This article describes some of the results of a longitudinal study carried out in 1985–1999. The aim of the study was to analyse the patterns and influencing factors of the further criminal careers of persons who committed criminal and other offences as minors. The studied group consisted of males who had stayed in Estonian juvenile reformatory and penal institutions at the beginning of 1985 and who were actually available and complied with the established criteria.^*3 At that time, practically every minor who committed criminal offences or systematically broke the law was placed in a juvenile reformatory or penal institution. The study was a representative cohort study of delinquent minors, in which the criminal activity of the individuals was monitored over a period of fifteen years. The social and personal characteristics of the individuals of the sample and their criminal career patterns therefore characterise all the juvenile delinquents and criminals of Estonia at the time to a significant degree.

Analysis of personal files was the main method used to collect objective primary data on each person. Other methods included a survey of respondents for which a special questionnaire was used. The questionnaire consisted of the following sections: general data (age, residence, etc.); family data (age of parents, their education, job, family relations, etc.); information about school and studies (completed years of study, re­petition of a school year, change of school, etc.); information about spending leisure time (how and with whom the person spent their leisure time); information about harmful habits (smoking, drinking alcohol), and assessments of different spheres of life. Some data were collected in parallel from files and questionnaires so as to appraise the objectivity of the responses.

The aim of the first stage of the study (January 1985) was to identify the main social and personal characteristics of the contingent of special educational institutions for minors. The sample consisted of 210 minors from reformatories and 107 minors from special vocational schools, aged 14–17. The second stage was carried out in April 1990 when an inquiry was made to the Information and Computing Centre of the ESSR (Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic) Ministry of Internal Affairs about the criminal offences committed and punishments incurred by the individuals of the sample during 1984–1990. Criminal offences and punishments were recorded during this and the following stages on the basis of judgments of conviction. Data on the employment status and residence of the same individuals were obtained from the Passport Service of the ESSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. The third stage was carried out in April and May 1995, when an inquiry was made to the Address Bureau of the National Citizenship and Migration Board to obtain information about the places of residence and work of the individuals. Information on criminal offences and punishments during 1990–1995 was collected from the criminal files of the Information and Analysis Bureau of the Police Board. In the fourth stage, a new inquiry was made about the activities of the individuals during 1995–1999. Data collected in the last three stages were added to the earlier data to form a data bank.

The first aim of this article is to analyse the nature of the right to the environment and to come to an understanding of whether it is able to guarantee a higher level of environmental protection. The second aim is to analyse how efficiently the sections of the Estonian Constitution can be invoked for the protection of the environment and whether there is a need for amendments.

The development and current status of the right to the environment is analysed on the basis of international documents and the decisions of international tribunals. We face a question of whether there is any need for an additional formulation of environmental right if the existing catalogue of human rights is sufficient to address environmental concerns. Does the success in invoking existing human rights in environmental cases support this position?

The authors of this article are of the view that the environment is an independent value and needs as strict protection as other commonly agreed values such as the right to property or the right to life and health. Enlisting the right to the environment as a basic right in the Constitution would help to protect this value from the detrimental activities of private entities and also states.

The Estonian Constitution addresses environmental concerns explicitly in § 5 and § 53. In the lack of court practice the possible uses of these provisions remain unclear. However a proper interpretation of § 5 and § 53 would allow coherence with the legal system and at the same time maximum environmental protection.

The final question remains — do we have the appropriate legal basis to meet the needs of society in light of emerging environmental degradation or should and could we enact an additional guarantee, the basic right of an individual to a clean environment? The last chapter of this article proposes amendments to the wordings of § 5 and § 53 of the Estonian Constitution, taking into account the concepts of sustainable development and environmental space.

The liability of a debtor who has been declared bankrupt may consist of:

1) liability for insolvency, as the bankruptcy is caused by the debtor’s permanent insolvency;

2) liability for violation of the obligations arising in the bankruptcy proceedings.

Liability may come in the form of criminal or civil liability, but also in other legal remedies that do not fall under criminal or civil liability. Criminal liability is provided for by §§ 384 and 385 of the Penal Code^*1 (PC) as liability for causing insolvency and for concealing assets and debts in bankruptcy proceedings. Civil liability implies the obligation to compensate for damage if the constant insolvency that caused bankruptcy was caused by a grave error in management or if a member of a directing body of the legal person otherwise violated his or her obligations and caused damage to the legal person. The concept of a grave error in management has been defined in § 28 (2) of the new Bankruptcy Act^*2 (NBA). Other legal remedies include detention of the debtor, which may be applied if the debtor fails to perform his or her obligations in the bankruptcy proceedings (NBA § 89). Prohibition of business (NBA § 91), which may also be called liability under bankruptcy law, also belongs to the same subtype of liability and it may be applied during the bankruptcy proceedings after bankruptcy has been declared, as well as within three years after the end of the proceedings.

The aforementioned three types of liability — criminal liability, civil liability, and liability under bankruptcy law, are discussed below in view of their different implications depending on whether the liability pertains to causing insolvency or failure to perform the obligations arising in the bankruptcy proceedings. It is important to note that the application of one type of liability does not exclude the application of others; the types of liability may be applied severally, jointly, or all collectively.

A. Scalia. The Dissenting Opinion. – Journal of Supreme Court History, 1994, p. 42.

It is telling that in his chapter “Strategic Behavior” from “The Puzzle of Judicial Behavior”, law and courts scholar Lawrence Baum chose this excerpt by U.S. Supreme Court Justice AntoninScalia to indicate the “satisfaction” judges derive “from expressing their preferences directly” — or, in the parlance of some judicial scholars informed by game theoretic accounts of politics, from “voting sincerely”.^*2  However one chooses to categorize the “pleasure” of which Scalia speaks, his quote and Baum’s use of it suggest a need to account for the behavioral motivations behind separate opinion writing on a judicial institution where the tradition is one of an opinion for the court.

According to § 146 of the Estonian Constitution^*3, the courts shall be independent in their activities and shall administer justice in accordance with the Constitution and the laws. Independence of the judges is guaranteed with the procedures for the administration of justice established by laws and with the secrecy of deliberations in the process of making the judgment. But how is the latter in conformity with the possibility guaranteed in a collegial court to judges who have remained in the minority in the voting to add, on certain conditions, their dissenting opinion to the majority opinion of the court? Does the dissenting opinion undermine the authority of the court and violate the principle of secrecy of deliberations, or does it strengthen the court’s reputation and make the administration of justice more transparent? Is it in conflict with the principle of the independence of a judge, or does it, on the contrary, add to the independence of a judge?

Until now, legal literature in Estonia, with some exceptions^*4, has dedicated regrettably little attention to the institute of judicial dissent. This gap in the Estonian legal doctrine needs to be filled also because recently the topic has gained currency in different European countries (discussions on the introduction of the dissenting opinion in the Italian and French legal orders) as well as in the European Court of Justice where expressing of the dissenting opinion is not allowed.^*5 

The present article deals, from the legal point of view, with the dogmatic, historical, comparative and political aspects of the dissenting opinion.