The Federal Labour Court of Germany has continued to specify the requirements for the legality of age limits in employer-funded pension plans under German law. In this case, according to the Court, the employer could impose a maximum age of 55 as a requirement of entry to the company pension plan. |
Search result: 446 articles
Case Reports |
2022/4 Legal requisites for age thresholds in employer-funded pension plans (GE) |
Journal | European Employment Law Cases, Issue 1 2022 |
Keywords | Age Discrimination |
Authors | Othmar K. Traber |
AbstractAuthor's information |
Rulings |
ECtHR 1 March 2022, app. no. 16695/19 (Kozan – v – Turkey), Other Fundamental Rightsİbrahim Kozan – v – Turkey, Turkish case |
Journal | European Employment Law Cases, Issue 1 2022 |
Keywords | Other Fundamental Rights |
Abstract |
A disciplinary sanction imposed on a serving judge for sharing a critical press article on Facebook constitutes a violation of the freedom of expression. |
Article |
Morality in the Populist Radical RightA Computer-Assisted Morality Frame Analysis of a Prototype |
Journal | Politics of the Low Countries, Issue 1 2022 |
Keywords | Populist radical right, morality, frame analysis, word2vec, crimmigration |
Authors | Job P.H. Vossen |
AbstractAuthor's information |
This article provides a computer-assisted morality framing analysis of Vlaams Belang’s 2019 manifesto. The VB is regarded in the literature as a prototypical example of the Populist Radical Right (PRR). We first concisely review what PRR politics is and what it consists of, tentatively distinguishing four elements that we hypothesise will materialise in corresponding subframes running throughout the manifesto. We point to a mismatch between the omnipresent role of morality in all PRR subframes and the little attention devoted to the concept in the PRR literature. We introduce a useful theory from social psychology into framing literature to create a novel methodological approach to frame analysis that builds a bridge between a qualitative content and a quantitative context approach. The results support our hypothesis that populism, nationalism, nativism and authoritarianism can be distinguished from one another. Additionally, we detect a fifth PRR subframe, crimmigration, by its unique role of morality. |
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Journal | The International Journal of Restorative Justice, Issue 1 2022 |
Keywords | public wrongs, R.A. Duff, agent-relative values, criminalisation, punishment |
Authors | Theo van Willigenburg |
AbstractAuthor's information |
Restorative justice has been criticised for not adequately giving serious consideration to the ‘public’ character of crimes. By bringing the ownership of the conflict involved in crime back to the victim and thus ‘privatising’ the conflict, restorative justice would overlook the need for crimes to be treated as public matters that concern all citizens, because crimes violate public values, i.e., values that are the foundation of a political community. Against this I argue that serious wrongs, like murder or rape, are violations of agent-neutral values that are fundamental to our humanity. By criminalising such serious wrongs we show that we take such violations seriously and that we stand in solidarity with victims, not in their capacity as compatriots but as fellow human beings. Such solidarity is better expressed by organising restorative procedures that serve the victim’s interest than by insisting on the kind of public condemnation and penal hardship that retributivists deem necessary ‘because the public has been wronged’. The public nature of crimes depends not on the alleged public character of the violated values but on the fact that crimes are serious wrongs that provoke a (necessarily reticent) response from government officials such as police, judges and official mediators. |
Article |
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Journal | Corporate Mediation Journal, Issue 2 2021 |
Keywords | evaluative mediation, deployment, hybrids |
Authors | Martin Brink |
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Part II of this article addresses the question of how evaluative mediation may be used in practice. What guidelines are available to a mediator who considers crossing the line between facilitation and evaluation? |
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Journal | Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy, Issue 2 2021 |
Keywords | Discourse, Solidarity, Poststructuralism, Levinas, Derrida |
Authors | Thomas Jacobus de Jong and Carina van de Wetering |
AbstractAuthor's information |
This contribution explores the meaning and scope of solidarity with the emergence of the coronavirus discourse as formulated by politicians in order to make sense of the virus. It offers a poststructuralist account drawing on discourse theory together with insights from Levinas and Derrida. This leads to a critical reflection on the prevailing view of solidarity as secondary and derivative to corona policies, because solidarity is often subjugated to hegemonic meanings of efficiency. Instead, the argument is made that solidarity refers to the unique responsibility to which the other as wholly other commands me. This appeal for responsibility, that is presented in the face of the other, is to be assumed in the distance between the rules and the singularity of the situation. Accordingly, solidarity is described as a paradox of dependence (calculability) and independence (beyond calculation), that appears in a moment of undecidability, for it can never be overcome. |
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Journal | Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy, Issue 2 2021 |
Keywords | Solidarity, COVID-19, Crisis, Normalcy, Exceptionality |
Authors | Amalia Amaya Navarro |
AbstractAuthor's information |
In times of crisis, we witness exceptional expressions of solidarity. Why does solidarity spring in times of crisis when it wanes in normal times? An inquiry into what may explain the differences between the expression of solidarity in crisis vs. normalcy provides, as I will argue in this article, important insights into the conditions and nature of solidarity. Solidarity requires, I will contend, an egalitarian ethos and state action within and beyond the state. It is neither a momentary political ideal, nor an exclusionary one, which depends for its sustainment on formal, legal, structures. Transient, sectarian, and informal conceptions of solidarity unduly curtail the demands of solidarity by restricting its reach to times of crisis, to in-group recipients, and to the social rather than the legal sphere. The article concludes by discussing some aspects of the dynamics of solidarity and its inherent risks that the analysis of the exceptionality of solidarity helps bring into focus. |
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Journal | Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy, Issue 2 2021 |
Keywords | Social solidarity, COVID-19, Religious freedom, Cultural defence, Ultra-Orthodox sects in Israel |
Authors | Miriam Gur-Arye and Sharon Shakargy |
AbstractAuthor's information |
The article discusses the tension between social solidarity and religious freedom as demonstrated by the refusal of the ultra-Orthodox sects in Israel to comply with COVID-19 regulations. The article provides a detailed description of the refusal to comply with the regulations restricting mass prayer services in synagogues and studying Torah in the yeshivas, thus interfering with the ultra-Orthodox religious life. The article suggests possible explanations for that refusal, based on either religious beliefs or a socio-political claim to autonomy, and discusses whether the polity should be willing to tolerate such a refusal on the basis of the cultural defence. The article concludes that despite the drastic restrictions on religious life caused by the social distancing regulations, and the special importance of freedom of religion, reducing the pandemic’s spread called for awarding priority to solidarity over religious freedom, and the enforcement of social solidarity legal duties – the social distancing regulations – on all. |
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Journal | Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy, Issue 2 2021 |
Keywords | SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, The state’s duty to protect, Duty to rescue, Responsibility, Solidarity |
Authors | Konstantinos A Papageorgiou |
AbstractAuthor's information |
The article discusses a range of important normative questions raised by anti-COVID-19 measures and policies. Do governments have the right to impose such severe restrictions on individual freedom and furthermore do citizens have obligations vis-à-vis the state, others and themselves to accept such restrictions? I will argue that a democratic state may legitimately enforce publicly discussed, properly enacted and constitutionally tested laws and policies in order to protect its citizens from risks to life and limb. Even so, there is a natural limit, factual and normative, to what the state or a government can do in this respect. Citizens will also need to take it upon themselves not to harm and to protect others and in the context of a pandemic this means that endorsement of restrictions or other mandatory measures, notably vaccination, is not to be seen as a matter of personal preference concerning the supposedly inviolable sovereignty of one’s own body. |
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Journal | Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy, Issue 2 2021 |
Keywords | Vulnerability, Contingency, Freedom and Anxiety, Solidarity, Legal concept of inclusion |
Authors | Benno Zabel |
AbstractAuthor's information |
The COVID-19 crisis has produced or amplified disruptive processes in societies. This article wants to argue for the fact that we understand the meaning of the COVID-19 crisis only if we relate it to the fundamental vulnerability of modern life and the awareness of vulnerability of whole societies. Vulnerability in modernity are expressions of a reality of freedom that is to some extent considered contingent and therefore unsecured. It is true that law is understood today as the protective power of freedom. The thesis of the article, however, boils down to the fact that the COVID-19 crisis has resulted in a new way of thinking about the protection of freedom. This also means that the principle of solidarity must be assigned a new social role. Individual and societal vulnerability refer thereafter to an interconnectedness, dependency, and a future perspective of freedom margins that, in addition to the moral one, can also indicate a need for legal protection. In this respect, law has not only a function of delimitation, but also one of inclusion. |
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Journal | East European Yearbook on Human Rights, Issue 1 2021 |
Authors | Matthias C. Kettemann and Martin Fertmann |
AbstractAuthor's information |
This study explores the spread of disinformation relating to the Covid-19 pandemic on the internet, dubbed by some as the pandemic’s accompanying “infodemic”, and the societal reactions to this development across different countries and platforms. The study’s focus is on the role of states and platforms in combatting online disinformation. |
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Journal | East European Yearbook on Human Rights, Issue 1 2021 |
Authors | Martin Fertmann and Matthias C. Kettemann |
AbstractAuthor's information |
Terms-of-service based actions against political and state actors as both key subjects and objects of political opinion formation have become a focal point of the ongoing debates over who should set and enforce the rules for speech on online platforms. |
Article |
Legislative Effectiveness From a Legislative Drafter’s PerspectiveAnalysing the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 3 2021 |
Keywords | Effectiveness Test, legislative quality, drafting process, Transgender persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 |
Authors | Devika Gulati |
AbstractAuthor's information |
This article discusses the effectiveness of Transgender persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 and tests the legislation against Dr. Maria Mousmouti’s Effectiveness Test. The author first attempts to trace the real purpose of the Act in terms of specific and broad purposes, and the micro, meso and macro goals. Secondly, the author examines the content of the Act in terms of the legislative techniques used, compliance and enforcement mechanism, and legislative communication. Thirdly, the author studies the context of the Act in terms of its coherence, accessibility and the choice of superstructure. |
Article |
Legal Tradition and Human RightsA Quantitative Comparative Analysis of Developing Countries |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 3 2021 |
Keywords | comparative law, comparative constitutional analysis, human rights, legal traditions, quantitative constitutional analysis, economic rights, social and family rights, civil and political rights |
Authors | Dhanraj R. Singh |
AbstractAuthor's information |
This analysis examines the relationship between legal tradition and constitutional human rights. It experiments with a quantitative comparative methodology to compare economic rights, social and family rights, and civil and political rights between countries with common law, civil law and mixed law legal traditions. The results show that developing countries with a civil law legal tradition provide more constitutional human rights than their counterparts with a common law legal tradition. Although preliminary and imperfect, the results challenge the notion of superiority of the common law legal tradition and human rights. The quantitative comparative framework used offers a new methodological frontier for comparative constitutional law researchers to examine relationships between legal traditions. |
Article |
Sustainability in Global Supply Chains Under the CISG |
Journal | European Journal of Law Reform, Issue 3 2021 |
Keywords | CISG, sustainability, supply chains, UN Global Compact, Codes of Conduct, conformity of the goods |
Authors | Ingeborg Schwenzer and Edgardo Muñoz |
AbstractAuthor's information |
In this article, the authors assert that the United Nations Convention for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) can contribute to tackling gaps in statutory legislation and defective business conduct that have been associated with unsustainable trade in Global Supply Chains (GSCs). The authors provide evidence that the CISG contains rules enabling a general legal framework for establishing uniform sustainable standards for goods concerning suppliers, sellers and buyers located in different countries. For instance, the CISG provisions on contract formation ease the incorporation of joint codes of conduct for sustainable trade in GSCs. In addition, the contracting parties’ circumstances and current trade usages are now more relevant to determine what constitutes conformity of the goods under the contract and the default warranties in Article 35 CISG. On the level of remedies, the authors show that best-efforts provisions, possibly included in a code of conduct or inferred from standards applicable to the goods, may redefine the notion of impediment in Article 79 CISG, which could lead to exoneration of liability for the seller. They also demonstrate why fundamental breach and the calculation of damages are at the centre of the discussion regarding the remedies for breach of an obligation to deliver sustainable goods. |
Article |
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Journal | Erasmus Law Review, Issue 3 2021 |
Keywords | victim-offender contact, resocialisation, victim acknowledgement, forensic psychiatry, mentally disordered offenders |
Authors | Lydia Dalhuisen and Alice Kirsten Bosma |
AbstractAuthor's information |
Crime victims have gained a stronger position in all phases of the criminal procedure, including the post-sentencing phase. It is in this phase specifically that victims’ needs and interests relating to acknowledgement interplay with the offenders’ needs and interests relating to resocialisation. In the Netherlands, offenders who suffer from a mental disorder at the time of the offence limiting their criminal accountability and pose a significant safety threat, can be given a TBS order. This means that they are placed in a forensic psychiatric hospital to prevent further crimes and receive treatment aimed at resocialisation. As resocialisation requires the offender to return to society, contact with the victim might be a necessary step. This article focuses on victim-offender contact during the execution of this TBS order, and looks at risks and opportunities of victim-offender contact in this context, given the particular offender population. Offenders are divided into three groups: those with primarily psychotic disorders, those suffering from personality disorders and those with comorbidity, especially substance abuse disorders. The TBS population is atypical compared to offenders without a mental disorder. Their disorders can heighten the risks of unsuccessful or even counterproductive victim-offender contact. Yet, carefully executed victim-offender contact which includes thorough preparation, managing expectations and choosing the right type of contact can contribute to both successful resocialisation as well as victim acknowledgement. |
Public Health Emergency: National, European and International Law Responses |
Constitutional Rights in the Time of PandemicThe Experience of Hungary |
Journal | Hungarian Yearbook of International Law and European Law, Issue 1 2021 |
Keywords | state of emergency, emergency powers, restriction of fundamental rights, Fundamental Law, Constitutional Court of Hungary |
Authors | Lóránt Csink |
AbstractAuthor's information |
Special circumstances may require special measures. This article is to highlight the importance of constitutional rights, also in the time of a pandemic. Its hypothesis is that constitutional rights are not luxuries one can only afford in peacetime, they are much rather at the core of civilization and democracy. History shows that a world without rights may easily turn into a nightmare. The article first focuses on the Hungarian constitutional basis of the state of emergency (Section 2). Next, it analyses the text of the constitution with respect to the limitation of fundamental rights and elaborates on the various interpretations through the lens of the case-law of the Constitutional Court (Sections 3-4). Finally, the article concludes that despite the rigid wording of the Hungarian Fundamental Law, constitutional rights can be restricted only if the restriction meets the necessity-proportionality test (Section 5) |
Case Notes |
The Constitutional Court of Hungary on the Borderlines of BlasphemyA Note on Two Recent Cases |
Journal | Hungarian Yearbook of International Law and European Law, Issue 1 2021 |
Keywords | blasphemy, freedom of speech, protection of dignity, protection of religion, Hungary |
Authors | Balázs Schanda |
AbstractAuthor's information |
Blasphemy used to be a criminal offence in traditional legal systems. Although offending the transcendent is not criminalized in most Western legal systems, free speech must respect the dignity of others. Religious conviction constitutes an inherent part of dignity. The protection against hate speech offending the dignity of members i.e. of religious communities may include criminal sanctions in extreme cases. The new Civil Code of Hungary (2013) enables the bringing of a civil lawsuit for hate speech. After years of litigation the first two cases where litigants claimed their dignity violated by offensive images have reached the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court guaranteed protection of religious identity on the one hand, on the other hand, it upheld the freedom of political speech even when using a religious symbol. Degrading religion offends all members of the religious community, criticism of the religiosity of public actors, however, is protected by the freedom of speech. |
Public Health Emergency: National, European and International Law Responses |
On the Constitutionality of the Punishment of Scaremongering in the Hungarian Legal System |
Journal | Hungarian Yearbook of International Law and European Law, Issue 1 2021 |
Keywords | scaremongering, clear and present danger, COVID-19 pandemic, freedom of expression, Constitutional Court of Hungary |
Authors | András Koltay |
AbstractAuthor's information |
Scaremongering criminalized as a limitation to freedom of speech in Hungarian law. In lack of relevant case-law, free speech commentators rarely discussed the provision until the Government took action to step up the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ensuing amendment of the Criminal Code in Spring 2020 brought the subject back to the forefront of public debate. The article analyses the constitutional issues related to the criminalization of scaremongering, taking the two available Constitutional Court decisions rendered in this subject as guideline. Though the newly introduced legislation attracted widespread criticism in Hungary and elsewhere in Europe, a thorough examination of the new statutory elements makes it clear that public debate and critical opinions may not be stifled by prosecuting individuals for scaremongering. Although the applicable standard cannot yet be determined with full accuracy, the Constitutional Court’s decisions and relevant academic analysis resolve the main issues in order to protect freedom of expression, while the clarification of further details remains a matter for the case-law. |
Developments in European Law |
The First Ever Ultra Vires Judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court: PSPPWill the Barking Dog Bite More Than Once? |
Journal | Hungarian Yearbook of International Law and European Law, Issue 1 2021 |
Keywords | judicial dialogue, ultra vires, PSPP, German Federal Constitutional Court, infringement procedure |
Authors | Robert Böttner |
AbstractAuthor's information |
In May 2020, the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) delivered its judgment in the PSPP case. At first it seemed that it would be a remake of the Gauweiler/OMT case between the German Court and the CJEU. Shockingly, however, the German FCC decided that not only had the ECB acted ultra vires by failing to duly justify its PSPP decision, but it also found the CJEU to have delivered an incomprehensible and objectively arbitrary judgment by which the German Court was not bound. This case note not only traces the history of the PSPP proceedings, but it also tries to review the heavy criticism that the FCC’s verdict has garnered. In the context of European integration and due to the German FCC’s authority among supreme courts in Europe, it is a dangerous precedent, that the European Commission tries to curb through infringement proceedings. One can only hope that it will be settled for good and shall remain an unfortunate but singular incident. |