La Direttiva 2008/104/CE relativa al lavoro tramite agenzia interinale: aspetti problematici e modelli di implementazione = Directive 2008/104/EC relating to temporary agency work: problematic aspects and implementation models. WP C.S.D.L.E. “Massimo D’Antona”.INT – 101/2013

The problematic gestation of the Directive on temporary agency work shows the presence of several criticalities that there are also in the national transposition in relation to the principle of equal treatment and to the mechanisms for preventing abuse during successive assignments. From a first analysis it can be said that in some EU Member States only the derogations have been implemented and not the general principle of equal treatment. At the same time, the obligation of the Member States, contained in the Directive on temporary agency work, to establish mechanisms for preventing abuse during successive assignments is crucial, especially in the light of the recent case law of the EU Court of Justice in which the Court does not apply to the temporary agency workers the protective rules of the Directive on fixed-term contracts (see C-290/12 , Della Rocca).

Judicial Selection, Lay Participation, and Judicial Culture in the Czech Republic: A Study in a Central European (Non)Transformation. College of Europe Research Paper in Law 03/2014

Introduction. The idea that “merit” should be the guiding principle of judicial selections is a universal principle, unlikely to be contested in whatever legal system. What differs considerably across legal cultures, however, is the way in which “merit” is defined. For deeper cultural and historical reasons, the current definition of “merit” in the process of judicial selections in the Czech Republic, at least in the way it is implemented in the institutional settings, is an odd mongrel. The old technocratic Austrian judicial heritage has in some aspects merged with, in others was altered or destroyed, by the Communist past. After 1989, some aspects of the judicial organisation were amended, with the most problematic elements removed. Furthermore, several old as well as new provisions relating to the judiciary were struck down by the Constitutional Court. However, apart from these rather haphazard interventions, there has been neither a sustained discussion as to how a new judicial architecture and system of judicial appointments ought to look like nor much of broader, conceptual reform in this regard. Thus, some twenty five years after the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the guiding principles for judicial selection and appointments are still a debate to be had.