Iatrogenic Burns of the Neckline in a Patient with Tetraparesis During Tracheotomy

The paper presents a case of an atypical iatrogenic complication after tracheotomy analyzed on the basis of the case dossier materials submitted to the authors by the court of justice to prepare a forensic medical opinion concerning the correctness of the medical procedure. A 37‐year‐old woman was brought by the ambulance service to the hospital with acute respiratory failure due to post‐tracheostomy tracheal stenosis. Tracheotomy was performed on an emergency basis. The patient suffered severe burns of the chest and neck. The experts concluded that the most probable cause of the incident was electrocautery‐induced ignition of the disinfectant used for cleaning the skin before the surgery. It was established that with correct handling of the procedure, the aforementioned incident should not have taken place. Therefore, it cannot be regarded as a normal complication inherent in the risk associated with the procedure, but as a consequence of a medical error.     

Morality in criminal law and criminal procedure: Principles,doctrines, and court cases

One of the drawbacks of the current era of predominance of Positive Law over Natural law, is that the moral roots of criminal law are all too easily overlooked or even ignored. Yet one should always keep in mind that moral standards (and the related area of Natural Law) historically preceded any type of criminal legislation or judicial decisions. This Note describes some selected aspects of criminal law of the United States (both substantive and procedural), with occasional references to other countries where necessary. Particular attention is focused on criminal law court cases and on how they deal with morality. The author argues that much more attention should be paid to the fundamental relationship between moral values and criminal law.     

Social justice and legal justice

The main aim of this paper is to challenge the validity of the distinction between legal justice and social justice. It is argued that what we usually call legal justice is either an application of the more fundamental notion of social justice to legal rules and decisions or is not a matter of justice at all. In other words, the only correct uses of the notion of legal justice are derivative from the notion of social justice and, hence, the alleged conflicts between criteria of social and legal justice result from the confusion about the proper relationship between these two concepts. Two views about the social justice/legal justice dichotomy are of particular importance and will provide the focus for the argument: this dichotomy is sometimes identified with a classical distinction between distributive and commutative justice and sometimes with the distinction between substantive and procedural justice.     

Law's Legitimacy and 'Democracy-Plus'

Is it the case that the law, in order to be fully legitimate,must not only be adopted in a procedurally correct way but mustalso comply with certain substantive values? In the first partof the article I prepare the ground for the discussion of legitimacyof democratic laws by considering the relationship between law’slegitimacy, its justification and the obligation to obey thelaw. If legitimacy of law is seen as based on the law beingjustified (as in Raz’s ‘service conception’),our duty to obey it does not follow automatically: it must bebased on some additional arguments. Raz’s conception oflegitimate authority does not presuppose, as many critics claim,any unduly deferential attitude towards authorities. Disconnectionof the law’s legitimacy from the absolute duty to obeyit leads to the second part of the article which consists ina critical scrutiny of the claim that the democratically adoptedlaw is legitimate only insofar as it expresses the right moralvalues. This claim is shown to be, under one interpretation(‘motivational’), nearly meaningless or, under anotherinterpretation (‘constitutional’), too strong tosurvive the pressure from moral pluralism. While we cannot hopefor a design of ‘pure procedural democracy’ (byanalogy to Rawlsian ‘pure procedural justice’),democratic procedures express the values which animate the adoptionof a democratic system in the first place.     

Poland's legal integration into the European community: Some past,present, and future dilemmas

The paper contains some thoughts on the issue of the legal aspects of Poland's integration into the European Community (EC) against the background of Polish efforts to adapt its legal system to European Community requirements. The discussion is divided into three substantive parts: The first part deals with the issue of various legal traditions constituting the general phenomenon of EC law, with the second part spelling out legal aspects of the process of European integration, and finally the paper will be presented by way of a more concrete discussion — e.g., human rights, criminal law in general, and computer crime specifically.     

Capital punishment in Poland: The debate continues

Throughout its modern history, Poland has not escaped controversies surrounding the use of the death penalty. Tracing the historical development of laws dealing with the issue demonstrates an evolution influenced by various legal, political, social, philosophical, and international factors, leading up to the current absence of the penalty from the Polish legal system. The debate in society revolves around some stereotypical views held by different social groups. One of the biggest challenges is how to reconcile those views with empirical evidence, especially on issues like the deterrent effect of capital punishment. The authors describe the death penalty debate in Poland from these perspectives and take a retentionist position with regard to some selected crimes. As long as there are individuals willing to take other people's lives in a premeditated and deliberate manner demonstrating callous contempt for another person's existence, death remains the only punishment satisfying a sense of social justice and upholding the value of human life.     

WHITE COLLAR AND ECONOMIC CRIME: AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

In recent years increased attention has been paid by various international forums to the dangerous upsurge in internationally oriented white collar and economic criminality. At the same time, organs like the United Nations or the Council of Europe are attempting to effectively deal with economic crime occurring on national levels. The author traces the development of international efforts in the field by focusing on the relevant United Nations resolutions and agreements, as well as on documents adopted by the Council of Europe. It is demonstrated that the use of terminology which is not substantially different from theories of white collar crime developed on national levels, as well as indirect references to Sutherland's ideas, constitute the conceptual link between the international instruments dealing with white collar crime (including specific United Nations agreements and codes, and the work undertaken by the Council of Europe), and traditional, nationally-oriented theories. This similarity has far-reaching practical implications: except for purely international white collar crimes, many of which are of very recent origin, white collar crime theory can be applied in combating international crime occurring within national boundaries, the seriousness of which is evident from an examination of the relevant documents. The author advances a theory of international white collar crime and suggests that its increase necessitates the adoption of new theoretical horizons and new practical methods for dealing with this dangerous form of law-breaking which defies traditional notions of “crime” and “criminal”.     

Accession's Democracy Dividend: The Impact of the EU Enlargement upon Democracy in the New Member States of Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract: One of the main factors in ensuring the widespread support for accession to the European Union amongst the various populations of Central and Eastern Europe is the perception that it will serve to entrench and strengthen the process of democratisation after the fall of Communism. The purpose of this article is to examine this claim, that accession will provide a ‘democracy dividend’ in this fashion. To this end, the article begins by examining the political conditionality of the accession process, and the extent to which the process of democratisation can be understood as a result of ‘external’ pressures. It also discusses the extent to which the effectiveness of political conditionality is likely to survive after the accession takes place. The article then moves on to consider the effects of accession upon democracy in the states of the region by looking in detail at three areas that have been particularly important: the role of national parliaments, the new constitutional courts, and the tendency towards decentralisation and regionalism. The article concludes by noting that, although not all of the developments discussed are necessarily good for democracy in the region, the real dividend coming from the accession process lies in the fact that, on a macro‐level, membership in the EU will make the democratic transition in Central and Eastern Europe practically irreversible.