Pub Date : 2018-11-20DOI: 10.17573/CEPAR.2018.2.10
M. Dečman
With the increasing role of information and communication technology (ICT) in the society, ICT’s role is gaining importance in the aspect of provision and use of the public sector services for the citizens. Especially in the European Union different activities have been conducted through the years to promote ICT use in the society. It has been mainly based on the Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE), which underlines the key role of ICT in the efforts to achieve its strategic objectives. Slovenia as an EU member state follows these directions but positions itself among less successful states in the EU. The well-known European Digital Economy and Society Index ranks Slovenia to the lower half of member states indicating possibilities for improvement. Although much can be said and done about the service-providers side this paper focuses on the users’ side and especially on their digital inequality. The lack of studies in the area of digital inequality and online government services adoption and use is the main motivation for this research. The research uses the data provided by Slovenian annual survey Use of Information and Communication Technology in Households and by Individuals of the last four years. The analysis of this data, presented in the paper, exhibits that changes for the better are detected in Slovenian society, but the situation in public-sector services is not optima. The results demonstrate the existence of digital inequality considering the income level of households and education level of individual users. The synthesis of the data demonstrates that the Slovenian government and its ministries should consider adding tangible actions to the already set strategies if the country wants to catch up with the leading countries of the EU and achieve goals, set by the DAE.
{"title":"The Analysis of E-Government Services Adoption and Use in Slovenian Information Society between 2014 and 2017","authors":"M. Dečman","doi":"10.17573/CEPAR.2018.2.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17573/CEPAR.2018.2.10","url":null,"abstract":"With the increasing role of information and communication technology (ICT) in the society, ICT’s role is gaining importance in the aspect of provision and use of the public sector services for the citizens. Especially in the European Union different activities have been conducted through the years to promote ICT use in the society. It has been mainly based on the Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE), which underlines the key role of ICT in the efforts to achieve its strategic objectives. Slovenia as an EU member state follows these directions but positions itself among less successful states in the EU. The well-known European Digital Economy and Society Index ranks Slovenia to the lower half of member states indicating possibilities for improvement. Although much can be said and done about the service-providers side this paper focuses on the users’ side and especially on their digital inequality. The lack of studies in the area of digital inequality and online government services adoption and use is the main motivation for this research. The research uses the data provided by Slovenian annual survey Use of Information and Communication Technology in Households and by Individuals of the last four years. The analysis of this data, presented in the paper, exhibits that changes for the better are detected in Slovenian society, but the situation in public-sector services is not optima. The results demonstrate the existence of digital inequality considering the income level of households and education level of individual users. The synthesis of the data demonstrates that the Slovenian government and its ministries should consider adding tangible actions to the already set strategies if the country wants to catch up with the leading countries of the EU and achieve goals, set by the DAE.","PeriodicalId":53802,"journal":{"name":"Central European Public Administration Review","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41560655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-11-20DOI: 10.17573/CEPAR.2018.2.05
A. Simonati
The concept of ownership, which (in Italy and similarly in other European systems) is still essentially based on private law rules, is currently not sufficient to ensure the satisfaction of the general interest in an increasingly wide access to scarce resources, in the perspective of equality and fairness on the field. At the same time, strong criticism has been expressed about the frequent phenomenon of privatisation of originally public assets and resources. The threats to the pursuit of the public benefit posed by privatisation may be tackled by constructing a new legal framework, aimed to protect the right of the populations to be involved not only in the use, but also in the management of the commons. An expression of this idea is the draft European Charter of the Commons, which is the result of a collective brain-storming by a group of scholars rather than a source of law. Its non-normative nature has allowed its authors to express particularly ‘brave’ positions. This article takes the Charter as a starting point to focus on some open issues. The main proposal concerns the possible exploitation of new participatory models for the involvement of communities of users in the strategic decisions on the management of the commons. In such perspective, a brief reference to the Italian legal system is made. In Italy, there are no systemic rules about the commons, but some procedures to involve the interested local communities in the strategic choices have been experimented, which can serve as an illustration also for otherEU countries.
{"title":"The (Draft) European Charter of the Commons – Between Opportunities and Challenges","authors":"A. Simonati","doi":"10.17573/CEPAR.2018.2.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17573/CEPAR.2018.2.05","url":null,"abstract":"The concept of ownership, which (in Italy and similarly in other European systems) is still essentially based on private law rules, is currently not sufficient to ensure the satisfaction of the general interest in an increasingly wide access to scarce resources, in the perspective of equality and fairness on the field. At the same time, strong criticism has been expressed about the frequent phenomenon of privatisation of originally public assets and resources. The threats to the pursuit of the public benefit posed by privatisation may be tackled by constructing a new legal framework, aimed to protect the right of the populations to be involved not only in the use, but also in the management of the commons. An expression of this idea is the draft European Charter of the Commons, which is the result of a collective brain-storming by a group of scholars rather than a source of law. Its non-normative nature has allowed its authors to express particularly ‘brave’ positions. This article takes the Charter as a starting point to focus on some open issues. The main proposal concerns the possible exploitation of new participatory models for the involvement of communities of users in the strategic decisions on the management of the commons. In such perspective, a brief reference to the Italian legal system is made. In Italy, there are no systemic rules about the commons, but some procedures to involve the interested local communities in the strategic choices have been experimented, which can serve as an illustration also for otherEU countries.","PeriodicalId":53802,"journal":{"name":"Central European Public Administration Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46062366","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-11-20DOI: 10.17573/cepar.2018.2.06
I. Golob
This article presents a comparative and empirical analysis of the service or the delivery of documents in procedures, as the key procedural action to constitute legal effects in legal relationships. In Slovenia, service is largely defined by the three main procedural laws – the General Administrative Procedure Act, the Criminal Procedure Act, and the Contentious Civil Procedure Act. These relate to different types and specifics of relationships; for instance, in administrative proceedings, the public interest prevails over private ones. The presented research, applying predominantly normative and comparative methods and analysis of case law, aims to show the importance of the specificity of the different areas and of the rules of service in different proceedings. The results of the research suggest that in certain cases service should be regulated in a uniform manner. Yet the specific aims of various legal relations require individual solutions. Thus, the article opens up grounds for future comparative research and practical regulatory improvements.
{"title":"The Service of Documents in Administrative Procedural Law – A Comparative Analysis","authors":"I. Golob","doi":"10.17573/cepar.2018.2.06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17573/cepar.2018.2.06","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents a comparative and empirical analysis of the service or the delivery of documents in procedures, as the key procedural action to constitute legal effects in legal relationships. In Slovenia, service is largely defined by the three main procedural laws – the General Administrative Procedure Act, the Criminal Procedure Act, and the Contentious Civil Procedure Act. These relate to different types and specifics of relationships; for instance, in administrative proceedings, the public interest prevails over private ones. The presented research, applying predominantly normative and comparative methods and analysis of case law, aims to show the importance of the specificity of the different areas and of the rules of service in different proceedings. The results of the research suggest that in certain cases service should be regulated in a uniform manner. Yet the specific aims of various legal relations require individual solutions. Thus, the article opens up grounds for future comparative research and practical regulatory improvements.","PeriodicalId":53802,"journal":{"name":"Central European Public Administration Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47712430","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-11-19DOI: 10.17573/CEPAR.2018.2.01
Tina Jukic, Blaž Svete
The paper presents a contribution to the rapidly growing field of social networks usage in public administration organizations. Despite the increasing volume of research in this field, there is a lack of detailed empirical evidence. To address the issue, we aim here at comprehensive empirical analysis of the usage of Facebook as the most popular social networking site among Slovenian municipalities. The methodology of research is based on 21 indicators measuring usage, engagement, multichannel features, multi-media content, and the existence of a social networks usage strategy. The measurement has been performed in each of the 212 Slovenian municipalities. Their Facebook interaction has been observed in a period of six months, from November 2015 to May 2016. The analysis results reveal that only 36% of the Slovenian municipalities were present on Facebook in 2016, with almost a quarter having a zero interaction rate on their Facebook pages/profiles in the observed six-month period. In particular, one-way interaction was recorded on municipal Facebook pages, leaving considerable room for improvement as regards the usage of Facebook as a social network with the highest potential of reach and engagement in terms of number of its users. The results are useful for information and benchmarking purposes for Slovenian and foreign municipal managers.
{"title":"The Use of Facebook in the Slovenian Local Self-Government: Empirical Evidence","authors":"Tina Jukic, Blaž Svete","doi":"10.17573/CEPAR.2018.2.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17573/CEPAR.2018.2.01","url":null,"abstract":"The paper presents a contribution to the rapidly growing field of social networks usage in public administration organizations. Despite the increasing volume of research in this field, there is a lack of detailed empirical evidence. To address the issue, we aim here at comprehensive empirical analysis of the usage of Facebook as the most popular social networking site among Slovenian municipalities. The methodology of research is based on 21 indicators measuring usage, engagement, multichannel features, multi-media content, and the existence of a social networks usage strategy. The measurement has been performed in each of the 212 Slovenian municipalities. Their Facebook interaction has been observed in a period of six months, from November 2015 to May 2016. The analysis results reveal that only 36% of the Slovenian municipalities were present on Facebook in 2016, with almost a quarter having a zero interaction rate on their Facebook pages/profiles in the observed six-month period. In particular, one-way interaction was recorded on municipal Facebook pages, leaving considerable room for improvement as regards the usage of Facebook as a social network with the highest potential of reach and engagement in terms of number of its users. The results are useful for information and benchmarking purposes for Slovenian and foreign municipal managers.","PeriodicalId":53802,"journal":{"name":"Central European Public Administration Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-11-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41701932","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-11-19DOI: 10.17573/CEPAR.2018.2.02
M. Mabić, Dražena Gašpar
This article analyses the presence and activity on the field of social media in the countries that belonged to the same state in the past: Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH), Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia – these named as Western Balkan Countries (WBCs) – and, Slovenia and Croatia as EU member states. The authors have analysed the official profiles of the respective countries on social media and calculated the Facebook Assessment Index (FAI) for WBCs, and Croatia and Slovenia as a benchmark. The results show that Twitter and Facebook are the most used social media. In WBCs group, the FAI index could not be calculated for BIH and Serbia, while the other two countries had high index values. Benchmark countries have lower values but they are significantly highlighted by individual sub-indices. The governments of the researched countries mostly publish promotional information about their work. Consequently, they have a relatively small number of friends/followers/subscribers and comments/shares/likes on social media. Therefore, these countries fail to use the full potential of social media to increase visibility and transparency of their work and to ensure communication channel for idea and information exchange between government and citizens, making the public policies design more inclusive and increasing trust between government and citizens. The findings provide an insight into the nature of activity on social media in WBCs. While FAI scores show that WBCs do not lag far behind established benchmarks, the research proves that some of the weights proposed in the literature and used in the calculation of FAI index are too simplified to adequately evaluate posts on the Facebook pages. Hence, this article contributes above all to the awareness regarding further potentials and the interdisciplinary aspects of stately social media usage, in theory and practice alike.
{"title":"Open Government, Social Media and Western Balkan Countries","authors":"M. Mabić, Dražena Gašpar","doi":"10.17573/CEPAR.2018.2.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17573/CEPAR.2018.2.02","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyses the presence and activity on the field of social media in the countries that belonged to the same state in the past: Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH), Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia – these named as Western Balkan Countries (WBCs) – and, Slovenia and Croatia as EU member states. The authors have analysed the official profiles of the respective countries on social media and calculated the Facebook Assessment Index (FAI) for WBCs, and Croatia and Slovenia as a benchmark. The results show that Twitter and Facebook are the most used social media. In WBCs group, the FAI index could not be calculated for BIH and Serbia, while the other two countries had high index values. Benchmark countries have lower values but they are significantly highlighted by individual sub-indices. The governments of the researched countries mostly publish promotional information about their work. Consequently, they have a relatively small number of friends/followers/subscribers and comments/shares/likes on social media. Therefore, these countries fail to use the full potential of social media to increase visibility and transparency of their work and to ensure communication channel for idea and information exchange between government and citizens, making the public policies design more inclusive and increasing trust between government and citizens. The findings provide an insight into the nature of activity on social media in WBCs. While FAI scores show that WBCs do not lag far behind established benchmarks, the research proves that some of the weights proposed in the literature and used in the calculation of FAI index are too simplified to adequately evaluate posts on the Facebook pages. Hence, this article contributes above all to the awareness regarding further potentials and the interdisciplinary aspects of stately social media usage, in theory and practice alike.","PeriodicalId":53802,"journal":{"name":"Central European Public Administration Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-11-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43964148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-11-14DOI: 10.17573/cepar.2018.2.03
Urša Jeretina
Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) could be the first important step towards adjusting the public Administration to the requirements of the digital era by introducing new e-disputes. In this context, this article examines the significance of the emergence of consumer ODR systems in EU as a new mechanism for resolving disputes, online ones included. It takes a theoretical research approach to evaluate the nature and scope of ODR development in the emerging field of e-governance and combine it with a comparative data analysis to identify the core positive and negative challenges in the use of ODR. Some EU member states have already adopted ODR as a tool for digital e-government and others are still in the period of its implementation. ODR has already proved effective resolution for at least some disputes (e.g. cross-border disputes), but unfortunately has not yet reached its full potential. The lack of relevant ODR case law is another issue that contributes to only gradual usage of ODR systems and their efficiency. Key findings are formulated as a list of challenges that EU has to face for efficient use of ODR and it as an important part within innovative European e-governance in the future.
{"title":"Consumer Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) – A Mechanism for Innovative E-governance in EU","authors":"Urša Jeretina","doi":"10.17573/cepar.2018.2.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17573/cepar.2018.2.03","url":null,"abstract":"Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) could be the first important step towards adjusting the public Administration to the requirements of the digital era by introducing new e-disputes. In this context, this article examines the significance of the emergence of consumer ODR systems in EU as a new mechanism for resolving disputes, online ones included. It takes a theoretical research approach to evaluate the nature and scope of ODR development in the emerging field of e-governance and combine it with a comparative data analysis to identify the core positive and negative challenges in the use of ODR. Some EU member states have already adopted ODR as a tool for digital e-government and others are still in the period of its implementation. ODR has already proved effective resolution for at least some disputes (e.g. cross-border disputes), but unfortunately has not yet reached its full potential. The lack of relevant ODR case law is another issue that contributes to only gradual usage of ODR systems and their efficiency. Key findings are formulated as a list of challenges that EU has to face for efficient use of ODR and it as an important part within innovative European e-governance in the future.","PeriodicalId":53802,"journal":{"name":"Central European Public Administration Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44913975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-11-01DOI: 10.17573/CEPAR.2018.2.04
C. Mueller, Bettina Engewald
Freedom of information acts (FOIA) aim to improve the public’s opportunities to access official information from public authorities and hence to increase the level of transparency. Thus, it is important to know whether and to what degree the effects intended by establishing FOIAs are achieved and how their implementation could be improved. Hence, this article presents the evaluation of the Hamburg Transparency Law (HmbTG)– Germany’s first FOIA that binds authorities to disclose government information proactively. The purpose of the paper is to provide a valuable example of how evaluating FOIA might produce useful information for policymakers and public authorities. The analysis results, based on a mixed set of methods (i.e. standardised surveys, statistical secondary data, qualitative expert interviews, and criteria-driven document analysis), lead to the conclusion that the HmbTG was very effective in providing the direct access. On the other hand, it was found that strategies for implementing the law varied considerably between authorities, yet proactive disclosure was overall implemented effectively. Moreover, this law shows some weaknesses to be improved in the future. Besides providing practitioners with valuable insights into how a transparency law may be implemented, the evaluation of the HmbTG also provides researchers with ideas how FOIA evaluation might be conducted comprehensively.
{"title":"Making Transparency Work: Experiences from the Evaluation of the Hamburg Transparency Law","authors":"C. Mueller, Bettina Engewald","doi":"10.17573/CEPAR.2018.2.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17573/CEPAR.2018.2.04","url":null,"abstract":"Freedom of information acts (FOIA) aim to improve the public’s opportunities to access official information from public authorities and hence to increase the level of transparency. Thus, it is important to know whether and to what degree the effects intended by establishing FOIAs are achieved and how their implementation could be improved. Hence, this article presents the evaluation of the Hamburg Transparency Law (HmbTG)– Germany’s first FOIA that binds authorities to disclose government information proactively. The purpose of the paper is to provide a valuable example of how evaluating FOIA might produce useful information for policymakers and public authorities. The analysis results, based on a mixed set of methods (i.e. standardised surveys, statistical secondary data, qualitative expert interviews, and criteria-driven document analysis), lead to the conclusion that the HmbTG was very effective in providing the direct access. On the other hand, it was found that strategies for implementing the law varied considerably between authorities, yet proactive disclosure was overall implemented effectively. Moreover, this law shows some weaknesses to be improved in the future. Besides providing practitioners with valuable insights into how a transparency law may be implemented, the evaluation of the HmbTG also provides researchers with ideas how FOIA evaluation might be conducted comprehensively.","PeriodicalId":53802,"journal":{"name":"Central European Public Administration Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44288529","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-06-01DOI: 10.17573/CEPAR.V16I1.358
Alžbeta Králová
The paper tackles a widely discussed but still rather under-researched area of asylum and immigration law, more precisely its procedural aspects and its interactions within the public administration and administrative judiciary. It contributes to the debate about the Europeanization of public administration within the specific context of asylum and immigration law.The purpose of the paper is to examine the influence of European Union law on the legal regulation of administrative and judicial review of decisions rendered in asylum and immigration procedures.The research is based on an in-depth analysis of the dynamics of amendments and the motivation of national legislation while adopting new procedural rules in the above-mentioned areas on the case of the Czech Republic (based on the description and analysis of the legal regulation, explanatory memoranda and the case law, supplemented with certain comparative aspects). The procedural autonomy principle gets increasingly limited by other principles, namely the effectiveness principle and the principle of effective judicial protection. The paper therefore focuses on the margin of appreciation left to the national legislator: it determines whether the principle of procedural autonomy keeps the real relevancy while harmonising the asylum and immigration law and what is the influence of tensions between the aforementioned principles.The research shows that the legislator still maintains quite a wide degree of margin of appreciation in the administrative and judicial review of asylum and immigration decisions (apart from the visa procedures). However, a broadening of the interpretation of the effective judicial protection principle as provided by Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU decreases the scope of procedural autonomy and has the potential to influence not only individual legal remedy, but also the system of administrative or judicial remedies as such. Besides the overall findings related to the influence of European Union law on the review in asylum and immigration procedures, the article tackles numerous practical implications of amendments based in European Union law and practical challenges for the administrative and judicial review in concerned area of law.The paper provides a reaction to tensions coming from the need to find the balance between the obligation to provide an effective remedy and between the autonomy of Member States and their attempts to preserve national procedural traditions and specificities within the system of administrative and judicial review. It is original by its overall view on the problematic of remedies in asylum and immigration law and by a new perspective of interactions between national legislation and European Union law. Although the research is limited to the case study of the Czech Republic, certain aspects apply to other Member States with similarities within their system of administrative and judicial review.
{"title":"Legal remedies in asylum and immigration law: the balance between effectiveness and procedural autonomy?","authors":"Alžbeta Králová","doi":"10.17573/CEPAR.V16I1.358","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17573/CEPAR.V16I1.358","url":null,"abstract":"The paper tackles a widely discussed but still rather under-researched area of asylum and immigration law, more precisely its procedural aspects and its interactions within the public administration and administrative judiciary. It contributes to the debate about the Europeanization of public administration within the specific context of asylum and immigration law.The purpose of the paper is to examine the influence of European Union law on the legal regulation of administrative and judicial review of decisions rendered in asylum and immigration procedures.The research is based on an in-depth analysis of the dynamics of amendments and the motivation of national legislation while adopting new procedural rules in the above-mentioned areas on the case of the Czech Republic (based on the description and analysis of the legal regulation, explanatory memoranda and the case law, supplemented with certain comparative aspects). The procedural autonomy principle gets increasingly limited by other principles, namely the effectiveness principle and the principle of effective judicial protection. The paper therefore focuses on the margin of appreciation left to the national legislator: it determines whether the principle of procedural autonomy keeps the real relevancy while harmonising the asylum and immigration law and what is the influence of tensions between the aforementioned principles.The research shows that the legislator still maintains quite a wide degree of margin of appreciation in the administrative and judicial review of asylum and immigration decisions (apart from the visa procedures). However, a broadening of the interpretation of the effective judicial protection principle as provided by Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU decreases the scope of procedural autonomy and has the potential to influence not only individual legal remedy, but also the system of administrative or judicial remedies as such. Besides the overall findings related to the influence of European Union law on the review in asylum and immigration procedures, the article tackles numerous practical implications of amendments based in European Union law and practical challenges for the administrative and judicial review in concerned area of law.The paper provides a reaction to tensions coming from the need to find the balance between the obligation to provide an effective remedy and between the autonomy of Member States and their attempts to preserve national procedural traditions and specificities within the system of administrative and judicial review. It is original by its overall view on the problematic of remedies in asylum and immigration law and by a new perspective of interactions between national legislation and European Union law. Although the research is limited to the case study of the Czech Republic, certain aspects apply to other Member States with similarities within their system of administrative and judicial review.","PeriodicalId":53802,"journal":{"name":"Central European Public Administration Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41564826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-05-31DOI: 10.17573/CEPAR.V16I1.357
Agata Jurkowska-Gomułka
A problem of counteracting bargaining powers of retailers, specially in agri-food sector, has been recently addressed by regulations in a few European countries but so far it has not been subject to academic considerations.A paper aims at finding rationales of granting administrative bodies with competences of interfering in contractual relationships between market players in reference to an abuse or misuse of bargaining power and to assess a possibility and probability of balancing public and private interests by administrative bodies applying regulations on counteracting an unfair use of a bargaining power. A point of reference for considerations is a Polish regulation dated from December 2016 - Act on Counteracting the Unfair Use of Contractual Advantage in the Trade in Agricultural and Food Products.In a lack of relevant case law a paper is based on a descriptive method of research as well as a method of conceptual analysis.A paper contests a correctness and rationality of selecting a competition authority as an enforcer of a discussed regulation. A competition authority seems to be caught in a trap of opposite (public and private) interests - an antitrust authority shall undertake an intervention in an interest of a private entity which in many situations may be seen as an intervention against public interest.A paper contributes to an ongoing discussion on EU's proposals for actions on eliminating imbalances between big retailing networks and food suppliers.
{"title":"Competition authority in a trap? A few (bitter) words on making public policy by counteracting an unfair use of a contractual advantage in agri-food sector in Poland","authors":"Agata Jurkowska-Gomułka","doi":"10.17573/CEPAR.V16I1.357","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17573/CEPAR.V16I1.357","url":null,"abstract":"A problem of counteracting bargaining powers of retailers, specially in agri-food sector, has been recently addressed by regulations in a few European countries but so far it has not been subject to academic considerations.A paper aims at finding rationales of granting administrative bodies with competences of interfering in contractual relationships between market players in reference to an abuse or misuse of bargaining power and to assess a possibility and probability of balancing public and private interests by administrative bodies applying regulations on counteracting an unfair use of a bargaining power. A point of reference for considerations is a Polish regulation dated from December 2016 - Act on Counteracting the Unfair Use of Contractual Advantage in the Trade in Agricultural and Food Products.In a lack of relevant case law a paper is based on a descriptive method of research as well as a method of conceptual analysis.A paper contests a correctness and rationality of selecting a competition authority as an enforcer of a discussed regulation. A competition authority seems to be caught in a trap of opposite (public and private) interests - an antitrust authority shall undertake an intervention in an interest of a private entity which in many situations may be seen as an intervention against public interest.A paper contributes to an ongoing discussion on EU's proposals for actions on eliminating imbalances between big retailing networks and food suppliers.","PeriodicalId":53802,"journal":{"name":"Central European Public Administration Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44994531","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-05-31DOI: 10.17573/CEPAR.V16I1.364
P. Kovač, Tina Jukic
In April 2018, the Faculty of Administration of the University of Ljubljana organised a two-day international workshop on the role of public administration in public policies' design. The workshop consisted of four parts: three sessions and one round table. In the first session, discussion was about evaluating public administration and public governance. The second session focused on the identification of the key success factors for effective public policies in Slovenia. These sessions were initiated based on the research project “Development of the model for monitoring and evaluation of development programmes and projects in public sector”, known as the ATENA project. The project is co-funded by the Slovenian Research Agency for the period 2016–2019 (no. J5-7557) and led by prof. dr. Mirko Vintar (cf. Mencinger et al., 2017). The third session was motivated by the European research project EUPACK (European Public Administration Country Knowledge), focused on the analysis of public administration characteristics and performance in EU Member States (see Thijs, Hammerschmid & Palaric 2018). A special part of the workshop was devoted to the 15th anniversary of the Central European Public Administration Review. Here, a round table was conducted with the editors-in-chief of established public administration journals from the region, followed by an editors and reviewers recognition awards ceremony. The discussions were all very fruitful, also thanks to the participation of several internationally recognised scholars from the Netherlands, Croatia, Germany, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovenia, as well as around twenty representatives of Slovenian ministries, other administrative authorities and non-governmental organisations. In a dynamic debate that comprehensively covered the evaluation in public policy cycle and the role of public administration and university therein, numerous issues were discussed. Below is a report on the main topics discussed in the workshop.
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