Abstract This article asks what a drafter aligning national law with the body of European Union law can learn about legislative quality that existing tests do not already teach. It takes Albania as its principal case and compares it with Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. Legisprudence already offers a test of effectiveness whose final step examines how new provisions fit the legal order, and political science has shown that candidate and new member states can adopt European rules on paper while failing to apply them. The article argues that, in the transposition setting, the fit of a new act must be assessed against two legal orders at once, one of which changes on accession, and that certainty also depends on how a norm is made. Drawing on the European Commission’s assessments for two reporting cycles, it shows that accelerated procedures and exemptions for secondary legislation weaken this procedural side of certainty, while acknowledging that weak administrative capacity may explain the same pattern. It then proposes a diagnostic assessment model, applies it to Albania’s 2024 law on personal data protection, and shows how an alignment report could build on the explanatory memorandum and concordance tables already required in Albania, with defined review and consequences.
Abstract This article examines the overriding public interest model (OPIM) as a mechanism for balancing competing interests and rights. Recently introduced by European law as an emergency measure, OPIM addresses the problem of siting renewable energy plants, which represents an emblematic case of conflict among interests that hinders the deployment of renewable energy sources. This model was designed to simplify, ex ante and at the legislative level, the balancing of interests through the establishment of a rigid hierarchy of the interests at stake. In this way, it introduces an adversarial and authoritative approach to the composition of competing interests. After highlighting the limitations of this legislative innovation, this article argues that the OPIM cannot be conceived outside a risk-based regulatory framework, where the relationship between the two models is one of genus and species. Only from this perspective can the scheme truly overcome its limits and be effectively replicated in both public and private law disputes to protect particularly significant interests. Indeed, just as risk regulation applies in both private and public law, OPIM can also be extended to private law, since what matters is the way private activities are framed, transcending sectoral boundaries. Drawing specifically on evidence from the application of risk regulation in private law, this article identifies a set of tools for refining the model: structured information exchange and early participation during the planning phase; risk-sensitive territorial differentiation of permitting requirements; graduated enforcement, including forms of risk rating, linked to the conduct of project proponents; and cooperative remedies that favour project adjustment over annulment and adversarial dispute resolution.
Abstract There is a broad consensus that unregulated use of social media causes harm to children. With the advent of digital platforms, social media reach is quickly evolving, and there is no escaping the incessant need to be online. As the threat of harms caused by social media has gained regulatory attention, taking effect from 10 December 2025, the Australian government banned the use of social media for children under 16 years of age through the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024. This ban formalized a shift to access-based systemic duty from the erstwhile content-based regulation prevalent across the world. Seemingly extreme, this blanket ban is a primary foray into making the online world a safe place, especially for Australian children. This complication is of concern because the blanket ban has received criticism from not only the industry but also researchers and academics. This article provides a statutory review of online safety provisions and demonstrates that this age-based restriction is not an ad hoc measure but a logical culmination of a decade of legislative development. Contrary to regulatory fragmentation, the series of legislation adopted since 2015 facilitates the transition from voluntary guidelines to heavy civil liability. This is accomplished through the incorporation of continuity of office for the Commissioner and a streamlined penalty system. This statutory framework serves as a template for international efforts geared towards a systems-based approach that acknowledges the need for social media service providers to continually strive towards making their platforms as safe as possible. An overarching digital duty of care ought to replace reactive measures that address abuse only after it has occurred, as they fail to address the root cause. The proposed digital duty of care is placed on the online service providers who operate at an advantage vis-à-vis the end-users reporting harm.
Abstract Section 11(2) of the Human Rights (Enforcement) Act obligates a court to automatically acquit an accused whose non-derogable rights have been violated before his trial. Article 28(1) of the Constitution states that ‘[i]n the determination of civil rights and obligations or any criminal charge, a person shall be entitled to a fair, speedy and public hearing before an independent and impartial court or tribunal established by law’. In Faruku Muhamed and Others v Attorney-General and Others, the Constitutional Court interpreted a ‘person’ under Article 28(1) to include victims of crime. It held that section 11(2)(a)–(c) of the Human Rights (Enforcement) Act was unconstitutional because the automatic acquittal of an accused violates the victim’s rights to be heard and access to justice under Article 28(1). In this article, the author argues, inter alia, that in criminal matters, a ‘person’ under Article 28(1) is the accused and that the Court’s interpretation is neither supported by the drafting history of Article 28(1) nor by its literal or purposeful interpretation. It is also argued that the Court misunderstood the difference between equality before courts and equality before the law and that victims’ rights are statutory and cannot be implied in the Constitution.
