Academicus International Scientific Journal

32-36

Authors: Michele Marsonet

Logical positivists claim that the whole of human knowledge can be reduced to analytic and synthetic sentences, and this means that the only possible knowledge is provided by science. Metaphysics is thus meaningless, because its sentences do not comply with the rules set forth by logical analysis of language. What, then, is the philosopher’s job? The members of the Vienna Circle answer that his task is to clarify the concepts used within empirical and formal sciences, while analytic philosophers stress instead the importance of ordinary language’s analysis. But the outcome is in both cases clear: philosophy is linguistic analysis. Howeber, by reducing the whole of reality to empirical reality, logical positivists do metaphysics. We do not have the “elimination” of metaphysics, but just the proposal of an empiricist brand of metaphysics.

49-64

Authors: Marţian Iovan

The article introduces and approach of the philosophical concept of legal culture from the perspective of a global vision on the structure and evolution of society as a whole, of the legal life as part of it. In this context, the underlined idea is that the sphere of legal culture contains, in addition to the knowledge of law - the information from the field of legal sciences, elements of common knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, mentalities, legal norms, traditions, the active customs in the operation and enforcement of laws, the functioning mechanisms of state institutions in connection with the behaviour of social action agents: natural persons and legal persons. The anatomy of the legal culture is analyzed, highlighting the idea that its core is the legal knowledge, the scientific information in the field of law, which contains truthful and verified assertions. The article questions the truth of the components of legal culture, starting from the premise that judicial systems that violate the truth are incapable of producing justice. The act of justice is guided entirely by the truth, by truthful information. The achievement of justice and equity in society, the efficient functioning of the judiciary depends, not as much on the level of development of legal knowledge, the law sciences, but on the unity and functional coherence of the legal culture subsystem in its entirety.

80-94

Authors: Borana Mustafaraj

The doctrine of “culpa in contrahendo” constitutes an integral part of the legal systems of different states, although its content differs from one country to another. “Culpa in contrahendo”, as the states with a civil law system recognize, is bound by the obligation to act in good faith during the pre-contractual phase. It represents a responsibility that derives from the injurious behavior of the party during the stage of the contract. The common problem of various modern systems lies in classifying this responsibility, and the solution that states give is expanding the meaning of the contract or the meaning of non-contractual damage, since they do not categorize it as a sui generis responsibility. In Albanian law, there is no special provision for pre-contractual, however, the provision of Article 674 of the civil code may be considered as a basic provision that imposes liability at the negotiation stage. Regarding the nature of this responsibility, it is difficult to admit that it is of a contractual nature, when Albanian case law, despite the low number of cases, has considered it as extra contractual damage. Also, the European Court of Justice has foreseen pre-contractual liability as an extra contractual liability. The lack of unification regarding the rights, obligations and the way of protection against damage at the pre-contractual stage may cause uncertainty, especially in international trade relations.

110-130

Authors: Fabio Ratto Trabucco

The contribution examines the institution of the right of access to administrative documents between coarse and pretentious denials in the Italian public administration and particularly the case of the reiterated illegitimate denials of access to the Military Court of Verona. The age of transparency between information to the consumer, right of access to documents and civic and the lack of responsibility of the public employee for abnormal denial is therefore still connoted by abnormal and inadmissible cases of denial of access particularly by the military state administration unable to adapt to the principle of transparency.

146-155

Authors: Panthayil Babu Rajan

This research describes the working, benefits and challengers of polygraph tests. Polygraph tests are lie-detecting devices that help ascertain individuals’ honesty based on physiological indicators. The heart rate/blood pressure, respiration, and skin responses are the three indicators measured in the test to assess honest/deceitful behavior. The underlying assumption behind the working of polygraph tests is that the autonomic responses of dishonest individuals are distinctively different from those of honest people because the liars will be more nervous than truth tellers. Control Question Test (CQT), Guilty Knowledge Test (GKT) or Concealed Information Test (CIT) and Neuroscience-Based Advanced Polygraph Tests are the important types of polygraph tests used today. Polygraph tests are used to detect truthfulness of individuals in such important fields as crime investigation departments, national security agencies, and business and industry. However, accuracy of polygraph tests and ethical issues associated with the tests are highly debated.

165-187

Authors: John JA Burke

Prior to filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman Brothers Holding Inc., [LBHI] relied upon select repurchase agreements denominated “Repo 105” and “Repo 108” for the purpose of re-casting its balance sheet to meet net leverage ratios required by money markets. SFAS 140, as then existing without the 2011 amendment, provided a mechanism to treat “ordinary borrowings” as “asset sales”. LBHI used SFAS 140 to justify Repo 105 and Repo 108 transactions to engineer its balance sheet. The accounting treatment resulted in the publication of misleading quarterly and annual Financial Statements relied upon by external users to make investment decisions.1 In 2011 and 2012, the Southern District of New York issued opinions in the consolidated LBHI litigation. The finding that LBHI correctly applied the criteria of SFAS 140 to justify “borrowings” as “asset sales” under Repo 105 and Repo 108 is fundamentally flawed. During the period 2000 until 2008, Ernst & Young [E&Y] served as the outside auditor of LBHI. Legal principles governing the obligations of auditors support a finding that E&Y committed professional malpractice by issuing unqualified audit opinions knowing that LBHI failed to disclose its liabilities to repurchase transferred securities under Repo 105 and Repo 108 transactions. Economic analysis of non-contractual obligations [tort] supports a reformulation of the legal standard governing auditor liability to external users of audited financial statements containing materially misleading information. The reformulated standard allocates incentives to take precautions both to the audit firm and to the external user to achieve an efficient allocation of the cost of harm ensuing from defective information products.