Volume 8 Number 3

Summer 1999

From the EECR

To the Editor:

The East European Constitutional Review, in its Winter/ Spring 1999 issue (vol. 8, nos. 1/2), published, in the last paragraph of page 11, some information concerning the election of Dagmar Lastovecka (CDP) to the Senate of the Czech Republic.

The paragraph begins with a statement that is not factually correct, namely, that Dagmar Lastovecka was deprived of her seat by a decision of the Constitutional Court and that, later (February 18, 1999), the Court changed its decision and returned her seat to her. In actual fact, it was the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic (and not the Constitutional Court) that issued the judgment on the loss of Mrs. Lastovecka's seat, and its decision was subsequently revised by the Constitutional Court for the reasons stated in your article.Accordingly, I would request that you publish a correction so that your readers are not left with misleading information.

Yours sincerely,

Zdenek Kessler,President, Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic, Brno

Corrections:Certain regrettable errors of fact and citation in the previous issue of the EECR, devoted to the postcommunist procuracy, have been brought to our attention. Specifically, in the article on the Bulgarian procuracy, by Zdravka Kalaydjieva, the following errors-not of the author's making-occurred.On page 83: the pertinent article of the law regarding libel is to be found in the Criminal Code, not the Code of Criminal Procedure;

On the same page: we indicated that the Bulgarian parliament recently -abolished prison terms as punishments for journalists convicted of libel." This is not the case; amendments to the libel law that would effect such a change were considered by the parliament but never passed;

On page 85: in our note on the author we say that Ms. Kalaydjieva, in the case Assenov v. Bulgaria, represented the claimant. The term -claimant" is incorrect. The proper term is -applicant."

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Forum on Postcommunism:

The East European Constitutional Review is pleased to announce its Forum on Postcommunism, a monthly program hosted by New York University School of Law. On September 28, a roundtable discussion was held titled -Understanding the Russian Crisis." Speakers included Stephen Handelman, formerly the Moscow bureau chief for the Toronto Star, from 1987 to 1992, currently a journalist for Time magazine, and the author of Comrade Criminal: Russia's New Mafiya (Yale University Press, 1997); Stephen Holmes, professor of the Department of Politics at Princeton University and adjunct professor at New York University School of Law; and Steven Solnick, assistant professor of political science at Columbia University.

On September 7, Adam Michnik, editor-in-chief of the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, and Wlodzimierz Cimoszewich, former prime minister of Poland, spoke on the effect of the Russian crisis on Eastern Europe. On November 5, Jack F. Matlock, the last US ambassador to the Soviet Union (1987-1991) and currently a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, discussed his recent trip to Central Asia and China, and also touched on the legal regulation of nuclear proliferation. On November 30, former prime minister of the Russian Federation, Sergei Kiriyenko, delivered a lecture on the causes and consequences of the August financial crisis in Russia. On January 28, Tina Rosenberg of the New York Times spoke on -Dealing with Crimes after Communism and Dictatorship: From Latin America to Eastern Europe." On March 8, Boris Berezovsky discussed -Building a Eurasian Union"; and on March 11 President Arkady Ghukasian of the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh delivered a lecture titled -The Politics, Law, and Economy of Secession." Please watch for announcements of future events, or contact the NYU office of the EECR for more information.

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Russian-language review:

The East European Constitutional Review is published in Russian as Konstitutsionnoe Pravo: Vostochnoe-vropieskoe Obozrenie. Copies can be obtained from its editor, Olga Sidorovich, at the Moscow Public Science Foundation, Prospekt Mira 36, Rooms 200-201, Moscow 101000, Russia; fax: 7095-280-3515; email: <olga@glasnet.ru>.

EECR Website:

Back issues of the EECR can be found at <http://www.law.nyu.edu/eecr/>.

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Acknowledgment of Support:

The EECR is published jointly by NYU School of Law and Central European University. The Constitutional and Legal Policy Institute in Budapest provides facilities, resources, and funding for the EECR's network of correspondents and affiliates in Eastern Europe. We are grateful to CEU's founder, Mr. George Soros, for his unflagging support. The EECR is generously sponsored by the Open Society Institute, the Ford Foundation, and the National Council for Soviet and East European Research.

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The Open Society Archives at the Central European University
The Open Society Archives (OSA), established in 1995 by George Soros, actively acquires, preserves, and makes available materials pertaining to the history of the Cold War and communism in the region, human-rights issues and movements in the 20th century, and the activities of the Soros Foundation network. The OSA also sponsors a wide range of public programs, including exhibitions and lectures. Some of the most significant research resources at the Archives include the following:Records of Radio Free Europe/Radio LibertyRecords of the International Human Rights Institute Relating to the conflict in the Former YugoslaviaRecords of the International Helsinki FederationRecords of the Index on CensorshipVideotapes of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia For more information on the OSA's holdings and reference services, visit our website athttp://www.osa.ceu.hu or contact us directly:

The Open Society Archives
H-1396 Budapest 62
P.O. Box 458
HUNGARY
Fax: (36-1) 327-3260
E-mail: archives@ceu.hu

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