*** BURKHARD HESSE, MARIA BERSTRÖM, EVA STORSKRUBB (Editors): EU Civil Justice. Current Issues and Future Outlook. Hart Publishing (16C Worcester Place, Oxford, OX1 2JW, UK. Tel: (44-1865) 517530 – fax: 510710 – Email: mail@hartpub.co.uk – Internet: http://www.hartpub.co.uk ). “Swedish Studies in European Law” series, No. 7. 2016, 344 pp, £59.99. ISBN 978-1-8494-6682-0.
This book is an extension to the conference organised at the end of 2013 by the Swedish Network of European Legal Studies, in collaboration with the Luxembourg Max Planck Institute and the University of Uppsala. It subsequently demonstrates that this spectacular rise in power of the measures that particularly, at a European level, affect family relations, consumers, employees, small and medium-sized enterprises and multinationals have also created a number of problems, such as those existing at a level of implementation throughout the Union. The authors draw up an exhaustive and scientifically robust balance sheet of this "Europeanisation" of civil justice, as well as an insight into the new challenges arising and future prospects.
The book begins with an exhaustive inventory made by Professor Burkhard Hess (Université of Heidelberg and Luxembourg), who, pointing out that procedural law has been established at national, cross-border and Union levels, the regulatory approach seeks to encourage genuine cooperation between these levels and is extremely pertinent as regards the future of civil justice. He currently heads the Max Planck Institute in Luxembourg and identifies three parallel options for achieving this goal but regrets the current absence of a "management plan" or "overall approach". He subsequently suggests that that procedural science should look at what the civil justice system will be in Europe in a 10-year time frame. It is in light of these challenges that the different authors involved in the following five parts of the book explore a number of different specific themes. The first involves the temptation of submitting certain cases to the courts of different member states in an effort to slow down legal decision-making.
This concern formed the basis of the recasting of the Brussels I Regulation. Professor Gilles Cuniberti (University of Luxembourg) points out that the creation of a special exception to the lis pendens rule has not removed all the different concerns about a possible conflict of jurisdictions and mutual trust has obviously been the natural goal in this case as in all the others. The extrajudicial regulation of disputes is the second theme examined, particularly in the perspective of consumers. Professor Jim Davies (University of Northampton) therefore asks whether expectations were perhaps too high with regard to the 2013 directive and the Regulation on resolving online litigation. Similarly to his colleague, Cristina Mariottini, who tackles this question in light of the difficulties involving domain names on the Internet, he identifies a certain number of regulatory challenges that need to be solved and what weaknesses need to be overcome. Other authors then proceed to tackle the question of what provisions should be made to simplify procedures and debt recovery and which of them would be particularly efficient at a practical level. The different answers are provided in light of British and Dutch examples and tend to demonstrate that good European intentions may find it difficult to be implemented at a national level because the mutual trust the Commission has energetically been calling for can translate into different action at a national level, which suggests that institutional idealism and economic rhetoric will not be sufficient driving forces for European civil justice. Family law is then tackled in light of the Rome III Regulation. Maarit Jänterä-Jareborg demonstrates the Swedish and Finnish examples in this respect and the first demonstration of strengthened cooperation in the area of civil justice, which did not really translate into a fragmentation of the area of freedom, justice and security, as well as the European successions certificate. This latter innovation remains, according to Björn Laukemann, in need of some fine-tuning. The penultimate part of the book focuses on the theme of collective redress, with the different authors providing their answers to the question of whether the ideas formulated by the Commission in its Communication and its Recommendations in June 2013 will provide additional guarantees to consumers. The opinion of Rebecca Money-Kyrle (University of Oxford) should also be particularly highlighted and for whom social justice has been rather left out of the equation and the approaches retained vary from member state member state. She argues that this has created discrimination and a race to obtain the most favourable kind of legal process in this respect. Mutual trust is tackled by five different authors in the last part of the book, which is also as comprehensive and clear as the previous sections. Pierre Bouvier
*** DIMITRIS PRONTZAS : Les motifs et les pratiques de la lutte contre la corruption. Textes et analyses quantitatives dans les sociétés européennes. Editions Papazisi (2 rue Nikitara, GR-10678 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3822496 – fax: 3809020 – Email: papazisi@otenet.gr – Internet: http://www.papazisi.gr ). 2015, 336 pp. €21.20. ISBN 978-960-02-2779-6.
Dimitris Prontzaz is deputy Professor at the Department of Sociology of Social and Political Sciences at Pantheon University. In this book he focuses on the different questions created by the phenomenon of corruption. It looks at what it consists of and its effects over time, as well as ways of tackling the question and putting a stop to it today at both national and European Union levels. Its main objective is to decode the real discourse the most important international organisations are using in respect of the fight against corruption. His analysis of the prevailing theory on this issue at a European level, leads him to assess both the economic angle, as well as the political, social and cultural implications. The concept of governance also influences the evolution of perceptions in the different states, with regard to the political terms used and the economic, social and cultural ramifications, as well as the blatant fact that the phenomenon has acquired particular importance in Greece in an epoch when structural economic reforms are being implemented. The book is divided into four parts. The first part involves the author listing the different basic reasons for launching the fight against corruption in the context of the European Union and the different forms this action takes. Major international organisations are also assessed. The second part of the book involves an analysis of the way in which the anticorruption discourse is made within the Union in light of the law and economy, legal application measures and the anticorruption policy. In the third part. Dimitris Prontzaz attempts to calculate how the action taken by the Union to tackle corruption is also included in its interaction with criteria for good governance and human development. This analysis constitutes the starting point of the construction of a new reference for corruption and its imprint at a national level, particularly in European countries. The author also proceeds to providing a comparative study of the way corruption has expanded in the context of crisis and transition. Finally, the fourth part of the book involves the author providing registered data for an extended period, which enables him to get to grips with the long-term problems of corruption, good governance and human development, as well as provide a comprehensive account of the state of corruption in European Union countries in light of their respective levels. (AKa)
*** FOTINI TSIMPIRIDOU (Editor) : Les expériences minoritaires et immigrantes. Vivre la "culture de l'Etat". Editions Kritiki (4 rue Papadiamantopoulou, GR-11528 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 8211811 – fax: 8211026 – email: biblia@kritiki.gr – Internet: http://www.kritiki.gr ). 2016, 336 pp. €19.99. ISBN 978-960-586-125-4.
The authors involved in this undertaking were brought together by Professor Fotini Tsimpiridou (political and economic anthropology at the Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies at the University of Macedonia). They are all anthropologists, sociologist, linguists and political scientists. In this book, they provide an account of the historic minorities and new economic immigrants in Greece. They subsequently analyse the way in which these communities have influenced traditional power relations and the much broader way in which culture and the image of the nation and state come into play. It is therefore the "regime of difference" in which the different minority groups in the population are explored (migrants, women, et cetera.) and who are meticulously examined in perspective of their personal experiences in the shape of autobiographies and testimonies, as well as certain texts elaborated on the basis of diary entries. The entire book concludes with a comprehensive evaluation of the "experience of the minority. It should also be pointed out that the testimonies are made by people living in "hotspots" on the different islands in Greece, as well as centres for refugees in Greek cities. (AKa)