Comparative Law

Comparative Law

Introduction

The end of the twentieth century has been radically changed by the World Wide Web , with the Internet and email both effecting and affecting the future of technological development accorded to the upsurge of globalisation in today's fiscal marketplace and potential opportunities filtering through to the legal profession worldwide . Freely available in the West are all manner of legal documents available for downloading from the Web. Data have become freely accessible in both paper and electronic formats world-wide.

Prior to the Treaty of Rome, it took a perceived breach of Community law for the rights of the individual to be recognised by a Judicial Review of Community Acts, through the invocation of Articles 230 to 233. The Treaty of Nice, finally ratified on 1st February 2003, was intended to make the process of challenging EC laws, decisions and regulations by non-privileged applicants less onerous, with the Court of First Instance referring any evaluation of principle to the ECJ for a review of its judgement “where a serious risk of unity or consistency of Community law” might otherwise ensue.

The decision of the ECJ ensured that a breach in law was no longer necessary in order to challenge EU legislation , confirming the right of the individual had the support, within EC law, of the ECHR . Following this ruling the restrictive interpretation of the meaning of individual concern has been criticised as being at odds with the requirement for effective judicial protection for Community law rights, a principle established and upheld by the Community courts.

Discussion

Modern British Company Law evolved from the unincorporated joint stock company , an association akin to partnership, rather than from the corporation . It is therefore based more on partnership principles than corporate personality and the deed of settlement under which companies were traditionally formed was not unlike a modern-day deed of partnership. As a result it had become necessary for cooperation to be established between the legal administrations of all the Member States as a direct response to the freedom of movement between jurisdictions, as recognised by the Tampere European Council in October 1999 which stated that “in a genuine European Area of Justice individuals and businesses should not be prevented or discouraged from exercising their rights by the incompatibility or complexity of legal or administrative systems in the Member States”.

This was reinforced following the Treaty of Amsterdam when Articles 61 (c) and 65 revealed the necessity for cross-border measures involving judicial cooperation to ensure the smooth-running of the EU Community. As a result the Council Regulation [EC] No 44/2001 was agreed on 22nd December 2000 and ratified on 1st March 2002. Ministers of Justice met in Stockholm in February 2001 to confirm the European Enforcement Order, a pilot project enabling businesses throughout the Member States to recover outstanding uncontested debts with minimal legislation.

This was developed further when the Council Committee on Civil Law Matters confirmed the format of the derogation that needed to be drafted, thereby recognising 'judgements in ...