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The right to vote is recognized as a fundamental political right of the citizens. Its universal character is a guarantee for democratic governance. In recent years there has been a decline in citizens’ political activity, leading to a non-participation in elections. The ideas to introduce compulsory voting system pose a threat to aconstitutional right being transformed into a legal obligation.
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The reforms in the political system in Bulgaria are usually confined to changes in the electoralsystem. The government is not directly affected by the evolution of the party system, and its effectiveness does not directly depend on the number of political parties. The stability of the party system is not the only criterion for assessing the political representation. Proposals to change the electoral system are primarily aimed at reducing the number of parties in order to form one-party parliamentary majority. However, these majorities do not always achieve political stability.
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The article presents the distinction between the functions of the National Assembly – „political” and „constitutional”. The constitutional parliamentary functions are divided into three groups - legislative, constitutive and control. Each function is analyzed by virtue of specific powers of the National Assembly. Elements of the rationalization of parliamentarism in recent times in Europe are also found in the Constitutionof the Republic of Bulgaria. On the one hand, the powers of the political institution have been enriched, with the possibility of parliamentary oversight of the authorities activity, which the National Assembly forms in whole or in part. On the other hand, within the parliamentary control function, the Constitution establishes a clear boundary between the parliamentary control over the executive power and the possibilities for seeking collective political responsibility.
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Manuscript No. 1160 (XIV c.) from Church-Historical and Archival Institute by the St. Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church in Sofia contains the text of the Slavic penitential nomocanon – rules for church-legal regulation of the behavior of Orthodox Christians derived from Scripture, from the apostolic and the Church Fathers rules, from the rules of the Church Councils. It is believed without necessarily having a direct and clear evidence that on ff. 165a-181b in the manuscript contained a corpus of rules whose alleged author was Patriarch Basil (1186 – 1232) himself. The translation of the rules is carried out from an independently established text of the facsimile edition of the monument. Until now, they have not been translated from Old Bulgarian language to Modern Bulgarian language.
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After the amendment of Criminal Procedure Code, made in 2011, the Supreme Court of Cassation in a cassation review, after double remittal of the case to the lower court, in further (third) hearings, has appellate powers – art. 354, par. 5, sent. 2 of Criminal Procedure Code. The act, delivered in this way, is final. This violates the right of appeal of the convicted person, established in art. 2 of Protocol 7 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Granted opportunity this act to be reviewed under the extraordinary control through re-opening of criminal proceedings can’t ”compensate” the deprivation of the right of appeal. The violation of European standards for right of appeal can lead to many judgments against Bulgaria in the European court of human rights in Strasbourg. That’s why this article should be abolished.
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The article presents a theoretical analysis of the term “gender”, taken from the perspective of the gender theory. The inaccuracies in the meaning of the terms “gender” and “sex”, caused by the translation in Bulgarian, are assessed based on the complexity of their semiosis. The need to introduce the term is justified based on the legal neologism in the Bulgarian terminological legal system, in case of the occurrence of the future ratification of Istanbul Convention.
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The article examines the attitude of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church towards the proclamation of the state independence of Bulgaria in 1908 and 1909. The text also analyses the public discussion in the press, aroused by the issue concerning the fate of the exarchate in the Ottoman Empire under the changed political circumstances.
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The problems concerning the constitutional settlement of the issues related to the principles of the structure and functioning of the judiciary occupy an important place in the elaboration of the Constitution of 1947. The article reveals the impact of the political changes on the modification of the constitutional provisions determining the position of the judiciary as an integral part of the state organization. The author dwells on the alternative views and positions expressed during the discussions by the political opponents, such as the Bulgarian Workers’ Party (Communists) and its allies in the Fatherland Front, as well as by the opposition. The author follows the process of elimination of the typical parliamentary principles of the judiciary and the imposition of the Soviet state doctrine in constitutional law governing the structure and functioning of the judiciary on the eve of the adoption of the Constitution of 1947.
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This paper focuses upon the section Treatment of Homicide of the Icelandic Gray Goose Laws (Grágás) and deals with cases of murder and attempts to cause bodily injury to a person, and with the penalties inflicted for such acts. According to Grágás two were the punishments imposed for injuring or killing a person and the choice between them depended on the character and the graveness of the act. The milder punishment was the so called lesser outlawry which meant confiscation of property and exile for three years but with temporary rights of residence and passage. While abroad the perpetrator was immune from attack but could entirely lose this right in case he did not strictly obey the law. He could return to a normal life after three years. The more severe penalty was the full outlawry which meant loss of all goods, loss of status, and denial of assistance – virtually a death penalty. It was a life-long outlawry. It is stipulated in the code what is a bodily injury and an attempt is made at classifying injures. An attacked and injured person was entitled to seek for justice and to insist that lesser outlawry should be inflicted as a punishment. According to Grágás the penalty for murder was full outlawry. Besides in killing cases kindred payments were supposed to be made to members of the dead man’s family by corresponding members of the killer’s family: this atonement was legally due irrespective of the outcome of a lawsuit for the crime. The analysis of the section Treatment of Homicide of the Icelandic Gray Goose Laws shows that outlawry was the predominant penalty. The law stipulates it in most cases of injuring or murdering a person. It is difficult to tell what effect this punishment had. Undoubtedly its gravity should not be underestimated. The exiled person was lonely since he was excluded from all social contacts and was threatened by violence and death from unrelated third parties who sought to increase their own prestige by killing an outlaw. Probably such a punishment had a preventive effect upon the Icelandic society and restrained the committing of serious legal offences.
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The present article tries to elucidate the origins and activities of Theophilos I – an Archbishop of Tarnovo in the early 16th century. As a successor of the Tarnovo Patriarchate, which had existed before the Ottoman conquest of Bulgaria at the end of the 14th century, the city continued to play an important role in the Orthodox world. Therefore, Theophilos I took a very high position, which is obvious by the documents mentioning his name. Unfortunately, the information about him is scanty. There are few documents, found out mainly in the archives of the Mount Athos monasteries but they are limited to the period between 1527 and 1530. The origins of Theophilos is obscure. However, based on a new reading of an inscription in the monastery of Mylopotamos, where he had been a hieromonk prior to becoming an archbishop of Tarnovo, the author concludes that his native town was Arta in Epirus, Greece.
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The paper proposes a lexicographic model for a thesaurus of the Old Bulgarian language. This model can well be used as a template for a diachronic presentation of this type of lexical relations. The goals of the project for such a dictionary are also outlined here: the collection and lexicographic processing of the wealth of synonyms in the Old Bulgarian language. The theoretical formulation, on which the dictionary is to be constructed, is also well-grounded here, that is the concept of the word as a ternary substance charactrerised by: an absolute value (its meaning), a relative value (its quality to be stylistically marked or stylistically neutral as well as its ability to enter into various semantic relations with other words) and a combinative value (its syntactic-semantic positions and the series of lexemes capable of filling them). What is further discussed are some issues related to the macrostructure and microstructure of the dictionary. Also, the advantages of its creation are given.
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The article analyzes the legal framework of one of the classical forms of parliamentary control – the no-confidence vote – as the main way of engaging and realizing the political responsibility of the Bulgarian Council of Ministers. Its implications are considered in both legal and political terms. The mechanisms laid down by the fathers of the 1991 Constitution, which protect the government from unjustified early termination of its powers, are analyzed. The need for more transparency in the implementation of the controlling powers of the National Assembly is stressed upon.
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Legal exclusion is not an intrinsic, unconditioned feature or event but a contextual issue. This context is given by a legal normative provision contained in a legal act (actual or incorrectly presumed) and the specific discriminatory situation in which the addressees of that legal act find themselves as a result of that provision. The law itself can be exclusionary, and the accepted system of defining the law creates a situation of exclusion. Deaf people have been marginalised and excluded from social life since the ancient times. Although acts of universal public international law and acts of European regional systems (EU and Council of Europe) try to protect the disabled, including the deaf, the Polish legal system does have discriminatory regulations. These are provisions of inheritance law that exclude the deaf from being witnesses to a will. The article analyses these situations by looking at judicial decisions and opinions of legal commentators. It is concluded that the line of jurisprudence developed in the judicature and largely approved by legal scholars is heading in the direction of liberalising the prohibitions formulated in Article 956 of the Civil Code. At the same time, the normative prohibition of making allographic wills cannot be mitigated. These solutions existing in the Polish inheritance law seem to be firmly rooted in the tradition dating back to Roman times. Maintaining them in the current law is not a result of a desire to discriminate against the deaf but seems to stem from a desire to ensure certainty of legal transactions.
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So far it has been impossible to define terrorism. Some believe the definition to be unattainable, while others (e.g. Laquer) write long boocks on „terrorism” without even attempting to determine the subject of their research. In the United Nations and other international organizations representatives of member states have hotly discussed terrorism since 1967 showing quite clearly that they think of different phenomena. The principal explanation is, probably, the impossibility of walue-free discussion of terrorism, which, in turn, breeds hypocrisy. While, in previous times, some political activists admitted that they were at least considering „terrorist” means, in the recent past, with the hounourable exception of Carlos Marighella, „terrorism” is a pejorative, which .cannot be accepted as a label for oneself or one’s friends. It seems to be generally accepted that, „terrorism” is something bad or wrong. This has been an explicit or implicit part of all definitions adopted by diverse legislators. Criminal law definitions of terrorism cannot serve as a useful guidance because they are too narrow in comparison with the „ordinary” meaning of the word and cover only such acts that are directed against a given state or its interests.. International treaties generaly do not refer to „terrorism” at all and tend to suppress certain behaviour, be it „terrorist” or not (e.g. skyjacking). One can therefore refer only to some elements of terrorism, widely believed to be its main ingredients. A terrorist act is intended to provoke 'fear or other psychological reactions. A terrorist act is an act of violence. The target of violence (the victim) is as a rule a human being or a group of them, but it can be a symbolic lifeless object. The psychological reaction is created, not in the mind of the victim, but in the minds of other people, in order to make them passive or more active, as the case may be (the real target of terrorism). An act of terrorism has a political aim. The result in the -minds of the target should bring about some change or preserve the political status quo. It must be noted that a number of serious scholars and representatives of Third World governments have challenged this proposition. The former question the clarity of the concept of the „political” and give examples of non-political terrorism (e.g. „narco-terrorism”), whereas the latter have attempted to show that non-political terrorism is more heinous then politically motivated violent deeds. The most elusive element of terrorism is its „extra-normal” (Thornton) character. It is, namely, an unusual, shocking act. It would be easy to say that it was „illegal”, but for the sad fact that many states may legitimize or criminalize whatever they see fit. Finally, there have been two types of terrorists. The first, classical, or maybe „old-fashioned”, was moved by moral outrage and attempted to justify or „legalize” their acts. Since Nechaev there has been a more „modem” approach to terrorist practice, based on the most effective use of limited violence. For the former group the victim has to be somehow „guilty” (Vera Zasulich and general Trepnev), while for -the latter the victim has either to be the ablest enemy leader (e.g. Aldo Moro) or the symbolic head of the adversary, whose suffering has the highest capacity to inspire fear with people in similar position (Schleyer as the „chief capitalist”). Since, in the eye of the public opinion, terrorists have always been most vulnerable to moralist objections -they try to counter them by the relativization of the concept of „innocence”, which has often been combined with some forensic masquerade („people’s courts”, „people’s prisons” etc.) This is where terrorism of the individuals and non-state groups emulates terror by the government. The use of the syntagm „state terrorism” does not seem to be advisable, for it covers only a small range of acts where the state acts behind, or instead of, non-state terrorists. State terror is a separate theme and in many respects (not the least the number of victims), a much more dangerous phenomenon.
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In the article, the author attempts at juxtaposing a theory of animal rights defenders – primarily the political theory of animal rights put forward by the authors of Zoopolis, Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka – with the practices in the field of dog sports and the methods of working with service dogs. She analyses Donaldson and Kymicka’s particular postulates and presents ways in which both the animal rights advocates and dog sports afficionados approach the subject of new citizenship. Her conclusions seem to suggest that those two groups hold rather contradictory views on domesticated animals.
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Throughout most of their history Romans led occupation wars. The booty of war was an important source of wealth which to a great extent influenced the development of the Roman state and represented the special category of things which belong to the enemy (res hostiles). Those things were treated as nobody`s things (res nullius) and as such acquired by occupation. Since their value was very significant, Romans strived to establish the most efficient looting system. In that respect a military commander had an important role because he was empowered to make decisions regarding the war booty. In this paper authors discuss whether and to what extent the general principle of occupation was supressed by the desire to collect as much war booty as possible through different periods of Roman history.
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Ruthless struggle for imperial power, hordes of soldiers from uncharted lands, looting, poverty, and epidemic are some of the characteristic features of the troubled era between 235 and 284. However, it is not only negativity that emerges from the sources that allow us to reconstruct the middle years of the third century. In particular, the preponderance of emperors of provincial origin, a clear trace of an evolved relationship between Rome and the provinces, and the intensity of imperial legislation that also dealt with concrete problems of provincials suggest that we should question whether the conventional designation of 'military anarchy' does not constitute a simplistic reduction of a neuralgic meeting point between Principate and Dominate.
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At first, provinces were governed either by magistrates (consules, praetores) or by promagistrates (proconsules, propraetores, privati cum imperio). The expression pro magistratu was used to designate a citizen who, despite not being a magistrate, used to perform a magistrature, either as a consequensce of an extraordinary appointment (privati cum imperio), or due to a prolongation of the duration of the imperium even posterior to the end of the term (prorogatio imperii). In such cases, their titles would, instead of consul, praetor or quaestor, respectively become proconsul, propraetor and proquaestor. Regardless of whether a governor performed the duty of a magistrate or a promagistrate, he was classified either as a consular or a praetorial one. During the reign of Octavian Augustus, provinces were divided into two groups – provinciae senatus vel populi and provinciae Caesaris vel principis. Irrespective of their titles, every provincial governor was refered to as praeses. Depending on the rank of their governor, both senatorial and imperial provinces were classified as provinciae consulares and provinciae praetoriae. Regardless of whether they were of a consular or praetorian rank, governors of all senatorial provinces held the title of proconsul, giving the senatorial provinces an alternate name: proconsulares. In the imperial provinces, the title of proconsul was held by the princeps himself, which resulted in the need of creating a title for those who actually governed the provinces in question – legatus Augusti pro praetor. Depending on their rank, they were divided into legati consulares and legati praetorii. However, it was not until the Dominate, that the richness of Roman provincial governors’ titles reached its peak.
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Historians still debate the exact qualification of the province of Judea, especially following the discovery of the well-known inscription concerning Pontius Pilate, which led to a review of many judgments about the titling of the governor of the region, which would not have been that of procurator as was believed until the discovery, but of praefectus. A careful examination of the sources, in particular of Josephus Flavius and Philo Alessandrino, together with the valutation of the interventions adopted in Judea by the legates of Syria, it can only support the idea that the region was not independent, but with particular reference to military issues, was subordinate to Syria. In this context, although with limited powers following the Roman domination, the more or less independent fringes in the client kingdoms and the authority of the Grand Sanhedrin of Jerusalem survive in Judea.
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The interdictal protection was traditionally considered to be a prerogative of the praetor’s court in Rome. Epigraphic and papyrological sources still reveal that it was applied in several provincial territories, from Cisalpine Gaul and Betica to Egypt and the Middle Euphrates area. Precisely the sources from the eastern provinces, more than those from the Hispanic territory, often represent a real enigma for the interpreter, both because of the linguistic hurdle and the complexity of political and legal history of those territories.Gaius, in the paragraph 139 of the fourth book, introduces the discussion on interdictal protection by placing the proconsul alongside the praetor as magistrates competent to issue interdicta. Again, with reference to the provincial territory, the sources seem to involve a wider range of magistrates and officials who had access to this function, probably through a delegation of general or specific jurisdiction. In the eastern provinces, such delegation was generally granted on a case-by-case basis, as was the case for the procurators of Celesiria or the epistrategos of Egypt. The purpose was probably twofold: to lighten the workload of the praeses and to meet the immediacy requirements of interdictal remedies.
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