The Institute organises courses, conducts research and intervenes in the following, indicatively cited, topics, which are of the utmost importance for contemporary Greece:
A. On the subject of public law
- State organisation
- E-governance
- Fundamental right to privacy (protection of personal data)
- Transparency as a fundamental principle of public law
- Transparency regarding
–public contracts
–the relationship between the citizen and the State (information sharing, publicity, simplified procedures)
–access to documents
–electronic transactions with the administrations
–consultation procedures
–administrative procedure (principle of impartiality, prior hearing, collective bodies, justification, quasi-judicial procedures, etc.)
–tacit positive administrative acts
–codifications of administrative legislation
–good governance
–addressing the inaction or/and the inability of the legislator and the administration to correspond to mandates of the constitution and the law
–institutional motivations of unlawfulness
- Organisation of public administration
–rationalisation of organisational schemes
–public service concessions
–effectiveness of control and monitoring mechanisms
–disciplinary control of the Local Government Agencies’ elected institutions
–functioning of independent administrative authorities
–system of appointing public servants (and officers)
–permanency and flexible labour relations in the public sector
–administration with objectives and efficiency control
–meritocracy and evaluation
–conflicts of interest and incompatibilities
–charters of obligations and codes of conduct
–property status control
–administrating public (and political) property
–selecting chiefs of staff
–stable and predictable service framework etc.
–mobility of public servants on the basis of criteria
–disciplinary and personal civil liability of public servants
–organisation of the right to disagree
- Effective protection and methods of making use of state property (public or private)
- Effective judicial intervention (novel types of control from administrative judges towards the direct settlement and clarification of the legal framework – appropriate institutional regime for improving the administration’s compliance to court decisions)
- Independence of justice
- Administration of justice
- Liability of Ministers
- Functioning of political parties
- Functioning of mass media
B. On the subject of International and European law
B.1. International Economic Law
- The phenomenon of corruption in international business transactions, its consequences for global economy and institutional measures to address it:
-Comparative analysis of the provisions on combating corruption of foreign public officials: USA’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
-International harmonisation of the provisions on combating corruption of public officials: OECD convention on combating bribery of foreign public officials in international business transactions
- Banks, funding and transparency in international transactions (Know Your Client schemes)
- Transparency in financing international development cooperation
- Offshore companies and tax havens in the international economic system
- Comparative analysis of best practices for ensuring transparency regarding systems of appointing and executing public contracts (public procurement)
B.2. EU Law
- Right of the citizens to access documents of the EU institutions
- EU legislation on protecting personal data and its transposition in Greece
- EU and national measures on combating fraud against the EU’s financial interests
- Combating corruption in the public and the private sector: EU legislation and its transposition in Greece
- Tackling money laundering as the basic instrument for combating corruption and economic crime in the EU – Challenges for the national legislator
-
EU measures regarding
– e-governance,
– electronic transactions, and
– computer crime
and their effect on the national legal order.
- Good governance
- Administration of justice
C. On the subject of private law
- Addressing conflicts of interests in private law (articles 66, 98, 235 of the Greek Civil Code, 10 and 23a of statute 2190/1920, 8-9 of presidential degree 93/1987 etc.)
- Abusing institutions of private law (contractual freedom, legal personality etc.)
- Principle of transparency in the drafting of contractual conditions and protection of weaker parties (consumers, employees, renters etc.)
- Pre-contractual information requirement
- Principle of responsible lending
- Excessive lending, irresponsible lending by creditors and institutions («red loans»)
- Lack of transparency (lacking or inadequate information) in private law transactions
- Types of wrongful exercise of power in private law (Β2Β-contracts and Β2C-contracts) and abuse of power regarding contracts, especially amidst an economic crisis
- Collective consumer protection mechanisms
- Transactions defrauding creditors
- Bank supervision and compliance of credit and financial institutions, investment firms and insurance companies
- Bank supervision and compliance of branches and other types of secondary establishments of foreign credit and financial institutions, investment firms and insurance companies
- Supervisory obligations regarding compliance, internal control systems, handling unusual transactions (under the provisions on money laundering)
- Codes of conduct & soft law, especially with regard to financial institutions and supervisory authorities
- Insider trading and market manipulation
- Obligations to offer protection against the investor when providing investment services
- Commercial publicity
- Corporate publicity
- Corporate governance
- Supervisory / control mechanisms in corporate law and liability issues regarding supervisory / control authorities
- Conflicts of interests and loyalty obligations of managers/partners
- Liability of managers/partners in corporate (and bankruptcy) law, especially the disregarding of legal personality
- Special transparency obligations of listed companies
- Protecting the public interest / the interest of creditors in international corporate law under the light of EU freedom of establishment
- The information model and transparency as consumer protection mechanisms
- Unfair commercial practices
- Prohibited agreements between companies / Abuse of a dominant position / Market concentration
- Better regulation in the context of private law
- Problems and progress regarding the administration of justice in the field of private law.
D. On the subject of “law and information”
- Legal issues on e-governance
- Freedom of information
- Protection of personal data
- Liability of service providers within the information society
- Obligations to inform/comply of service providers within the information society
- Legal issues regarding electronic transactions
E. On the subject of criminal law and criminology
- Intransparency and criminal behavior
- Forms of corruption and financial crime in the public and private sectors
- The distinction between public and private sector in criminal enforcement
- Definition of the criminal concept of employee
- Tax crimes (tax evasion, customs-related offences, non-payment of debts owed to the State)
- Property crimes in the public and private sectors
- Offences affecting the EU’s financial interests
- Crimes of corruption in the public and private sectors
- Criminal counteraction against money laundering
- Asset Recovery
- Current trends and new forms of financial crime in the globalized economy
- Crimes of insider trading and market manipulation
- Offences against free and fair competition
- Bankruptcy offenses
- Procedural variations in financial crime and corruption in the public sector
- Criminal liability of legal persons and their commanders
- Counteracting financial crime against the EU and corruption through international cooperation mechanisms
- The association between administrative and criminal procedure to counter corruption and financial crime, in particular in the fields of research, penalties and rights
- Criminal protection of personal data in the era of e-government
- Abuses of information systems and criminal law protection in the era of e-government and e-business
- Better regulation and criminal law
- Criminal justice deficiencies and the upgrading of criminal justice
F. On the subject of General Economic Theory and Policy
Corruption’s negative impact on economic growth. More specifically:
- Cost of corruption
- Reduced appeal in attracting investment
- Reduced economic performance of enterprises
- High financial cost
- Impact on education due to reduced investments
- Impact of insider trading and market manipulation