The Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG – Federal Constitutional Court) recently issued two leading decisions on the competence of the Federal Government to warn the public of poisoned wine and psycho-sects. In these recent decisions the court affirmed an earlier ruling and at the same time ignored the almost unanimously harsh criticism of it. For some two decades the question of furnishing information to the public on the part of the Federal Government has kept busy, to a remarkable extent, all levels of the judiciary and a great number of scholars.

The European Community is also a community of Law. Nevertheless the European Community is not focused on the creation of one European Law in contrast to the Laws of its Member States. Instead the European Community focuses on the harmonization of the national legal system only to the extent that is required for the functioning of the common market (art. 3 I h EC). The harmonization of Corporate Law (art. 44 EC) was regarded as a key factor of this process. As a consequence Corporate Law is one of the most harmonized legal fields in the European Community.

The crucial importance of European Union's (EU) enlargement process to Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) from a political, economic, social, and geo-strategic perspective inspired much debate over the last decade. Our objective in the current study is to demonstrate the enforcement of two categories of interdependent legal provisions (Title IV and the Schengen acquis) by the applicant countries in the process of their accession to the EU. The analysis comprehends the latest Commission Strategy Paper and Regular Reports on the progress towards accession by each of the candidate countries, issued on 9th October 2002 and the results of the last Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council.

In a long awaited judgement delivered on 5 November 2002, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that it is incompatible with the freedom of establishment guaranteed in Arts. 43 and 48 EC for a member state to deny a company formed in a member state which moves its central place of administration to another member states, legal capacity (and standing to sue or be sued in courts). Against the expectations of many German legal commentators and the recommendation of the Advocate General, the ECJ also held that where a company incorporated in another member state exercises its freedom of establishment in another member state, that other member state is required to recognise the company's legal capacity (and capacity to be a party to legal proceedings) which it enjoys under the laws of its state of incorporation.

In times of a continuously expanding proliferation of investment and financing possibilities in the hands of banks, investment funds and individual capital investors, particular attention should be paid to the effects that new financial instruments are likely to have not only on concrete financing and investing modes but also on the further development of legal rules in this field. As the German capital market has been considered unable - at least until the widely marketed Deutsche Telekom IPO - to get rid of its persisting prejudice of being structurally lagging behind other countries’ systems, the legal treatment of emerging financial instruments deserves greatest attention. The rocket science of new financial instruments challenges law's aim to rightly assess the real quality of these instruments and to strike an adequate balance between the interests involved against a national policy background and EU demands. While the past few years have been a time of great legislative activity in the field of company and capital market law in Germany, only a closer look at court decisions reveals the true pressure resulting from a fast moving capital market on traditional legal perceptions. The so-called Aktienanleihe-Decision by the Federal Court of Justice, [FCJ] (Bundesgerichtshof - BGH) of 12 March 2002 marks an important step in the ongoing process of Germany's developing capital market law.

The way legal systems should deal with hate speech is a contested matter. The term “hate speech” itself suggests that it is a form of speech, and speech is generally protected in liberal states. However, this “speech” is either motivated by hatred or expresses hate, and such communication might not rise to the level of discourse that merits constitutional protection at all.