The financial existence of modern states and civilized societies has been primarily facilitated by taxation. Creating an environment for taxpayers to demonstrate positive attitudes towards fulfilment of tax obligations therefore appears to be a permanent task for tax authorities. Encouraging taxpayers to fulfil the requirements in terms of bearing the tax burden calls for a thorough understanding of the phenomenon of taxpayers' compliance with taxes, particularly considering that, in current conditions, it is predominantly done on a voluntary basis. In the paper, the phenomenon of voluntary fulfillment of tax obligations is considered to be a reflection of taxpayers' personal and social responsibility, but also an enigma. Therefore, the author explores the possible paths to successfully resolve this enigma. For that purpose, based on conducted research, the paper provides an analysis of a wide range of factors that affect the formation of the basis of taxpayers' motivational inclination towards honest tax behaviour. At the same time, the author assesses the importance of these factors, which prove to be to be essential in the process of designing activities suitable for instituting quality management of taxpayers' loyalty. In this sense, the paper attempts to confirm the hypothesis that preventive modelling of taxpayers' willingness to meet tax obligations, for the purpose of ensuring timely and complete fulfilment of these obligations, provides more benefits to the state and society than changing taxpayers' negative attitudes to taxes that are already entrenched in the tax reality. Certainly, if taxpayers recognize the adequately organized performance of the state's tax activities, which are crucial for financing and providing necessary public goods, there are realistic prospects that the collection of due tax claims and the expected inflow of tax revenues into the budget will not be unsatisfactory.
This paper examines trust as a key determinant of sustainability of cryptocurrency systems, starting from three research hypotheses: diminished trust in traditional financial institutions stimulates interest in cryptocurrencies (H1); the perception of macroeconomic instability increases the propensity toward digital assets (H2); and trust in technological infrastructure significantly influences cryptocurrency adoption (H3). Trust is operationalised through three groups of indicators: institutional, market, and technological. As an original contribution, the author develops a conceptual model of financial decision-making that integrates insights from behavioral finance, cognitive psychology, and institutional economics, introducing feedback loops between market outcomes and the revision of participants’ cognitive frameworks. The case study of the FTX exchange collapse (November 2022) primarily illustrates hypothesis H3: a decline in market capitalization of approximately 183 billion dollars did not result in the abandonment of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, but rather in the reallocation of trust toward decentralized solutions and self-custody. Indicative support for hypothesis H1 is provided by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (March 2023), while the emergence of Bitcoin, in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, represents the most historically representative illustration of hypothesis H2. The central finding of the paper is that cryptocurrency systems, although designed to reduce the need for trust, in practice function as hierarchically organized trust systems, where trust is not eliminated but transformed and dynamically reallocated.
This paper examines constitutional provisions concerning religion and religious organizations in the Principality of Serbia and the Kingdom of Serbia in the 19th century, assessing the extent to which they incorporated elements of the jus circa sacra theory which was predominant in the 19th century Protestant states. The central hypothesis is that constitutional provisions on freedom of religion and the legal status of churches and religious communities were strongly influenced by that theory. On this basis, Serbia developed a distinct model of state-church relations: the Orthodox Church was granted a special (exceptional) status, while all recognized denominations enjoyed an equal scope of rights, privileges, and freedom of activity. Although this system enabled the state to control almost all external aspects of churches and religious communities' activities, it limited state's power to interfere in their internal affairs. The Serbian constitutional history indicates that the jus circa sacra model was accepted in the Constitutions of 1869 and 1888, while this model proves to have been gradually abandoned in the 1901 Constitution. The 1901 Constitution omitted the provisions placing all religious organizations under the monarch's protection and the explicit guarantee of each subject's right to lodge a complaint to the competent state authority against abuses by ecclesiastical authorities. After the brief application of the 1901 Constitution, the 1888 Constitution was restored. Thus, it may be concluded that the jus circa sacra system decisively influenced the constitutional regulation of state-church relations in the Principality of Serbia and the Kingdom of Serbia. It fostered strong institutional ties between the state and religious organizations but without establishing absolute state control over internal ecclesiastical matters, such as doctrinal disputes or regulation of liturgical regime. This relatively balanced model contributed to establishing a notable level of religious tolerance in 19th century Serbian society.
The subject matter of this research are restrictions on the right to privacy of the accused in criminal proceedings, arising from the criminal procedure provisions and the regulations on freedom of the media and information. The Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Serbia provides for a large number of investigative instruments whose application may lead to a violation of the right to privacy. Special investigative techniques regulated in criminal procedure legislation entail a high degree of risk of violating the right to privacy due to the covert intrusion into the defendant's private sphere and the possibility of obtaining and disposing of information that is not relevant in a specific case. Although civil law provides sufficient privacy protection instruments, they seem to be seldom applied in this area. The compensatory function of private law has been underdeveloped in this area even though these are measures that restrict the right to privacy, as one of the most important civil subjective rights. In the Republic of Serbia, there is no developed judicial practice on civil law protection of the right to privacy due to the application of investigative measures and evidentiary actions in criminal proceedings. Thus, it is difficult to verify the functioning of the defined legal mechanisms for achieving a fair balance between public and private interest when applying the measures restricting the privacy of the accused in criminal proceedings in light of the standards developed in the practice of the European Court of Human Rights by applying Article 8 of the European Convention.
