The debtor who is late with cash payment owes to the debtor the capital amount and legal default interests. However, in case when the parties have agreed on some non-cash act, they can include in the contract a penalty for the debtor in case his/her undue fulfillment of liabilities. Unlike legal interest rates such a penalty must be stipulated in the contract (therefore the term contract penalty is used). If the contract does not include the specific penalty the creditor can only through a court decision on distraint claim for court penalties for the debtor in case he/she does not fulfill the contract obligations. The regulations on a contract penalty are included in the Articles 350 to 356. of the Act on obligatory Relations. They include the rules on the way of determining a court penalty, its amount and the legal consequences of the contract, the cases in which a debtor is obliged to pay a contract penalty and the relation between a contract penalty and other similar institutes. On the other hand, the regulations on court penalties are determined by the Act on Distraint as one of the way of distraints in order to realize the non-cash compensation. Court penalties represent a means of realization of distraint, a penalty for the distrainee and a kind of compensation for a distraint officer, althout they do not function as a compensation for damages to the distraint officer.
The new Act on Obligatory Relations which came into effect at the beginning of 2006 has a substantial number of novelties in view of compensation of damages and interests. Besides the changes in terminology the most important novelty refers to the time of due payment of cash compensation for intangible damages (in some more serious cases – violation of personality rights). The compensation for such damages is due upon creditor’s requirement for settlement of payment, which implies an earlier beginning of the period of default interests compared to the previous Act on Obligatory Relations. In view of compensation of tangible damage there is an issue of interpretation of its due payment to a certain amount. Such receivables should be expressed by default interests according to the general regulations on due payment and the right to default interests.
The Act on Investment Incentives came into effect two years ago. It represents an attractive and initiating legal framework for domestic and foreign investors with the aim of strenghtening the complete investment and economic activities in the Republic of Croatia. The goal of the above stated Act is to be accessible to a wide range of investors including the sector of small and middle-sized companies, new enterprises and the existing enterprises. The amount of incentives should depend on the development degree of specific areas in the Republic of Croatia. Investment incentives actually comprise the system of investment incentives into economic activities on the teritorry of Croatia and opening of new jobs connected to such investments. The strategic areas of the application of the above stated Act comprise manufacturing and processing acitivities, technological and developing and inovation centres and business policy activities.
If an injured party has through his/her behaviour contributed to his/her own damage, it is not justifiable that the person responsible for the damage compensates the full damage, but only a part of it and the rest of the damage should be compensated by the injured party. This refers to the minor injured party as well. Accordingly, the legislation has included a legal institute – contribution of injured party to own damages which is regulated by the stipulations of the Art. 1092 of the Act on Obligatory Relations from 2005. In the previous legislation it was called split responsibility and was stipulated by the regulations in the Art. 191 of 154 the former Act on Obligatory Relations. In a legal dispute, which is analysed in this article, an issue arouse regarding the volume of the contribution to one’s own damage caused by a 10-year-old boy who ran over a marked pedestrian crossing and was hit by a vehicle. In the other legal dispute the issue was whether a 13-year-old boy, who was playing on the roof of a train wagon under the electric wire and got an electric shock, contributed himslef to his own injuries or just caused the injury.
Hrvatski sabor je na svojoj 7. sjednici, održanoj 5. prosinca 2008., po hitnom postupku, s 93 glasa “za”, 8 glasova “protiv” i jednim “suzdržanim” donio Zakon o izmjenama i dopunama Zakona o vlasništvu i drugim stvarnim pravima. Tim su Zakonom u bitnome izmijenjene norme koje su uređivale stvarna prava stranih fizičkih i pravnih osoba u RH (osobito stjecanje prava vlasništva nekretnina), pa se, s obzirom na značenje materije koju ovaj propis predstavlja za pridruživanje RH EU, u nastavku daje prikaz pojedinih odredaba Zakona uz navode iz obrazloženja iznesenog uz prijedlog Zakona.
Contributions represent one of the ways of public payments. They are stipulated by the Act on Contributions which became effective on 1 January 2009, when the Act on contributions for obligatory insurances from the year of 2002 became non-effective. In view of old-age retirement, early retirement, family retirement and retirement for disabled persons as a result of general inability to work according to the new Act a retired person is regarded only the person who is not employed and does not perform any independent activity. The new Act comprises the exception regarding working activity without being actively insured in the system of old-age insurance through realization of receipts through which another income is realized, as well as home industry or secondary occupation with exemption of contrubution payment. The exception to the principle of obligatory insurance for employed people comprises a new category of physical persons who realize their income from property and property rights. Their source of income is thus not work but property and property rights.
The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia accepted on 13 November 2008 the constitutional claim and cancelled the Verdict of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia and the Decision of the Management and Executive Bord of the Croatian Bar Association in which the claim of a party to enter the Lawyers’ List of the Croatian Bar Association was rejected due to inappropriateness to perform lawyer activities. In the above stated Decision by the Constitutional Court it is specified that ‘the application of the institute of inappropriateness to perform lawyer’s activities represents a legal and legitimate protection of the lawyer’s profession as an independent and free profession, which ensures legal aid to everybody according to the law. Such a protection is therefore essential not only to the lawyers but also to the users of lawyer’s services. However, as a counter-argument it also includes the legal and legitimate right of an individual to free choice of (lawyer’s) profession.’
A party in legal proceedings can be any physical or legal person. Special regulations stipulate who, besides physical and legal persons, can be a party in legal proceedings. The party, who is completely capable of working can perform activities in legal proceedings in person (capacity to take part in legal proceedings). The parties which take part in legal proceedings must be known, alive and available to the court, which is important for the court to be able to communicate with them. The plaintiff is usually known to the court due to the fact that this party initiates legal proceedings (or distraining officer in distraint proceedings). However, a plaintiff or distrainee are often unknown or unavailable to the court or plaintiff. In such cases it is necessary to provide to the plaintiff to exercise his/her rights, which was impossible to realize in some other way, and it is also essential to protect the defendant’s rights in the proceedings, which is possible through appointing a temporary representative.
The distraint of a motor vehicle, as a specific type of distraint, is a complicated distraint procedure. However, motor vehicles are usually of a higher value, which can easily be transferred into cash and thus make a compensation to a distraint officer. This specific type of distraint is defined in the Act on Distraint. As other distraint proceedings, this type of distraint starts with the proposal for distraint. Taking into consideration all the dilemmas of the court in distraint proceedings and some inefficient regulations of the Act the last amendments of this Act try to make the distraint proceedings (especially those referring to motor vehicles) more efficient, which is especially visible in the new regulations on Records of real estate and movables including the authorization of the court to determine the distraint order of the motor vehicle as a compensation of the claim for cash according to the effective and valid document.
The author of the article analyses a case from the domestic court practice and states his opinion that in the disputers referring to land registers it is neessary to deal with the corrections of the observed errors in land registers. He also analyses specific norms of the Act on Land Registers and thinks that in some concrete cases the courts could have permitted the required entry into a land ragister (transfer of property right) instead of having rejected the claim for the entry (in the case when by mistake the numbers of the land plots were incorrectly entered). Despite the incorrectly entered cadastral plot no. in the particular case the gift contract could have been entered into land register. Due to the fact that other contract elements and table documents correspond to the entries in the land register the author thinks that the court made a mistake in giving such a importance to the obvious technical mistake i.e. inversion. In such a case the courts presented their pure formalistic access to dealing with and solving cases.
Adjudication represents a decision made by the court of arbitration and the final adjudication is the decision referring to the basis and the amount of a specific claim. This is actually an institute of the Croatian arbitrary law determined by the Act on Arbitration which came into effect at the end of 2001. Accordingly, court is the body of the state court authority. Recognition or execution of adjudication is performed through a particular proposal, the decision of which is made by the court, including the check-up of the conditions stipulated by the law. A legal means against the adjudication is the claim for cancellation of adjudication. The reasons for cancellation of adjudication can be divided into two categories: the reasons stated and proved by the party who has made a claim against the adjudication and the reasons stated by the court ex officio, no matter if these were stated by one of the parties in their claim for cancellation.
On 16 July 2008 the Commission of the European Union gave the Proposal to alter the Directive 92/79/ EEC, the Directive 92/80/EEC and the Directive 95/59/EEC regarding the structure and excise duty rates on tobacco products. The proposed Directive includes a gradual increase of the lowest tax rates on cigarettes and fine tobacco until 2014, stressing the need to re-define some sorts of tobacco products in order to prevent the existing possibility of defining specific cigarettes and fine tobacco as cigars, cigarilos or pipe tobacco. Such inappropriate declaration decreases the existing tax burden on specific cigarettes and fine tobacco. The Proposal tries to reduce the exisitng differences regarding the amount of excise duties on tobacco products which exist in EU countries and as a consequence to decrease the illicit trade of tobacco products. The acceptance of the Proposal would result in more precise tax regulations and the same conditions for all tobacco manufacturers.