Chief Editor’s Note
Articles
This paper focuses on the last indirect coercive measure introduced by the Italian and Russian legislation. After a general overview of the coercive measures already known to Italian law, also from an historical perspective, this paper identifies – through a parallelism commonly followed between the astreinte under Art. 114(4)(e) of the Italian Administrative Procedure Code and those under Art. 614-bis of the Italian Civil Procedure Code – the main traits of the new rule as to conditions, calculation of the amount due and beneficiary of the payment.
The author’s intention is to investigate the rationale of Art. 114, dealing with the issue of its applicability to obligations having a monetary content, so as to assess the actual possibility to make a complete parallelism between the two types of astreinte at issue: those for administrative proceedings and those for civil proceedings.
In contrast to the Italian experience, astreinte in Russian civil and administrative judicial proceedings is not directly regulated by procedural legislation. Astreinte unexpectedly appeared in the case law of commercial courts in 2013 and was / became widely discussed by scholars. From June 1, 2015, the institute quite similar to the astreinte was introduced by the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.
The authors mean to reveal the nature of the astreinte and scope of its application both in civil and administrative judicial proceedings.
Comments
The article deals with the conflict between the provisions of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, where the minimum amount of the bribe is not defined, and the provision of the Federal Law ‘On State Civil Service of the Russian Federation,’ which, on the one hand, contains an absolute ban on civil servants receiving gifts and other types of remuneration, while, on the other hand, Art. 575 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation admits a possibility for civil servants to receive gifts of an amount not exceeding 3,000 rubles in the performance of their official duties. This legal conflict necessitates conceptual clarification of such notions as ‘gift’ and ‘bribe.’
The authors underline that a determining factor for establishing the legitimacy of the customary gifts given to government officials is whether the gifts were accepted by the officials, while executing their duties, without a prior agreement for an action or inaction. It is noted that the limitation of a gift’s maximum value to 3,000 rubles, as stated in the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, creates an opportunity to abuse or evade the law.
The article presents a comparative study of European laws, more specifically dealing with the institute of donation, and Russian legislation regarding the possibility of civil servants receiving gifts. German law does not single out ‘customary gifts;’ it simply does not admit the possibility of giving gifts or the right to receive gifts by German civil servants.
The authors have developed proposals to improve the legal regulation concerning the giving of gifts to government officials in Russia.
Book Review Notes
Conferences Review Notes
In March 2015, the Polish Academy of Science, the Institute of Law Studies, and the Centre for Polish-Russian Dialogue held a conference entitled The Case of Crimea in the Light of International Law: Its Nature and Implications. The conference took place against the backdrop of the first anniversary of Crimea’s ‘annexation’ / ‘reunification’2 by Russia, providing an opportunity for international legal scholars to discuss the legality of these events.
Over two days, the conference saw around 35 presented papers on issues following five general themes: self-determination and secession; use of force, aggression and armed attack; the international community’s response to the situation in Crimea; non-recognition of unlawful situations; and international state and individual responsibility in the case of Crimea.
The invited academics and practitioners who spoke at the conference came from Austria, Belarus, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Ukraine, UK and USA.
This review will explore selected presentations on the key issues of selfdetermination, secession, use of force and State responsibility.
ISSN 2312-3605 (Online)