According to the main provisions of the construction contract a contractor is responsible for all the flaws on the building referring to the fulfillment of the legal obligations important for the building, if such flaws appear in the period of ten years after delivery and over-take of the building. The contractor is responsible for the flaws of the construction land on which the building was constructed which appeared in the period of ten years after delivery and over-take of the building, except in the case when in the study on geotechnical works or some other corresponding documents is stated that the land is appropriate for construction works and during the construction works there did not appear any circumstances which would raise doubts in justifiability of the above stated documents. The same rule applies to the project leader, if the flaw on the building or land is the result of some incorrectness in the project, as well as to the supervisor if the flaw on the building or land is the result of incorrect supervision. They bear responsibility not only to the investor but to all other building users too. Such responsibility cannot be excluded or limited by the contract.
The procedures of taxation and collection of taxes are especially important (for physical and legal persons) to the tax payers as well as to the state. However, the determination of the tax amount and the collection of taxes is performed according to the regulations defined by the state – tax creditor only, so the rights of the other party can be violated through e.g. the application of the unconstitutional regulations or illegitimate acts of the tax authorities. Therefore, in the constitutional and legal systems of democratic societies all the citizens – tax payers have the right to the appeal against specific legal decisions made in the firstinstance procedures at the courts or other authorized bodies. The Constitutional Court protects against the violations of the human rights and basic freedom. In Croatia the constitutional and legal means of protection are the claims and the request for determination of the compliance of the acts to the Constitution and other regulations to the Constitution and the law.
A tax burden is the amount of tax which a tax payer is obliged to pay in order to fullfil the tax liabilities i.e. to settle the tax debt. Usually, the tax payment supervison is performed by tax authorities, whereby the tax payer is just a passive observer, who reacts only in the cases of a complaint to the protocol, a complaint to the decision or a legal suit. Otherwise, the burden of proof of tax enforcement results in inconvenience due to impossibility to prove some fact through evidence or some other way determined by the law. In formal terms, the burden of proof is a legal obligation of each party in the process of presenting the evidence on their thesis (burden of evidence presentation) , the consequence of which is the fact that the court will infer that such facts do not exist if the process of evidence presentation does not succeed (burden of convincing the court). In other words, the burden of proof is one of the practical mechanisms of resolving factual doubts in unclear situations.
The principle of trust in land registers is an important principle in the system of the Croatian proprietary law. The article deals with its effects and application in the practice of the county courts and the Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia. The protection of trust in authenticity and completeness of the land registers, regulated by the Property Law and other proprietary laws, is not to be applied in favour of the acquisitions until 1 January 2010, if they refer to the real estate registered as a socially-owned property, which was not erased before the above stated Law came into effect. The author of the article points out that the consistent application of the above stated legal regulations is very important in the future, taking into consideration their nature. The author thinks that the court practice should first of all start with these principles of the consistent and meaningful explanation and application of the law.
The financing instruments of public utilities include the sales prices of their products and services, compensations and contributions, compensations from the state budget, loans, funds from domestic and foreign investors and other sources. However, the compensations have a dominating role in financing of public utilities. Whereas the system of public revenues comprises taxes, the financial theory has to date not included customs duties and contributions into fiscal incomes. The experience so far has shown that there is a large number of compensations and compensation types which have not been determined by certain norms. If this is considered as a specific form of the public revenue with its autonomous characteristics and principles, then the financial theory and practice have the task to finally define the notion of compensations according to the determin ed norms. The special status of such a revenue will theroretically and in terms of law contribute to the better understanding and consistency of the entire financial system.
Autor: Doc. dr. sc. Nataša ŽUNIĆ-KOVAČEVIĆ, dipl. iur.
The author of the text analyses a court decision referring to the estimation of the rightful amount of the damages for the mental anguish, which resulted in the reduced life activities. He points out when the injured party has the right to the indemnity for physical damages and explains the criteria of estimating the amount of damages for the mental anguish due to the reduced life activities. The article contains a review of the court practice (according to the old Act on Obligatory Relations) as well as the explanation of the above stated issue according to the new Act on Obligatory Relations. In the conclusion the author states his opinion well-argumented that the court decision referring to the damages for mental anguish sustained should take into consideration the amount of indemnity for physical damages due to the reduced life activities, which the injured person – the plaintiff had the right to or could have the right to according to the regulations of the disablement insurance.
The article deals with the issue of protection of rights of an association member referring to the illegitimate decision on exclusion of a member from the association. In view of the constitutional position of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia, which among other things ensures the unique application of the law, the Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia would not have the right to take away the authorization, which was previously possible before the accepted opinion of the Supreme Court. The Administrative Court should act in the case when the excluded association member applies to them with the request to protect him/her against the final specific document on exclusion from the association (according to the Association Act). In this case it should be taken into consideration that such a way of legal protection is different from the administrative lawsuit, which is filed against the final administrative document and which is not the decision made by the association authorities.
Tourist land refers to the real estate used by the companies engaged in tourist activities, the ownership status of which has not been solved, i.e. it is not clear whether they have been included into transition, who their owners are and what legal form they are going to have. The author of the article tries to differentiate the situations in which the companies (successors of former enterprises) do not have any rights on the real estate from the situations in which the companies have the right which is not recognised. The article also deals with the procedures to be made referring to the tourist lands:
firstly, it should be determined whether the enterprise(now the company) had the right to use the real estate.
if the company obtained the right to use the real estate and if in the time of transition it had the right to use the real estate, it should be determined whether the value of this real estate was estimated in the Estimate Study. If such a fact does not exist in the Estimate Study it is determined by the expert evaluation.
if the company did not have the right to use the real estate, it neither has the right to ownership nor the right to its acquiring.
if the company had the right to use the real estate but did not estimate the value of the real estate in the Estimate Study, the Art. 47. of the Privatization Act is to be used with all its vaguanesses and doubts
if the value of the real estate has been determined in the Estimate Study (and there is no audit of the Study which would exclude this value), the company is the owner of the real estate.
In functional terms the administration is a part of the state activities engaged in the direct application of the law and other regulations comprising primarily passing of specific administrative by-laws, carrying out some professional work and material and technical activities. From the organizational point of view the administration is a group of state and public bodies, who, within their public authority, pass specific administrative by-laws aimed at direct application of the law and other regulations, carry out professional work and perform material and technical activities. In Croatia the activities of the state administration comprise the direct application of the law, defining the regulations for its application, administrative supervision and other administrative and professional work. The Croatian administrative system includes four bodies of the state administration such as Ministries (17 at the moment), the Central Administrative Office, the State Administrative Organisation and the State Administration Office in the counties.
The ability of a certain company to achieve its goals, to carry out the tasks and to contribute to its environment depends on its social capital and human resources. Unlike the resources available in personal and business networks (social capital), human resources comprise the knowledge, skills and experience of individuals and the whole teams working on their common projects. The author of the article points out that companies are rather rational entities which have to develop certain resources (capital) and the networks of internal and external communication in order to exist, develop and be competitive.
The taxation obstacles in old-age pension insurance (oldage care) can most efficiently be solved through the real application of the general freedoms guaranteed by the Contract on Establishment of the European Union. They comprise the freedom of free capital movement, the freedom of free movement of workforce and the freedom of service provision. According to the provisions of the above stated Contract the member countries are obliged to avoid tax discriminations of old-age pension insurance through the engagement of old-age pension insurance funds in other member countries, which has been confirmed by the corresponding decisions of the European Court. In view of the provisions of the above stated Contract (and their further applications in the decisions of the European Court) it can be concluded that the national regulations, which without any justifiable reason make tax limitations of the insurance (old-age pension insurance and life insurance), are not in accordance with the European law. Therefore, the European Commission has been trying to clear up the existing provisions of the above stated Contract referring to this issue.
Nedavno je u izdanju nakladničke kuće "Zgombić & Partneri" objavljena knjiga mr. sc. Zorislava Kaleba, suca Kaznenog odjela Općinskog suda u Zagrebu, pod nazivom: "Gospodarska kaznena djela iz područja vrijednosnih papira i trgovačkih društava" s podnaslovom "Gospodarski kriminal u vezi trgovačkih društava i vrijednosnih papira, njegovo otkrivanje i suzbijanje". Recenzenti knjige su bili mr. sc. Gordana Mršić, savjetnica u Hrvatskoj gospodarskoj komori i mr. sc. Ivica Pezo, sudac i novi predsjednik Općinskog građanskog suda u Zagrebu. Riječ je o vrlo aktualnoj temi s obzirom na to da je u knjigu uvršten i obrađen novi Zakon o hrvatskoj agenciji za nadzor financijskih ulaganja koji je stupio na snagu 1. siječnja 2006.
