Rule of law and institutional legitimacy : challenges of transition, challenges of Europe

Recent European events have revealed that some EU Member States, including some South Eastern European (see) States, still struggle with the rule of law. While certain rule of law challenges may be due to past legacies and insufficient (or insufficiently successful) transitions, others may be the result of the transition itself and of contemporary socio-economic problems that are experienced across Europe. This article will address the state of the rule of law in see, reflecting first on some pre-, mid-, and post-transition problems relevant for the rule of law in these countries. Next, it will address the legal and socio-psychological impact of the challenges posed by the mentioned problems, connecting the (mis) trust that can be observed on several levels (internally and externally) with the rule of law, thus demonstrating that mistrust as such has social as well as legal consequences. If trust (e.g. in the effectiveness of the rule of law safeguards or in those who are entrusted with safeguarding it) is lacking, this represents a problem not only for the Member State (e.g. for the functioning and perceived legitimacy of its judicial system) in question, but also for the EU (e.g. for the judicial cooperation in criminal matters). Lastly, the article will examine the EU'S perspective on rule of law, drawing on the recent EU Framework to Strengthen the Rule of Law, which aims to ensure an effective and coherent protection of the rule of law in all Member States, as well as on some other EU documents that may, in our view, help address the current challenges in European rule of law

Prostitution in times of economic crisis: effects, human agency and societal responses

In times of economic hardship both formal and informal economy are affected. The paper begins by inspecting the characteristics of the informal economy, some of which may act as disadvantages as well as advantages, addressing prostitution as one type of informal economic activity. Looking at the available data, we then observe in which way and to what extent the current global financial crisis has affected the informal economy, in general, and prostitution, in particular. Next, we examine the agency and strategies of the individual within the unregulated, often illegal and certainly vulnerable economic space of prostitution by describing some existing cases as expressions of agency of a class of persons often regarded as passive victims. Lastly, we turn to the societal reaction towards prostitution, which codetermines the social structure within which the agent – the prostitute acts. The paper concludes with some observations on future trends, appealing to a reasonable and emphatic policy-making in the area of prostitution, and offers some suggestions for future policy-making and research

Legitimacy and effectiveness of judiciary: some criminologically less visible aspects and new challenges for Europe highlighted

In the recent years, the trust-related issues of legitimacy of the criminal justice system have received increased criminological attention, although the research has predominantly focused on the police, to a much lesser extent on the judiciary. Issues of fairness of treatment or procedural justice seem to have overshadowed some of the other legitimacy-building factors, such as distributive justice concerns, decision-related or quality of justice dimensions and structural factors in the legitimacy-of-justice equation. The paper will shed light on these latter, in criminological research much more neglected, aspects of judicial legitimacy, by among others taking a closer look at the recent European Commission interventions against two Member States whose actions posed structural and individual threats to judicial independence. Furthermore, the paper shall address the current European justice-related challenges and the new European Union tool, the EU Justice Scoreboard, which has been developed to help counter these challenges (particularly the challenges to the quality, independence and efficiency of national justice systems, and consequently to the effectiveness of EU law) by allowing progressively more detailed assessment of the functioning of justice systems (of their strengths and weaknesses) in all Member States