disertacijos tyrimas apima paprotinės ir pozityviosios teisės raidos etapuose susiformavusius teisinius santykius, atsirasdavusius ir tebeatsirandančius priesaikos instituto taikymo ir jo funkcijų įgyvendinimo srityse. Šiame darbe nagrinėjami istoriniai, lituanistiniai šaltiniai; nacionalinių, tarptautinių ir kitų valstybių teisės aktų normos, reglamentuojančios priesaikos institutą, taip pat šią temą nagrinėjanti Lietuvos teisės doktrina. Priesaikos teisinio instituto ir jo socialinio vaidmens tyrimas bendrąja prasme – tai vieno iš seniausių ir gilias tradicijas Lietuvoje turinčio teisinio instituto tyrimas. Priesaikos sampratos (sąvokos) pažinimas yra organiška teisės doktrinos, kaip vienalyčio darinio, dalis, tačiau šio instituto prasmė ir reikšmė teisės normose ir teorijoje (moksle) nėra plačiau tyrinėta. Šiuo tyrimu bandoma atskleisti socialinę teisinę priesaikos esmę, jos evoliuciją ir virsmą į tikrai talpų (vertybių ir atliekamų funkcijų požiūriu) teisinį reguliatorių, kuris laikytinas Lietuvos Respublikos Konstitucijoje įtvirtintų pamatinių vertybių koncentracija, o kartu ir jų veiksnumą užtikrinančiu įrankiu. Perfrazuojant prof. A. Vaišvilą, „aiškinant teisę (šiuo atveju – priesaiką, kaip koncentruotą teisės išraišką [išskirta disertanto] <...>, neužtenka pasakyti, kad teisė (priesaika) yra elgesio taisyklė (tai tik... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The subject matter of the research and its relevance The subject matter. In the present paper one of the inter-branch law institutes namely – the oath is being under discussion. The treatment of the problem embraces the development of law from time honored stages up to the present state. Within the period the law terms has changed considerately and the process is still in progress, especially in the sphere of the implementation of its functions. In the given paper the objects of research are the historical and native Lithuanian sources; i.e. the norms of national, international legal acts and the acts of other states in which the oath institution is called upon, as well as the Lithuanian law doctrine dealing with this problem. The general approach to the research of the juridical Oath Institution and its social significance has a long standing tradition in Lithuania. The cognition of the concept of the oath is an organic element of the law doctrine, as an integral formation, however has never yet received a deeper research either in legal norms or in theory. The given paper is an attempt to reveal the juridical and social essence of the oath, its evolution and transformation into a really meaningful juridical regulation of values and its fitting functions. It ought to be a concentration of the fundamental values stated in the Constitution and at the same time – an instrument of the assurance of their implementation. Rephrasing prof. A. Vaišvila „when explaining law (in this... [to full text]

Business decisions have a massive impact on the world — in fact we could clearly see it and feel it how devastating was the global economic crisis in 2008. Until now the global economy has been trying to recover. There is no doubt that when the forces in control of the economy fail to act responsibly, everyone suffers. If we obsess over the short term, we’ll never be sustainable in the long term. When we find a way to create value while also acting in the best interests of society and the planet, everyone benefits. Though these forces may sometimes seem to be out of our control, the reality is that we all have a part to play. The way we choose to behave as a professional and as a member of the business community has an incredibly important impact. Non-profit student-led organization Oath Club is a response to the lack of awareness and education for future business leaders in business schools. By promoting ethical behaviors Oath Club aims to develop new quality of self-integrity within management students. By understanding the Oath our members will represent a personal commitment to lead with purpose, act with integrity, and understand the reach, power, and responsibility of business. With this believe and commitment Oath Club members will be spreading the idea and leading by example to creating sustainable values for their organizations and communities they function in.

Le serment constitue un instrument privilégié pour étalonner la prégnance du domaine religieux alliée à l'instabilité du contexte politique qui caractérise la période Moderne (XVIe-XVIIIe). Il apparaît ainsi que les époques particulièrement troublées que représentent les guerres de religion puis la Révolution française connaissent un emploi permanent du serment destiné prioritairement à renforcer la solidité des liens et des accords. L'utilisation de l'institution connaît une évolution sans précédent dès les guerres de religion, mettant ainsi en lumière la nécessité d'exprimer une adhésion idéologique au côté de la traditionnelle garantie de fidélité. Durant cette période douloureuse et tout particulièrement son épilogue, le serment dessine une unité nationale désormais articulée prioritairement autour du lien politique, la dimension religieuse, bien que demeurant fondamentale, passant alors au second plan. La Révolution quant à elle, constitue l'âge d'or du serment d'adhésion, qui permet à « l'homme nouveau » d'apporter la sacralité indispensable à la régénération à une société qu'il veut déchristianisée. Au cours de cette période, le serment joue un rôle d'exclusion tout en servant de fondement à la répression révolutionnaire. Surtout, l'institution recèle des effets destructeurs, même lorsqu'elle est censée constituer l'outil créateur de la nouvelle Cité. Le recours au serment durant les périodes considérées met donc en lumière une construction de l'Etat Moderne par une sacralisation de la politique. Toutefois, l'essence même de l'institution résidant dans ses racines religieuses, un serment laïc ou servant de fondement à une société strictement laïque ne saurait exister sous peine de devenir vide de sens ou de se muer en une simple promesse. / The oath represents a key instrument for calibrating the prominence of the religious sphere combined with the political situation that characterizes the early modern period (16th-18th century). Thus, it appears that particularly troubled times -religious wars, then the French revolution- present a regular use of the oath, primarily intended to reinforce the solidity of bonds and agreements. The use of the institution experiences an unprecedented evolution as early as the religious wars, thus highlighting the need to express ideological allegiance along with the traditional guarantee of loyalty. During that painful period and especially at its conclusion, the oath conveys a national unity now primarily revolving around the political bond; the religious dimension, although still fundamental receding into the background. The Revolution is a golden age for the oath of allegiance, which enables “the new man” to provide the indispensable sanctity for the regeneration of the society he wishes to be dechristianized. During the period, the oath plays the role of exclusion while laying a foundation for the revolutionary repression. Above all, the institution conceals destructive effects, even when it is supposed to be the building tool of the new City. Resorting to the oath during the periods currently presented emphasizes the building of the Modern State through a sacralization of politics. However, as the very essence of the institution lies in its religious roots, an oath, either secular or laying the foundation of a strictly secular society may not exist without risking becoming meaningless or turned into a mere promise.

The existence of the oath in the courtroom can be traced back thousands of years throughout history, but the use, meaning, and effect of the oath in law has changed dramatically. The oath as we know it was once a powerful truth-telling instrument that our ancestors used to call upon a higher power. It was the belief of many that the oath itself was not sworn to man or state, but rather directly to a deity. The oath has since then evolved as a result of ever changing beliefs, fueled by increasing tolerance, shaping the oath into more of a tradition, and less of an edict. For centuries, theorists have attempted to determine whether an oath in court is actually effective at accomplishing its goal. The intent of this thesis is to examine the origin of the oath all the way up to the present day. It will be through a comprehensive study of federal law, state law, case law, articles, and publications that we will better understand the oath as a truth-telling instrument that in recent times has lost its effect. From there, it will be possible to better form a solution to a problem that plagues our courtrooms: perjury, or the act of lying under oath. This thesis will seek to establish the best way for our community to actively work towards ensuring the integrity and effectiveness of our judicial system.

Children are often involved in the legal system as victims of maltreatment, and their disclosure of adult wrongdoing is necessary to initiate effective legal responses and protect them from continued abuse. However, external pressures and children's perceptions of the consequences of truth-telling (e.g., punishment, removal from the home) may result in the delay of disclosure or failure to disclose altogether. Research examining techniques for promoting children's truth-telling has almost exclusively relied on explicit requests to tell the truth (e.g., a promise, reassurance, assessments of conceptual knowledge and moral discussions), and the success of these techniques has varied. The present study examined the benefit of priming honesty (i.e., indirectly or non-consciously activating the goal of honesty) on children's disclosure of an adult's transgression. One-hundred fifteen 6- to 9-year-olds (M age = 7.47 years) participated in a first aid/safety event during which an adult (mother or stranger) engaged the child in play with a box of forbidden puppets, broke a puppet that was designed to break, and requested that the child keep it a secret. Before responding to questions about the puppets, children were either (1) primed for the goal of honesty (prime condition), (2) asked to promise to tell the truth (oath condition), or (3) not provided with any further instructions or information (control condition). Then, children were asked open-ended, direct, and suggestive questions about whether they or the adult touched, played with, or broke any puppets. Regression analyses revealed that children’s truthful disclosures to direct questions increased when children witnessed a stranger transgressing rather than their mother. However, children’s truthful disclosures across the question types did not differ by age or when a prime relative to a promise to tell the truth was used. Results advance our understanding of how children disclose negative events and the effectiveness of different techniques (including a novel technique) in encouraging children’s true disclosures of a parent or stranger’s transgression.

The overall objective of the research presented in this dissertation is to establish ways in which the Red Scare and Cold War eras impacted social studies education in Georgia from the 1930s through the 1960s. My position is that the decision by the Communist Party’s international leadership to support African Americans in the southern United States through legal defense and the organization of sharecroppers’ unions impacted white segregationists’ interpretation of subversive activity as being inclusive of racially liberal ideas. Social studies education in Georgia was affected by the policies and curriculum decisions made in the context of Red Scare and Cold War influences. An analysis of the historiography of communism in the United States reflects the changing tenor of uncertainty and fear that gripped Americans when it came to radical ideas contrary to the democratic capitalist tradition. Historians tend to agree that the Party’s efforts in the African American community had minimal impact. However, the calibration used by scholars to measure “impact” should be adjusted to look beyond changes in Communist membership numbers and whether the lives of blacks in the South improved. My focus in this study is the peripheral impact the efforts of the Communist Party had on southern white segregationists who began to equate racially liberal actions with subversive activity. Chapters in this dissertation focus on the formation of the Communist Party’s Black Belt Self-Determination Thesis and how it was carried out in the American South, national efforts to combat communist infiltration through loyalty oaths and textbook reviews, and the evolution of civic and democratic education initiatives in social studies. Georgia’s scandalous episode of the early 1940s involving Eugene Talmadge’s manipulation of the state’s educational system is presented as an example of how the concepts of subversion and racial liberalism were equated in an effort to maintain segregation in the state. These chapters provide evidence of the Red Scare and Cold War eras’ impact on social studies education in Georgia from the 1930s through the 1960s.

Le recours fréquent aux serments pendant la décennie révolutionnaire a déjà attiré l’attention de nombre d’historiens. Le serment civique a été surtout considéré en tant qu’acte significatif autour duquel semble s’être joué la légitimité révolutionnaire. Effectivement, du serment du roi et des députés de février 1790, à celui des prêtres adhérents à la Constitution civile du clergé, ou encore à celui que la troupe doit prêter après la fuite du roi, des formules constitutionnelles de 1791 et 1792 à celles de haine à la royauté de l’âge du Directoire, jusqu’aux variations apportées par Napoléon, le serment est un élément fondamental de la grammaire politique révolutionnaire. Mon projet de recherche se propose de considérer le serment dans une perspective plus vaste, en comparant la situation française aux expériences des Républiques Sœurs, en élargissant mon propos jusqu’à l’âge de la Restauration pour révéler l’importance du serment dans la culture politique contemporaine. / This thesis aims to study the characteristics of political trust and loyalty during the eighteenth century and the French Revolution. These characteristics are essential to understand the revolutionary culture, as they involve one of the most divisive issues of that time : civic oath. My thesis is aimed to clarify how the experience of oaths shaped the relationship between citizens and power during the revolutionary decade (1789-1799) in France and in Italy, and how this relationship is empowered by narratives taken from religion, the culture of honor, and ideology. From a wider, transnational viewpoint, my primary goal was to provide a deeper look into this key topic of the historiography of French Revolution.

Comment croire ou mettre en doute les propos des individus qui montent à la tribune lors d’un procès de l’Athènes classique ? Les orateurs qui prennent la parole lors d’une affaire mobilisent tout un éventail de preuves pour construire leur discours comme crédible aux yeux des juges. Ces procédures constituent le dispositif de vérité, au milieu duquel les témoins se situent en bonne place dans les discours judiciaires, c’est-à-dire les textes des dix auteurs sélectionnés comme le canon des orateurs attiques des Ve et IVe siècles avant Jésus-Christ (Antiphon, Andocide, Lysias, Isocrate, Isée, Démosthène, Eschine, Hypéride, Lycurgue et Dinarque). Si aucune théorie de la preuve ne se fait jour dans ces corpus, la figure du témoin judiciaire apparaît comme centrale, comme l’illustrent les très nombreuses convocations testimoniales. Le rapport entre témoignage et documents écrits montre également la valeur probante des dépositions. Qu’est-ce qui, alors, permet aux paroles d’un témoin d’être présentées comme véridiques ? Les déposants peuvent être crus car ils engagent leur responsabilité, du fait d’une possible punition divine, s’ils prêtent serment, ou humaine, si l’adversaire lance un procès pour faux témoignage. En outre, les témoins doivent avoir une connaissance directe des événements en question. Mais cette exigence est paradoxale : ils sont le premier intermédiaire entre l’auditoire et les faits. Les plaignants rappellent donc fréquemment aux juges des points déjà connus, afin d’en faire leur propres témoins. Ils cherchent aussi à effacer leur propre rôle dans l’argumentation, en désignant leurs propos comme simples et en minimisant leur expérience oratoire. / How did the Athenians trust or doubt the words of someone who came up to the tribune during a trial? The speakers used a whole range of evidence to make their speech credible for the judges. All these techniques and the witnesses were a very important part of this process can be qualify as the truth apparatus in the orators’ speeches, i.e. the texts from the ten authors chosen as the canon of the Attic orators of the 5th and 4th centuries B.C.: Antiphon, Andocides, Lysias, Isocrates, Isaeus, Demosthenes, Aeschines, Hyperides, Lycurgus, and Dinarchus. Even if no proof theory has been found out, the witnesses were crucial in the courtroom, as we can see from the many times a litigant called a witness to testify. The relation between testimony and written documents also shows the convincing value of the witness statement. Therefore, to what extent could a testimony be considered as truthful? The witnesses were usually trusted because their responsibility was at stake: they could incur a divine punishment, if they swore an oath, or a humane penalty, if they were put on trial for false witnessing. Besides, the witnesses must have a direct knowledge of the events. Yet, there was a paradox in this requirement: they were the first part of the demarcation between the facts and the public of the trial. Thus, the litigants often reminded the judges about some elements already known in order to make them witnesses. Litigants also tried to erase their own role in the demonstration, by presenting their words as simple and by minimising their oratory skills.

This diploma thesis deals with bioethical and medical issues of assisted suicide. Compatibility of assisted suicide and medical ethos is one of the most urgent ethical questions of modern medicine. The centre of the diploma thesis will consist of an ethical reflection of tension between assisted suicide by a doctor on one side and medical ethos, as contained, for example in the Hippocratic Oath, the code of the World Medical Association and other important medical documents, on the other side. In the introduction the diploma thesis describes the distinction between assisted suicide and other forms of active euthanasia, basic information about the legal regulations and essential elements of assisted suicide in individual countries where assisted suicide is legalized. Then, the subject will be systematically reflected based on critical analysis of the medical codes and legal regulations of the countries. Ethical reflection will also be based on the experience and reflection of doctors themselves, as recorded in professional ethical publications from countries where assisted suicide is practiced. The aim of this diploma thesis is to describe and reflect on the ethical perspective the tension that occurs in the medical assistance to assisted suicide and systematize ethically relevant issues that are...