Legal Reform in Post-Communist Europe: The View from Within

ISBN-13: 9780792332183 / Angielski / Twarda / 1994

III Paul B. Stephan; Stanislaw J. Frankowski; Stanislaw Frankowski

Opis

This book represents an effort to assess the unprecedented political, economic, and social reforms that have swept through Central and Eastern Europe in the five years since the collapse of Communism. The dismantling of the Warsaw Pact, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the Communist Party apparatus, and the various manifestations of the nomenklatura' political control system have meant different things in different countries, but throughout the region we have witnessed a struggle to replace an authoritarian, one-party political system and a command economy with something resembling Western-style constitutional democracy and market economics. Accompanying this struggle have been attempts to transform the legal structure of these countries. It is no exaggeration to claim that lawyers, and particularly legal scholars, have played a central role in the struggle for reform in post-communist Europe. As conceived by its principal organizer and editor (Stanislaw Frankowski), this study gives these scholars an opportunity to express their perceptions of the success achieved to date and the work still remaining. A secondary goal is to expose a Western audience to the views and insights of legal scholars who have worked within the Central and Eastern European traditions. The four parts of this book reflect the principal areas in which legal reform seemed essential. First comes the reconstitutionalization of the societies in question, which means above all else the elimination of single-party politics and the notion of unity of powers. Then comes the creation of the legal institutions that would make possible a civil society under law. Then the institutions that moderate and control the uses of state power to discipline and punish persons that have transgressed the society's norms. Finally there is the question of how law reform had dealt with industrial democracy and the anticipated transformation of the workplace.

Spis treści

Foreword; S. Frankowski, P. Stephan.
Part One: Constitutional Law.
The Rule-of-Law Ideal and Russian Reality; A.M. Yakovlev.
Polish Constitutional Law; M.F. Frzezinski, L. Garlicki.
Constitutional Law of Romania; L. Mihai.
A New Old Constitution for Estonia; I. Grazin.
Constitutional Law of the Slovak Republic; L. Cibulka.
Judicial Protection of Personal Rights in Russia; V.M. Savitsky.
Historical and Psychological Forces Shaping Constitutionalism; E. Tanchev.
Part Two: Civil and Commercial Law.
Polish Civil and Commercial Law; B. Kordasiewicz, M. Wierzbowski.
Romanian Civil and Commercial Law; F.A. Baias.
Part Three: Criminal Justice.
Criminal Law, the Law of Criminal Procedure, and the Law of Corrections in Hungary; B. Busch, J. Molnár, É. Margitán.
The Romanian Criminal Justice System; T. Dianu.
Polish Criminal Law and Procedure; A. Wasek, S. Frankowski.
Criminal Procedure in Bulgaria; E. Trendafilova.
The Law of Corrections in Russia; A.S. Mikhlin.
The Law of Corrections in Poland; Z. Holda.
Part Four: Labor and Social Security Law.
Employment and Collective Labor Law in Post-Communist Poland; A. Swiatkowski.
The Main Features of Romanian Labor Laws in the Period of Transition; A. Athanasiu, A.C. Moarcas.
Labor Law in Hungary; C. Kollonay Lehoczky.
Labor Law and Social Security Legislation in Slovakia; J. Matlák.
Labor Law and Social Security in Post-Communist Bulgaria; K. Sredkova. Westernization of the European East? S. Frankowski, P. Stephan.