It is common for reformist academics, human rights advocates, and political liberals to bemoan harsher public attitudes towards crime and criminals, populist posturing by politicians, and more repressive penal policies. Some years ago, sociologist David Garland, a leading scholar of this subject, described increasingly repressive strategies of crime control in contemporary Britain, Australia, and the United States, ‘and elsewhere, too'. Some years later Hans-Jörg Albrecht called Garland to task for that ‘and elsewhere, too,’ noting that what happens in English-speaking countries does not inexorably happen elsewhere and that penal policies in many Western countries were not becoming more repressive or more politicised in parallel with American and British developments.

Police powers of discretion to discontinue criminal proceedings are rather exceptional in Europe, where most Criminal Justice Systems are based on some kind of principle of legality. Germany and England may be regarded as contrasting examples for different decision-making-models on the question whether or not to prosecute an offender. Germany, with a principle of compulsory prosecution theoretically guiding the work of public prosecutors—compared to England, where already the police have significant powers of discretion when deciding about a case. In recent years, however, the differences between the practice of these principles seem to have vanished: Whereas some German federal states have started to involve police in prosecution decisions, policy makers in England try to restrain the traditionally wide discretion of police in dealing with cases of minor crimes. Interesting lessons that might be useful for future harmonization of European criminal justice systems can be drawn from the experiences in both countries.

For more than a century, the cardinal provision ensuring the preservation of the capital reserve in the registered share capital amount in a Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung (GmbH – German company with limited liability) has continued unaltered. This is the payout prohibition contained in § 30 (1) Gesetz betreffend die Gesellschaften mit beschränkter Haftung (GmbHG – German Act on Companies with Limited Liability), which the Bundesgerichtshof (BGH – German Federal Court of Justice) has identified as a “cornerstone of the GmbHG.“ In consideration of the impressive period of applicability and evident resistance of the provision against legislative encroachments, the lay person, for example a managing director of a GmbH as primary addressee of the provision, is now supposed to be able to assume that at least the fundamental legal issues concerning the provision have been sufficiently clarified through jurisprudence and legal practice in the meantime.

During the last few years, agency work has received heightened legislative attention in Europe, on an EU level as well as on national level, since the early 1990s. This interest was spurred by the relative growth of the sector as well as by the hope that agency work might offer solutions to unemployment by providing enhanced flexibility. As a result, agency work is no longer considered as a form of employment to be shunned, but has gained in acceptance. This article undertakes to analyse the legislative development towards acceptance of agency work by comparing the EU approach with the German approach. Over and above the specific issue of agency work, the question whether needs for flexibility of employers and employees are capable of being reconciled by recourse to new methods of organising work and what regulatory policy is most likely to achieve this, forms a background to our considerations.

After giving an overview of the definition of agency work with a specific reference to the inherent risks and the potential of enhancing flexibility and resulting regulatory approaches, we will consider the EU strategy on regulating agency work, especially within the conceptual framework of the EU employment policy. The next step is to analyse the German case with reference to the historical development of the approach towards agency work and an analysis of the latest legislative reform and its practical consequences. The conclusion assesses whether the German legislation complies with the draft directive, which national peculiarities shape its practical effects and what recommendations may be referred for the final version of the draft EU directive.

The outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (hereinafter BSE) in Europe has brought about serious tensions and fears – not only among consumers, but also among the national and European authorities responsible for risk management. Faced with the incapacity of the existing system to control the situation, on the one hand, and the need to restore consumers’ confidence on the other, the EU and national regulators felt obliged to repair the weaknesses as soon as possible. However, remedial actions undertaken at the time of the BSE crisis were not always the product of thorough consultations and they were often not well coordinated. Thus, they became a source of disagreement among the various actors in play. The case Commission v. France, which I will examine more closely in this paper, illustrates such a conflict among the national and European scientific authorities. The judgment was delivered in 2001, but the problem of the successful integration of science into the regulatory decision-making process of the EU still remains unsettled. In this paper I will present suggestions as to how the situation could be influenced by the outcomes of recent reforms of European food safety law and the establishment of the European Food Safety Authority.

The collapses of several US-businesses like those of Enron and Worldcom and a number of scandals in the EU – in the recent past that of Parmalat – have strongly affected public confidence in the operation and governance of large entities trading their shares in organized capital markets. The European Commission reacted by issuing the Action Plan on Modernizing Company Law and Enhancing Corporate Governance in the EU on 21 May 2003. The Action Plan contains measures which the Commission wants to implement over the short term (until 2005), medium term (until 2008) and long term (until 2010). The key issues set up in the Action Plan concern corporate governance, capital maintenance, recapitalization as well as decreasing capital, groups of companies, international corporate restructuring and the introduction of a new legal form of incorporation. The fact that the big rating agencies have begun to rate the corporate governance performances of major companies, can well be seen as a further indicator that good corporate governance has an important concern for managers, shareholders and for policy makers. As part of the Action Plan, the Commission has recently launched consultations on board responsibilities and improving financial and corporate governance information, on directors’ remuneration and on the role of (independent) non-executive or supervisory directors. In the light of these recent consultations and the results of the public consultation on the Action Plan, this Article offers an overview and assessment of the corporate governance measures planned at Community level.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was quoted in a newspaper article last year as claiming that “[b]y their mentality and culture, the people of Russia are Europeans”. The accuracy of this claim has been a topic of considerable debate in Russian literature and politics from the time of Czar Peter the Great at least. The pressing question is whether Russia wants to be part of today's Europe. Mounting evidence from the domestic and foreign policy of the Russian Federation suggests that the answer to this question is ‘nyet'.

In 1971, upon the conclusion of my university studies and my first state examination, and before sitting for my second (final) state examination, I commenced my practical training as a so-called Referendar at the Amtsgericht (local district court) in Gettorf, near Kiel. It was a very small court, employing only one judge who was responsible in this position for all legal cases. In addition, a total of approximately 20 other employees were working there. The court had no electric typewriter, and no copying machine. When a copy had to be made, the document was literally transcribed in the true sense of the word. Later, after my second and final state examination, I started my services as a judge at the Landgericht (regional court) in Bremen, a court with approximately 60 judges and a total of approximately 200 employees. It was not a matter of course that each judge had a telephone of his/her own. Moreover, connections to the outside world were frequently only possible through the general telephone exchange. One office had to be shared by several judges. Dictating machines were available, but not taken for granted. On the contrary, as a rule it was the usual practice for a clerk to take the minutes—even in cases for which the Code of Procedure did not specifically require this.