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The aim of the study is to compare the legal guarantees of ensuring human rights in criminal proceedings at the international and national levels and their actual compliance, as well as to identify of the main problems and solutions. The research employed doctrinal approach, comparative law, and statistical analysis. The study established that international and national regulatory acts form a solid framework for ensuring the observance of human rights in criminal proceedings. At the same time, statistics evidenced frequent cases of violations of such rights are observed. The results of the research gave grounds to make recommendations regarding the improvement of the state of ensuring human rights in criminal proceedings in Ukraine. These include the fight against corruption, strengthening the independence of the judiciary, improving the training of employees in the relevant field, using the practice of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), and finding alternatives to imprisonment. Further research should be focused on studying ways of using automated decision-making systems at certain stages of criminal proceedings and related risks.

Art. 39 of Law no. 254/20131 , bearing the title „Establishing the detention regime for custodial penalties” requires a wide debate, as it comprises regulations that are contradictory, to say the least, mainly within para. (14) to (19) of this legislation. These provisions pertaining to art. 39 are correlated within Law no. 254/2013 with art. 56, titled „The exercise of a convicted person’s rights” - para. (12), and with art. 104 - „Challenging a decision by the disciplinary board” - para. (12). The regulations falling under the scope of this study are essential for the observance of convicted persons’ rights, their right to free access to a court of justice (art. 21 of the Romanian Constitution), and to a fair trial, in proceedings related to challenges against the resolutions passed by the custodial supervisory judge in response to applications by inmates regarding the observance of their rights and against the decisions of the disciplinary board in matters relating to the customisation or the amendment of their custodial regime.

The demographic shifts in Kazakhstan impact legal proceedings, with a growing number of participants who lack proficiency in the language of court proceedings. This highlights the importance of employing court interpreters. The purpose of the article was to reveal the importance of this specialist in the process of considering a case and providing citizens with the right to justice. The following methods were used in the study: analysis, synthesis, comparison, legal doctrinal, comparative, abstraction. As a result, a number of problems were revealed regarding the implementation of professional activities by a court translator in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The study conducted a comparative analysis of court interpreters in Kazakhstan and foreign jurisdictions, highlighting commonalities and differences in their legal status, authority, and qualifications. In addition, as a result of the study, statistical indicators were presented describing the number of cases considered by the courts of the Republic of Kazakhstan with the participation of foreign citizens. The study yielded recommendations for establishing a centralized database of court interpreters in Kazakhstan and refining candidate requirements, especially concerning education levels. These insights can inform the development of training programs and certification processes for translators in the country.

The article describes the taxpayer's right to benefit from the assistance of a lawyer during the fiscal control procedures. The study will focus on the taxpayer's right to benefit of legal assistance, seen as a component of the right to defence. We aim to identify the sources of this right, both on a national level and by reference to European and international law, as well as the legal force of these instruments. In addition, the research wants to answer the question regarding the effectiveness of the exercise of this right in the stage prior to the trial phase, starting from the fiscal control phase, by referring to the set of provision and the existing practice in the matter. The purpose of this study is to promote the need for the existence of a more effective collaboration between the taxpayer and the fiscal authorities, in order to avoid further litigation, generating costs for both parties involved.

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This comparative study deals with the various forms of arrest in the Polish criminal law system. The authors used the dogmatic-legal and comparative methods, and applied the empirical method in several case studies. The background of the considerations is the proposal of a typology of procedural arrests, based on the Code of Criminal Procedure and non-procedural arrests, based on special laws. The main subject of consideration is the risk of instrumentalization of arrest, which can be considered at several levels: structural, concerning the abuse of the grounds for arrest, and peri-arrest activities (such as informing and questioning the detained person). Within these are three risks of instrumentalization: abuse of the law sensu stricto, sensu largo, and violation of law. Hindsight bias helps to understand the risk of the instrumental application of the law. If the law poses a severe risk of instrumentalization, it must be changed. The authors conclude that the Polish legislator ignores these risks until the law is misapplied. Instead, a proper diagnosis of risks should lead to legislative amendments. The authors propose that mandatory recordings of actions should be introduced. To further strengthen the right to defence, the authors propose changes to the sequence of actions (peri-arrest activities), especially regarding the hearing of the arrested person. Moreover, there is doubt about the standards for applying non-procedural arrests, where the general rules of the Code of Criminal Procedure should apply. Still, the diverse status of the bodies authorized to carry out such actions is a factor that increases the risk of instrumentalization.

The paper intends to analyze the issue of respecting the right to a fair trial in the situation where the effectiveness of the defence depends on documents containing classified information. There is a delicate issue regarding the vulnerability of guarantees of the right to a fair trial in order to ensure the right of defense, given that the parties' lawyers should have access to all the evidence in the file. Obtaining an ORNISS certificate is the solution offered by law, but to really get one can be problematic. Based on various situations occurred during the proceedings, the whole legal regime of classified information and its influence on the conduct of the trial, in the qualitative requirements of fairness imposed by the Constitution and the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, have been subject to the constitutional review exercised by the CCR. This article aims to summarize the case-law of the Constitutional Court, drawing the appropriate conclusions from it, in order to find the most efficient way to harmonize the need to protect the national security by classifying certain pieces of information with the right to access to public information and with the constitutional and conventional imperative of respect for the right to a fair trial.

The article deals with the right to defence in criminal proceedings in accordance with international law norms. It is proved that ensuring the right to defence is one of the basic principles of criminal justice and is a prerequisite for the achievement of a fair trial. Particular attention is paid to the right to self-defence (defence in person), the right to defence through choosing legal assistance, the right to assigned legal assistance. Attention is drawn to the fact that the right to defence in the international human rights courts and the international criminal courts is based on the same principles, respectively its understanding is the same in these international courts.

The article aims to present the model of proceedings in the case of a financial penalty being imposed for infringement of banking law in Poland and Germany and verify whether the parties' right to defence is ensured. The above issue is extremely topical, especially in light of the number and amount of financial penalties imposed by banking supervisory authorities. The article's thesis assumes that the legal regulations in force in Poland and Germany make the indicated guarantee a reality. The article highlights the role of financial market supervisory authorities, whose activities, including the imposition of financial penalties, translate into the safety of the banking sector. Detecting and then sanctioning banking law violations motivates financial market participants not to commit such violations. First, based on an analysis of judicial decisions and international law norms, the criteria that an exemplary model implementing the principle of the right to defence should meet were established. On the other hand, the following part of the article compares the legal framework in Poland and Germany and verifies whether the legal provisions provide the parties with the guarantees in question when imposing a financial penalty for violations of banking law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Law / Teise is the property of Vilnius University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The opportunity of admission of the right to defence as an independent object of criminal law protection is analysed in this article. Such opportunity has been considered with the reference to the procedural, constitutional, international law and European aspects of the value of this right. The system-structural, dialectical and comparative methods, as well as the axiological (value) approach were chosen as a methodology for the implementation of the research task. The potential models of criminalisation of violation of the right to defence have been identified as a result.

As of 27 November 2017 the deadline passed by which the European Union Directive 2013/48/EU on the right of access to a lawyer should have been implemented by the Member States in their respective legal systems. Poland completed the said responsibility only ostensibly, for no legal norms which regulate the standard of the right to formal defence contained in Polish Code of Criminal Procedure have been amended. This very situation makes it necessary to consider whether the norms of the directive in question may cause the so-called direct effect in Poland’s domestic legal system, particularly: whether prosecuted individuals may directly invoke the directive in order to, based on its content, seek the assistance of a lawyer in the course of criminal proceedings. Therefore, it stands to reason that, at least in relation to some of the competences envisioned in the directive, such eventuality exists, whereas in remainder of the cases the judicial bodies are obliged to interpret the respective norms of the Code of Criminal Procedure in pro-EU manner, thereby elevating the standard of right to formal defence present in Polish criminal proceedings. Nonetheless, the real transposition of this directive should be postulated, since invoking its direct effect cannot exempt a Member State from implementing it in accordance with EU treaties as a way to harmonize domestic legal systems.

2017 brought about a significant and long awaited change in the rules applicable to dawn raids in Poland. After many years of being criticized by scholars and practitioners, the practice of the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection – consisting of the subsequent review of electronic data copied during an inspection at the authority premises and without the presence of a representative of the inspected undertaking, has been finally overruled by the Court of Competition and Consumer Protection. Even thought there are still several improvements that need to be made in order to guarantee the full respect of fundamental rights of inspected undertakings in the Polish legal order, the Court ruling incontestably constitutes a significant step in strengthening the legal position of inspected undertakings in Poland.

Despite the existence of the provisions of the Procedures Directive 2013/32/EU, the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU on the right to be heard and well-established case law of the European Court of Human Rights concerning the requirements of a rigorous judicial scrutiny in asylum cases, the assessment of the credibility of the submissions of asylum seekers in procedures for the determination of international protection remains one of the main challenges of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), which aims to harmonise basic procedural requirements for the rule of law in terms of the effective protection of rights in the Member States of the European Union. The author's approach in dealing with the question of whether an asylum seeker has a right to be confronted with inconsistencies or implausibilities in his/her submissions, in order to be able to provide a satisfactory explanation for alleged inaccuracies in his/her submissions before a decision is taken, is a methodological one. In the paper, the author follows a particular interpretative pattern that could also be used in cases of other pertinent and open questions on the interpretation of EU law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The right to information of a person who is subject to criminal proceedings is circumscribed to the fundamental right to information provided by Article 31 of the Romanian Constitution, but it presents a number of particularities, specific to the criminal process, particularities that will be analyzed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fundamental principles of the criminal procedure are general rules applicable throughout the criminal procedure in order to achieve its purpose. The fundamental principles are covered by art. 2-12 C.C.P. and are: the legality of criminal procedure, separating the functions of the judiciary, the presumption of innocence, finding out the truth, ne bis in idem, a requirement for moving and exercising penal action, is fair and reasonable term of the criminal trial, the right to liberty and security, the right to defence, respect for human dignity and privacy, the official language and the right to an interpreter. The European Court of Human Rights is conscious that by protecting the fundamental principles it does not only aim at the protection of super eminence of the inextricably right tied to the state of law. These principles represent a set of obligations imposed on the State that has as the sole purpose the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms.

The current regulation on accessing classified information during criminal proceedings is clearly deficient. This fact creates major imbalances between the procedural rights and prerogatives of the various participants, which is reflected in their right to a fair trial. As such, it is necessary to recast the texts regulating the matter in order to extract the many vices of unconstitutionality, some of which being already found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject matter of criminal proceedings (the criminal subject matter) is determined by the indictment raised by the authorized prosecutor. This is a direct consequence of the application of the accusation principle, whose essence is embodied in the old Latin maxim: nemo iudex son actore. The subjective and objective identity of judgment and indictment must be correlated. The subjective identity means that the judgment may refer only to the person who has been identified in the indictment. The objective identity indicates that the factual grounds provided in the indictment must be identical with the factual grounds specified in the criminal court judgment. It implies the substantive element (i.e. identical factual grounds) of the judgment and indictment, whereas the formal element does not have to be present because the court is not bound by the prosecutor's legal qualification. The legislator sets out clear limitations by stipulating that the verdict shall refer only to the person and to the specific criminal offence which is specified in the submitted indictment or court-amended indictment modified in the course of trial proceedings (Article 420, paragraph 1 of the CPC). In compliance with the mutatis mutandis principle, the prosecutor has the authority to modify the indictment in the course of trial if the defendant is established to have committed a different criminal offence than the one which he has been charged with. The question of subjective and objective identity is one of the most complex criminal procedure issues both in legal theory and in judicial practice. According to an earlier theoretical conception, identity exists if the judgment is related to the same past event. The supporters of a narrower (stricto sensu) conception assert that identity exists if the subject matter of a judgment is a different criminal offense in relation to the one the defendant has been charged with; hence, identity does not exist if there is another offense. The recent procedural theory has yielded the factual grounds theory which entails the most rigid interpretation of the judgment and the indictment correlation. In the statement of facts, the prosecutor lays down the factual grounds for the indictment which must remain the same in the judgment. This link between the judgment and the indictment provides for the effective exercise of the defendant's right to defense in criminal proceedings. As a matter of fact, the right to defense is the key to solving the dilemma about exceeding the scope of indictment. The scope of indictment may be exceeded if the court alters the facts contained in the indictment and enters a different set of fact in the judgment, thus endangering the defendant's right to defence. In resolving the dilemma whether the scope of indictment has been exceeded, the governing premise is that the court is bound by the factual grounds specified in the indictment, but it is not bound by anything that falls within the scope of legal qualification. Taking into account these two pivotal points, the author concludes that the examination of the exceeded scope of indictment would largely facilitate the decision on this procedural issue, which is a stumbling block in jurisprudence.

Despite Palestine's endeavour to seek full UN membership and herewith gain the support of the international community, strong tendencies towards violating basic fair trial principles can be observed on the ground. This article provides an in-depth exploration of the current Rule of Law building efforts in the occupied Palestinian Territories by an exemplary analysis of the status of the right to defence. The study examines the legal situation of the right to defence in Palestine and how those regulations are interpreted and applied in everyday practice. Considering recent developments of access to legal defence and legal aid on the UN and EU level, this article demonstrates the importance of granting comprehensive access to defence as part of the rule of law building efforts, and also underlines the necessity of its application during the early stages of criminal procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between the right to defence and assistance and the civil rights a close connection has been identified. Sometimes the realisation and protection of these rights, such as the right to life, to personal dignity, to private life etc., in general are impossible without the right to defence and legal assistance. First, the right to legal assistance allows the individual to comprehend the powers conferred to him by this right. Second, the right to legal assistance allows the protection and enforcement of these personal rights. The subjects of both rights are all the persons who have the right to information about the status of their own rights and liberties and the problems impeding their achievement. The importance of informing citizens and states in all spheres, and in particular about the implementation scope of the right to legal assistance consists in the population's comprehensive legal information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By adopting the European Convention on Human Rights (hereinafter referred to as "the Convention") in 1994, the Romanian State recognised the necessity that any criminal trial should be carried out under fair conditions, in accordance with the requirements of Article 6 of the Convention. In this study, we are going to analyse the requirements of the Convention applying especially to criminal trials, namely those related to the right of the charged person to be informed promptly, in a language which he understands, of the nature and cause of the accusation against him. Moreover, we will take into consideration the obligation of the judicial bodies to offer the charged person the adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence. The analysis will be based on the relevant regulations set down in the Convention and the Romanian criminal procedure legislation. Last but not least, it will include a presentation of the jurisprudence relevant to these matters, both of the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter referred to as "ECHR") and of the Romanian national courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]