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.

The German Constitutional Court’s decision about the European Central Bank’s OMT [Outright Monetary Transactions] mechanism: A masterpiece of judicial arrogance. European Policy Briefs No. 30, April 2014

The German Constitutional Court (BVG) recently referred different questions to the European Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. They concern the legality of the European Central Bank’s Outright Monetary Transaction mechanism created in 2012. Simultaneously, the German Court has threatened to disrupt the implementation of OTM in Germany if its very restrictive analysis is not validated by the European Court of Justice. This raises fundamental questions about the future efficiency of the ECB’s monetary policy, the damage to the independence of the ECB, the balance of power between judges and political organs in charge of economic policy, in Germany and in Europe, and finally the relationship between the BVG and other national or European courts.

Dictamen de la H. Comisión de Constitución y Policía Judicial en el juicio de responsabilidad contra el ex-Ministro de Justicia y Hacienda don Alfredo Ascarrunz.

Cover title.

La inmunidad parlamentaria como excepción judicial; estudio jurídico-constitucional,

Cover title.

Opinions and decision in the United States of America on behalf on North American Dredging Company of Texas, claimant, v. the United Mexican States. Docket no. 1223, March 31, 1926.

Mode of access: Internet.

Compendio de la Gaceta judicial.

Compiled by dr. Octavio Moscoso.

Defensa judicial del Dr. Miguel A. Granado, ante la Corte Superior del Distrito de Cochabamba en los juicios de imprenta contra los directores de "El Ferrocarril", por los delitos de libelos injuriosos y calumniosos.

Mode of access: Internet.

Atentados contra Lucio P. Velasco. El poder judicial ante la opinión pública.

Mode of access: Internet.

Gaceta judicial

Mode of access: Internet.

Discurso pronunciado por el señor presidente de la Corte del Distrito, doctor Eulogio Bayá, en la apertura del año judicial de 1899.

Mode of access: Internet.

Farm economics facts and opinions.

Issued with the University of Illinois Department of Agricultural Economics.