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The notion of civil service in Europe: establishing an analytical framework for comparative study
(2021)
Comparative study of the employment regimes of public officials in European countries requires an appropriate analytical framework, including definitions. This blog entry explores the meaning and scope of terms “civil service” and “civil servant”. It argues that a civil servant is an employee of the executive power, who has special duties and responsibilities, and should often meet specific requirements.
The notion of civil service in Europe: establishing an analytical framework for comparative study
(2022)
The aim of this paper is to create an analytical framework for comparative study (FÖV project “The Transformation of the Civil Service in Europe”). It explores the scope and denotation of the terms “civil service” and “civil servant”. Its main argument is that a comparative legal ana-lysis should distinguish the notions of public service and civil service. Public service concerns a type of professional activity related to the exercise of all public power (legislative, executive and judicial). Civil servants are officials employed by the executive; they have special duties and responsibilities and are often subject to specific requirements. The employment regime is not decisive for the status of civil servant, due to the fact that government officials in Europe are employed both under public or private (labour) law. Nonetheless, they should enjoy stability of employment and exercise their competencies on a regular basis, not ad hoc.
Electoral disinformation has become one of the most challenging problems for democratic states. All of them are facing the phenomenon of - both online and offline - dissemination of false information during pre-electoral period, which is harmful for individual and collective rights. As a consequence, some European countries adopted special measures, including summary judicial proceedings in order to declare that information or materials used in elec-tioneering are false and to prohibit its further dissemination. There are already three rulings of the ECtHR concerning this expeditious judicial examination provided in the Polish law. In December 2018 France passed complex regulation against manipulation of information that include similar mechanisms. This article, basing on the ECtHR’s case law and some national experiences, attempts to define the minimal European standard for measures targeted at electoral disinformation, especially judicial summary proceeding. It contains the analysis of the notion of electoral disinformation, defines the state’s positive obligations in this sphere, and indicates mayor challenges for the legal framework. The principal argument is that summary judicial proceedings – if adequately designed – cannot be questioned from the Convention standpoint and provide a partial solution to the problem of electoral dis-information.
Rafał Lemkin (1900-1959): A life-long story of engagement in the development of human rights law
(2023)
This blog post aims to provide a brief overview of the life and work of Rafał Lemkin by ex-ploring his participation in the interwar and post-war international dialogue. It demonstrates a variety of means, including academic activities (research, publications, conferences), as well as diplomacy and personal relationships, which Lemkin used to disseminate his ideas and research. Despite having limited resources and being a refugee for much of his life, Lemkin drew upon his linguistic abilities and showed himself to be an extraordinary “constant negotiator”. His varied work experience, gained in the early stages of his career in Lviv and Warsaw, likely aided him in developing an inclusive perspective on law and human rights that later informed his ground-breaking work on genocide.
This chapter analyses the impact of the Internet and the shift in communication processes on the States’ obligations emerging from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It claims that the environment created by the Internet is different from the traditional one; that is, it substantially empowers a range of private actors such as social media and other Internet platforms. That is why in the light of the actual development of the ECHR’s standards, both the strict distinction between positive and negative State’s obligations, and an overall prefe-rence for the latter are anachronistic. This chapter claims that it is crucial to keep developing European minimal safeguards in horizontal online relations when human rights violation is a result of a State’s non-compliance with the positive duty. Against this backdrop, this chapter centers around the influence of the Internet on the exercise and protection of selected human rights and the changing nature of communication processes, as well as the game-changing shift caused by the growing power of private actors. It also includes a detailed analysis of the scope and content of positive State’s obligations emerging from the use of the Internet, focusing on substantive obligations (i.e., the legal framework and the allocation of responsibilities), as well as on the issue of the public guarantees for online pluralism and procedural obligations (the duty to provide responses to allegations concerning online ill-treatment inflicted by private individuals).
It has become a truism that the Internet gives a range of private actors, such as social media, substantial power. They are thus able to control the communication processes, hold considerable authority over shaping opinions, and become the arbiters of free speech. That is why legal scholars and policymakers are searching for legal tools that would ensure a fair balance between the conflicting rights of these two groups of private actors (platforms and their users).
The aim of this presentation would be to reconsider the relationship between individuals and online platforms, analyze how horizontal online conflicts may be resolved (giving examples of some national legislation and EU proposal concerning digital services), and answer the question if the discretion of the platforms can be limited in order to protect rights and freedoms. The theoretical framework of the analysis would be the doctrine of the State’s positive obligations, as established in the current European Court of Human Rights case law.
The main argument would be that it is necessary to strengthen the public supervision over Internet platforms, in particular the way they resolve horizontal conflicts. The possibility of limiting their discretion, in order to provide individual protection, does not mean however creating the unlimited right of access to the platform in order to express any opinion or view (freedom of forum).
The lecture explains how some of the well-established institutions of constitutional law are being questioned. It explains also how the experience of the XX-century atrocities and the emergence of the authoritarian regimes in Europe impacted on the State Theory, Political Science and Constitutionalism.
Electoral Disinformation and Summary Judicial Proceedings: Is the Polish Experience Relevant?
(2021)
In Poland special summary (24-hour) judicial proceedings against electoral disinformation were introduced in 1998. Although it has been successfully used to declare that information disseminated during an electoral campaign is false, it has not attracted much attention and
is generally absent from the current legal scholarship and international reports on electoral disinformation.
Against this backdrop, the post aims to critically analyze the Polish regulatory model con-cerning summary judicial proceedings. The implications of these mechanisms become even more complex when we consider that in mid-2019 the European Court of Human Rights found Poland for the third time in breach of the right to freedom of expression (Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights) for having convicted the applicant in these extraordinary 24 -hour judicial proceedings.