The thesis challenges the established "myth of easy legitimacy" and argues for more cautious attitude toward involuntary social arrangements by shifting the burden of proof in favour of the rigorous individual rights. Any State action shall be held for impermissible unless it is shown to be unavoidable - beyond reasonable doubts. With the assumption of existence of individual rights as a starting point, the thesis inquires into the attempts to derive State's legitimacy from individual rights. Finding this task virtually impossible, it comes to the conclusion that the only way how to legitimize the State is to compromise the individual rights somehow. Yet, to maintain some meaning of the rights, this compromise need to be restricted in scope, so the thesis analyses further the meaningfulness of "necessary and proper" provisos and the notion of "ideology" as a factor driving collective action and as the ultimate check of the State's power.

Údery NATO, hned po jejich zahájení, vyvolaly velké debaty na celém světě: dilema spočívala v tom, že snaha zastavit ?etnické čistky? kosovských Albánců ze strany Bělehradu měla tak nejistý právní základ: zásah NATO v Kosovu totiž neměl mandát Rady bezpečnosti OSN. Zákaz použití síly je jus cogens v mezinárodním právu a výjimky které vyjmenovává Charta OSN zásah neospravedlňují. Přesto, mezinárodní společnost považuje zásah legitimním. Ve své práce bych se chtěla zaměřit právě na otázku legality kosovského zásahu NATO, částečně i legitimity, nebo nakolik se dá vykompenzovat ?neúplnou? nebo ?nedostatečnou? legalitu právní legitimitou.

The thesis is focused on examination of issues of legitimacy of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The problem is perceived in the context of the growing importance of the judiciary both at national and international levels. Judges are increasingly forced by circumstances to shape law. Their role in the system of bodies of states and international organisations is thus changed. The courts of the highest instance in particular become political actors. Traditional (functional) conception of their legitimacy, based on the requirements of professional credit, independence and impartiality, is then shown to be insufficient and must be supplemented by democratic legitimacy and proven existence of the legitimizing chain. Due to growing influence of international courts of justice this problem is projected to the international level. In the case of the Court of Justice of the European Union the whole problem is even more intense for its supranational character and influence, which it acquires consequently. It should therefore be at the forefront of efforts to improve the legitimacy of the international judiciary. The current situation however does not really corresond to it. Improvements in the appointment of Judges and Advocates-General were therefore proposed. Larger involvement of the European...

The thesis is aimed at normative and instrumental aspects of compliance with the law and cooperation with the criminal justice system in the Czech society, namely trust in the police and criminal courts and their perceived legitimacy, personal morality and perceived risk of sanctions. Its purpose was to empirically verify the revised Tyler's procedural justice model of compliance as suggested by Jackson et al. (2011) within the Czech context. A review of literature on the topic implied potential constraints to validity of the model in the Czech society, mainly in respect to low levels of trust and legitimacy of the police and courts. Nevertheless, the empirical analysis based on structural equation modelling with use of two representative datasets (ESS Round 5 2010, Bezpečnostní rizika 1999) indicates trust in police procedural fairness to be - in contrast to fear of sanctions - a strong factor in predicting compliance. The obligation to obey the law shaped mainly by trust in procedural fairness and personal morality appear to be comparatively the most important predictors of compliance in the Czech Republic. The model was not significant in case of courts nor for the 1999 dataset, probably due to poor internal consistency of some constructs. Keywords confidence, legitimacy, criminal justice, compliance

Práce se zabývá analýzou vojenského zásahu spojeneckých sil v Iráku v roce 2003 z hlediska legality dle mezinárodního práva veřejného a ze hlediska legitimity. Zároveň porovnává tento zásah s válkou v Perském zálivu v roce 1991 a zabývá se i vlivem amerického neokonzervatismu na zahájení vojenských operací.

Ethics in the international relations is usually based on the assumption that states represents an ethically relevant subject. The thesis challenges the assuption, that existing states could be legitimized on the general principles of universal ethics in any other way than as a "realm of necessity" and inquires the conseqeuncesof the lack of domestic legitimity on the ethical assertion of the state's conduct abroad.

The concept transitional justice refers to a wide range of measures which are applied in times of political and societal transformation. Its starting point is a state of widespread and grave violations of human rights which is typical for undemocratic rules, for times of conflicts including both national and international, but it also existed within some of traditionally democratic countries such as Canada or New Zealand in a form of systematic discrimination against the indigenous population. The target of transitional justice measures is to establish democratic system which protects human rights and fundamental freedoms as a reliable guarantee of sustainable peace. Transitional justice is sometimes considered to fall within measures strengthening the rule of law however some steps such as vetting may temporarily deform the rule of law and equality of citizens before the law which is its integral part. International law regulates transitional justice measures by means of international humanitarian law, international human rights law and international criminal law. International criminal law, or more generally measures of criminal law nature, has been in modern history the primary response to breaches of human rights. Later, other measures were added including those of judicial and non - judicial...

Conflicts of Legitimacies within the European Union - abstract In the beginning of first part, the thesis focuses on the very concept of legitimacy. The point of reference is rather a sociological conception of legitimacy. Then, the critical overview of theoretical contributions to the topic of EU's legitimacy deficit is provided. On this analytical background it is held that the democratic legitimacy is indispensable for the Union and that there is a necessity of its creating even on union-wide (transnational) level. Subsequently, in the second part dealing with particular modalities of legitimacy within the EU, the thesis makes use of the conteporary democratic theory focusing on the concept and functioning of democratic representation. The framework for the second part is a spatio-mechanical metaphor of four modalities ("vectors") of legitimacy (legitimation) formulated previously in the literature. It consists of indirect legitimacy, parliamentary legitimacy, technocratic legitimacy and procedural legitimacy. Changes in their balance after the Lisbon Treaty are discussed. The chapter on indirect legitimacy focuses on theoretical questions and then looks into the institutional and legislative development. It also provides an analysis of the relevant case-law of the Federal Constitutional Court of the...

Dissertation thesis "Relationship between National Parliaments and the European Union" examines the impacts of the European integration on the national parliaments - the limitation of their functions and powers, measures undertaken to compensate these limitation in both the EU and the national law and the new roles of national parliaments in the context of European integration. The point of departure of the thesis is the notion of representative democracy as a still unsurpassed concept of a legitimate exercise of public authority. National parliaments mainly fulfil the controlling and legitimising function in the EU affairs. To this end, they have various legal instruments at their disposal. The fulfilment of these functions is limited by political and legal factors stemming from the nature of parliaments as political, not professional bodies and from their role in the national constitutional systems. Special attention is paid to the role of national parliaments in the evolving economic and monetary union. The general findings are confronted with the legal regulation and practice in the Parliament of the Czech Republic.

The work is devoted to the topic of credibility in social work. For understanding of the whole context, it is necessary to start with the key concepts because the phenomenon of confidence is processed there. The thesis notices the conditions and rules of the origin and following development of the relationship based on trust. Then the related psychological needs and values of human are the main concern. The accent of confidence is highlighted in the context of its relationship to social institutions and structures of social capital. The thesis subsequently deals with the role of intimacy, the development of identity and individuation. At the same time the theme of family in the context of work is developed too. The topic of trust in relation to social work, the skills and qualifications of social workers are solved separately. It equally shows the theme of trust in connection with the main ethical approaches to sensitive ethical issues. The basic overview of problematic trends in social work, i.e. assistant syndrome and burnout is also offered. Biographical narration of social workers not only the topic of trust but also other topics are continuously assessed in separate chapters. The main aim of this thesis is understanding of the general and specific factors influencing the formation of trust.