215 10 3494 https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/0950f38785195c1c697d53edf6213a9e.docx 4d49a3c6983abee9dd1a299647560e06 https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/ab1c0426f054106e7d27207db19e7297.pdf 7cc4a57e3929f28a9fc461eb520fdc5f PDF Text Text dr. sc. Željko Galić, docent Pravni fakultet Sveučilišta u Mostaru PRAVO NA SAZNANJE PODRIJETLA I NAJBOLJI INTERES DJETETA U radu se analizira korelacija prava na saznanje vlastitoga podrijetla i pravnog standarda najboljeg interesa djeteta. Autor iznosi antropološku podlogu vrednovanja prava na saznanje podrijetla kao izvornog ljudskog prava i njegovu vezanost za utvrđivanje majčinstva i očinstva. Kritički analizira važeća normativna rješenja međunarodnih i domaćih akata, navodeći poteškoće i dvojbe u ostvarivanju tog prava unutar različitih segmenata obiteljskopravnih odnosa. Ističe svrhovitost načelne i suštinske podudarnosti prava na saznanje podrijetla i najboljeg interesa djeteta, ali i navodi specifične životne okolnosti kao moguće iznimke. Autor je posebnu pozornost usmjerio na davanje mogućih primjedbi i prijedloga pro futuro. Ključne riječi: pravo na saznanje podrijetla, majčinstvo, očinstvo, najbolji interes djeteta. 1. Uvod Kao izvorišne okosnice i smjerokaze u razmatranju važnosti i suodnosa prava na saznanje (biološkog) podrijetla i pravnog standarda najboljeg interesa djeteta mogli bismo uzeti prirodno ljudsko pravo na život i prirodnu vrijednost dostojanstvo svakog ljudskog bića. Pojmovno određenje ljudskog dostojanstva (engl. human dignity; njem. Menschenwürde; franc. Dignité humaine), upućuje da je ono osobno dobro koje kao najviša vrijednost pripada svakom ljudskom biću i daje mu pravo biti tretiran kao čovjek, a ne stvar, bez obzira na fizičke, psihičke, moralne i druge kvalitete.1 Ono je zajamčeno najvišim pravnim aktima i nitko ga se ne može odreći. Ljudsko dostojanstvo proizlazi iz čovjekove biti, ono je temelj i pretpostavka ljudskih prava. Stoga je i „pravno poimanje ljudskog dostojanstva nužno povezano s poštovanjem čovjeka, njegove egzistencije upravo kao osobe koja čini obitelj“.2 Društveni i obiteljski odnosi svojstveni su ljudskom biću, u kojima ono potvrđuje i realizira svoj osobni identitet. Dio tog osobnog identiteta svakako je i njegov biološki (genetski) identitet koji ga verificira kao jedinstvenu i neponovljivu jedinku. I upravo ta obilježja jedinstvenog postojanja u sebi 1 Usp. Pravni leksikon (gl. ur. Pezo V.), Leksikografski zavod Miroslav Krleža, Zagreb, 2007., str. 686. 2 Hrabar D., Deontološka prosudba ljudskog dostojanstva u obiteljskom pravu, Bogoslovska smotra, Zagreb, 77 (2007.), br. 1, str. 35. 114 �ponovno podrazumijevaju ljudsko dostojanstvo, koje je bitna poveznica sveukupnih, a time i obiteljskopravnih odnosa.3 Pravo na saznanje vlastitoga podrijetla možemo promatrati u dva jednako važna vida ili segmenta ljudskog života: kao specifično pravo djeteta kojem je svrha njegova zaštita u vrijeme odrastanja i razvitka, te kao prirodno pravo čovjeka (i nakon punoljetnosti) u sklopu prava na identitet i pripadnost određenoj srodničkoj i društvenoj skupini. U oba spomenuta aspekta nazire se načelna podudarnost ostvarenja navedenog prava s postojanjem najboljeg interesa za subjekta tog prava. U većini životnih okolnosti stvarna pretpostavka mogućnosti saznanja vlastitog podrijetla je u postojanju utvrđenog i pravno priznatog roditeljstva. Međutim, mogu postojati i situacije u kojima nema utvrđenog roditeljskopravnog odnosa, ali se time ne može zanemariti djtetovo pravo na saznanje podrijetla. U suvremenim pravnim poredcima roditeljskopravni odnos u pravilu se može zasnovati na tri različita načina: biološkim, prirodnim roditeljstvom – kada je biološka veza priznata pravom; primjenom nekih metoda medicinske oplodnje – kada se nepostojanje biološke veze pravno verificira kao roditeljstvo; i izborom, odnosno pravnim putem – zasnivanjem posvojenja. Stajališta o roditeljstvu u sve većoj mjeri počivaju na roditeljskoj funkciji a ne samo na biološkoj povezanosti. Pravno utvrđenje podrijetla djeteta, tj. majčinstva i očinstva - vodi uspostavi obiteljskog statusa djeteta i ostvarivanju roditeljske skrbi, što u pravilu stvara pretpostavke za ostvarenje najboljeg interesa djeteta. Hoće li se biološko i pravno roditeljstvo podudarati ovisi o životnim okolnostima i stajalištu, opredjeljenju osoba od kojih to ovisi. Prava djeteta su podvrsta ljudskih prava i mogu se različito klasificirati. U sklopu izvornih i osobnih prava je i djetetovo pravo na saznanje vlastitoga podrijetla, kojem je smisao zaštita za vrijeme odrastanja i sazrijevanja, ali i drugi razlozi: medicinski - radi vlastitog zasnivanja obitelji i mogućeg roditeljstva; psihološki - ljudskom biću je svojstveno pripadati užoj ljudskoj zajednici, tj. znati vlastite pretke odnosno srodnike; i materijalni4- međusobna prava i dužnosti prema srodnicima, uzdržavanje, imovinski odnosi, itd. 3 Usp. ibid., str. 40. Usp. O'Donovan K., A Right to Know One's Parentage?, International Journal of Law and the Family 2, 1988, str. 30; Kovaček-Stanić G, Uporedno porodično pravo, Univerzitet u Novom Sadu, Pravni fakultet, Centar za izdavačku delatnost, Odbor za pronatalitetnu populacionu politiku grada Novog Sada, Novi Sad, 2002. , str. 288 i 289. 4 115 �2. Normativni okvir i pravna praksa – aktualnosti i prijedlozi pro futuro Ustav Bosne i Hercegovine5 (dalje: BiH) iz 1995. godine, u preambuli se poziva i na ljudsko dostojanstvo kao prirodnu i moralnu vrijednost.6 Čl. II. Ustava BiH koji nosi naslov Ljudska prava i temeljne slobode u svome st. 1. Ljudska prava propisuje da će „Bosna i Hercegovina i oba entiteta osigurati najviši stupanj međunarodno priznatih ljudskih prava i temeljnih sloboda“. St. 2. Međunarodni standardi propisuje da se „u Bosni i Hercegovini izravno primjenjuju prava i slobode garantirane Europskom konvencijom za zaštitu ljudskih prava i temeljnih sloboda kao i njezinim protokolima. Ovi akti imaju prioritet nad svim drugim zakonima“.7 Među nabrojenim međunarodnim aktima u Aneksu I - Dodatni sporazumi o ljudskim pravima koji će se primjenjivati u BiH, pod rednim brojem 12. navedena je Konvencija o pravima djeteta (1989) koja se striktno odnosi na prava djece.8 Ustav Federacije BiH9 (dalje: FBiH) u svojoj Glavi II. – Ljudska prava i temeljne slobode, u čl. 1. propisuje da „se načela, prava i slobode utvrđeni u čl. II. Ustava BiH primjenjuju na cijeloj teritoriji BiH“.10 U čl. II.A.2. Ustava FBiH propisano je da „će Federacija BiH osigurati primjenu najviše razine međunarodno priznatih prava i sloboda utvrđenih u dokumentima navedenim u Aneksu ovog Ustava“. Na razini manjen entiteta Ustav Republike Srpske11 u Glavi II. - Ljudska prava i slobode, u čl. 10. do 49. uređuje pitanja ljudskih prava i temeljnih sloboda. Primjerice, taj ustav u čl. 11. ističe da je „život čovjeka neprikosnoven“, a „ljudsko dostojanstvo, tjelesni i duhovni integritet, čovjekova privatnost, lični porodični život su nepovredivi“ (čl. 13.). Konvencija za zaštitu ljudskih prava i temeljnih sloboda je najznačajniji dokument za zaštitu ljudskih prava u Europi. Pravo znati vlastito biološko podrijetlo, odnosno svoje krvne srodnike - poglavito i ponajprije roditelje, utkano je i u sadržaj odredbi njezina čl. 8. kojim se jamči poštovanje privatnog i obiteljskog života.12 Postojanje pravom priznatog majčinstva i očinstva13 za 5 Vidi: Dejtonski mirovni sporazum, JP „NIO Službeni list R BiH“, Sarajevo, 1996., Ustavi, Federalno ministarstvo pravde, (Zbirka ustava), Sarajevo, 1997. 6 O dvojbama ima li preambula normativni karakter v. kod: Miljko Z., Ustavno uređenje Bosne i Hercegovine, Hrvatska sveučilišna naklada, Zagreb, 2006, str. 71. 7 Vidi članak II. st. 2. Ustava BiH. 8 Vidi Aneks 4. Daytonskog sporazuma. 9 Usp. Ustav Federacije Bosne i Hercegovine s Amandmanima I - CVII, Parlament Federacije Bosne i Hercegovine, Sarajevo, 2007. 10 Vidi čl. II. 1. Ustava FBiH. 11 Službeni glasnik Republike Srpske, br. 2/1992, a u nekoliko navrata doneseni su i Amandmani I.–LXV. Pročišćen tekst Ustava Republike Srpske (dalje: RS) objavljen je u Službenom glasniku RS, br. 3/1992, 6/1992, 8/1992, 15/1992. i 17/1992). 12 Iako ne postoji izričita definicija privatnog života i privatnosti, nesporno je da bi ona obuhvaćala različita područja od kojih je i područje zaštite i čuvanja identiteta, a u sklopu kojeg je i pristup informacijama o vlastitom identitetu. Vidi podrobnije u: Jakovac-Lozić D., Prosudbe Europskog suda za ljudska prava temeljene na dosezima suvremenih dokaznih sredstava u paternitetskim postupcima, Zbornik Pravnog fakulteta u Zagrebu, 4 (2011), str. 1134 i 1135. 116 �svako ljudsko biće, temeljem bliskosti i međusobnih prava i obveza koja uređuje pravni poredak, ta osoba načelno ima preduvjete za opstanak, razvitak i jednakopravno uključivanje u cijelo društvo. Bitno drukčija situacija je kada dijete ne poznaje roditelje, odnosno ako nije uspostavljen roditeljskopravni odnos.14 Konvencija o pravima djeteta uvela je pravni standard najbolji interes djeteta kao kriterij za odnose, postupanje i donošenje odluka vezanih za djecu. Pri tumačenju i primjeni ovog standarda moraju se poštovati njegove karakteristike od kojih su najvažnije relativnost, subjektivnost i evolutivnost.15 Kriteriji za određivanje najboljeg interesa djeteta mogu se crpiti iz odredaba Konvencije o pravima djeteta, domaćih zakona i drugih kriterija koji uvažavaju ostvarivanje dugoročnog interesa djeteta.16 Među najvažnijim normativnim uporištima za ostvarivanje djetetova 17 prava na saznanje vlastitog podrijetla su i odredbe čl. 7. Konvencije o pravima djeteta.18 Međutim, u odredbama ove konvencije preferira se pravni roditeljski odnos koji je djelomično apstrahirao pravo djeteta na saznanje vlastitoga podrijetla. Naime, to djetetovo pravo ipak je ovisno o volji njegovih roditelja, jer se „službeni“ roditeljski odnos „pretpostavlja“ pravu djeteta - („…nakon rođenja …mu se mora jamčiti …koliko je to moguće, pravo da zna za svoje roditelje i da uživa njihovu skrb.).19 Iako BiH (još) nije članica Europske unije (dalje: EU), u kontekstu usklađivanja nacionalnih zakonodavstava u području obiteljskih odnosa 13 S pravnog stajališta majčinstvo, odnosno očinstvo možemo definirati kao pravni odnos koji nastaje između djeteta i žene, odnosno djeteta i muškarca, koji su upisani kao majka odnosno kao otac u matičnu knjigu rođenih. 14 O stajalištima nekih autora da dva prava: na saznanje vlastitog podrijetla i pravo na anonimno roditeljstvo ne treba promatrati u apsolutnom smislu i međusobno suprotnom odnosu, nego kroz mogućnost postizanja ravnoteže između njih, vidjeti kod: Kovaček-Stanić G., Pravo deteta da zna svoje poreklo, Univerzitet u Novom Sadu, Pravni fakultet, Centar za izdavačku delatnost, Novi Sad, 1997, str. 121-128. 15 Izvor: Bubić S, Prilog raspravi o sadržaju standarda „najbolji interes djeteta“ u oblasti porodičnog prava, Zbornik radova Jedanaestog međunarodnog savjetovanja: Aktualnosti građanskog i trgovačkog zakonodavstva i pravne prakse, Neum, 21., 22. i 23. lipnja 2013., str. 118 i 119. 16 Ibid., str. 121-124. 17 Termin „dijete“ u ovom kontekstu ne odnosi se samo na osobu određene dobi, već i na obiteljski odnosno srodnički odnos, tj. i na punoljetne osobe. Usp. Kovaček-Stanić, op. cit., fn. 14., str. 13 i 14. 18 Čl. 7. Konvencije o pravima djeteta glasi: „ 1. Odmah nakon rođenja dijete mora biti upisano u matične knjige te mu se mora jamčiti pravo na ime, pravo na državljanstvo i, koliko je to moguće, pravo da zna za svoje roditelje i da uživa njihovu skrb. 2. Države stranke osigurat će primjenu ovih prava u skladu sa svojim nacionalnim zakonodavstvom i obvezama koje proizlaze iz odgovarajućih međunarodnih instrumenata u ovom području, osobito ako bi dijete inače ostalo bez državljanstva.“ 19 Čl. 7. st. 1. Konvencije. Vidi slično o tome u: Alinčić M.; Hrabar D.; Jakovac-Lozić D.; Aleksandra K., Obiteljsko pravo, II. izmijenjeno i dopunjeno izdanje, Narodne novine d.d., Zagreb, 2006., str. 211. 117 �značajno je navesti i Povelju o temeljnim pravima EU 20 (dalje u tekstu: Povelja EU). Ovaj dokument osnažuje i jamči i neka specifična prava u sklopu kojih se izravno ili posredno može uključivati i razmatrati pravo na saznanje vlastitoga podrijetla. Ta prava su poglavito: ljudsko dostojanstvo 21; pravo na cjelovitost osobe22; poštovanje privatnog i obiteljskog života23, a u sklopu prava djece – pravo na zaštitu i brigu koja je potrebna za njihovu dobrobit; potom da svakom djelovanju tijela vlasti i privatnih ustanova koja se odnose na djecu primarni cilj mora biti zaštita interesa djeteta; te pravo djeteta na održavanje osobnih odnosa i susrete s oba roditelja, osim ako je to u suprotnosti s njegovim interesima. 24 Pravo na ljudsko dostojanstvo je neotuđivo pravo. Njega se definira kao pojam koji znači da svako ljudsko biće ima pravo na društvenu vrijednost i poštovanje, te da i „život u razvoju“ (primjerice embrij) kao i čovjek nakon smrti je obuhvaćen zaštitom prava na dostojanstvo, jer je potrebno štititi ljudsko dostojanstvo gdje god je život, te nije bitno je li nositelj života svjestan tog dostojanstva te kako ga može sa/čuvati.25 Važnost prava djeteta na saznanje podrijetla na međunarodnoj razini naglašava i Rezolucija Europskog parlamenta o strategiji EU u vezi s pravima djece iz 2008, u kojoj se ističe da nepostojanje identifikacije djeteta često ugrožava njegova temeljna prava. Takva djeca predmet su ilegalnih posvojenja, novačenja za ratne sukobe, trgovinu ljudskim organima i sl.26 Problematiku ovog rada u nastavku ćemo promatrati kroz pojedine segmente obiteljskopravnih odnosa – braka, izvanbračne zajednice, posvojenja te u sklopu problematike medicinski pomognute oplodnje. 2. 1. Brak i izvanbračna zajednica Roditeljskopravni odnos u suvremenim zakonodavstvima ostvaruje se primjenom prava na slobodno roditeljstvo27 i on načelno može nastati na tri 20 Charter of Fundamental rights of the European Union 2000/c 364/01) proglašena nakon potpisivanja Ugovora iz Nice, 2000, nakon Lisabonskog ugovora (2007.) postala je obvezujući dokument za većinu država članica EU. 21 Vidi čl. 1. Povelje UN. 22 Pravo na cjelovitost (integritet) osobe uređena je u čl. 3. 23 Usp. čl. 7. 24 Čl. 24. st. 1., 2. i 3. 25 U tom smislu je i pravorijek njemačkog Ustavnog suda u Odluci od 20. listopada 1992., BverfGE 87, str. 29. Preneseno iz : Korać Graovac A., II. Povelja o temeljnim pravima Europske unije i obiteljsko pravo, str. 31, fn. 19., a u: Bodiroga-Vukobrat N.; Hlača N.; Hrabar D.; JakovacLozić D.; Korač Graovac A.; Lapaš D.; Majstorović I.; Medić Musa I.; Novak B.; Sikirić H.; Smokvina V.; Winkler S.; Žnidaršić Skubic, V.; Župan M.: Europsko obiteljsko pravo, Narodne novine d. d., Zagreb, 2013. 26 Značajan dokument koji od europskih institucija i država članica traži bolju zaštitu i promicanje prava djece je Agenda EU o pravima djece iz 2011. Podrobnije vidjeti ibid., str. 66 - 68. 27 Prema nekim stajalištima, u sklopu prava na slobodno roditeljstvo je i pravo na nerađanje, koje se ostvaruje pravom na kontracepciju, pravom na pobačaj i pravom na sterilizaciju. 118 �načina: biološkim roditeljstvom28 – kada je biološka veza priznata pravom; rođenjem djeteta medicinskom oplodnjom, kada se uspostavlja roditeljskopravni odnos iako ne postoji biološka veza; i izborom, tj. pravnim putem – zasnivanjem posvojenja. Uspostava roditeljskopravnog odnosa znači i istodobno djetetovo stjecanje obiteljskog statusa. Stoga je, radi ostvarivanja djetetove dobrobiti, saznanje vlastitih roditelja kao jedno od temeljnih djetetovih prava, uređeno Konvencijom o pravima djeteta i Europskom konvencijom za zaštitu ljudskih prava i temeljnih sloboda, a predmet je i prakse Europskog suda za ljudska prava. Važnost utvrđivanja roditeljskopravnog odnosa za konkretne osobe ali i ostale njihove srodnike, potvrđuje činjenica da se i u domaćem zakonodavstvu očinstvo djeteta može priznati i prije rođenja djeteta, 29 te da se roditeljstvo djeteta može utvrđivati i ako je neka od osoba iz tog odnosa umrla - dijete, moguća majka, ili mogući otac. Priznanje majčinstva i očinstva može se dati i nakon djetetove smrti, ako je dijete ostavilo potomstvo. 30 Postupak za utvrđenje majčinstva ili očinstva može se pokrenuti i poslije smrti osobe za koju se pretpostavlja da je roditelj,31 a tužba se podnosi protiv nasljednika umrle osobe s tužbenim zahtjevom da je određena osoba majka ili otac djeteta.32 Uređena je i mogućnost da osobe koje imaju pravni interes mogu nakon smrti osobe koja je podnijela tužbu nastaviti postupak za osporavanje majčinstva ili očinstva. 33 Efikasnije sudsko utvrđivanje roditeljstva u suvremenim pravnim poredcima u znatnoj mjeri je posljedica razvitka biomedicinskih znanosti koja omogućuju korištenje dokaznog sredstva analizom DNA.34 Smjernice i načela za provedbu i uređivanje takvih istraživanja na europskoj razini sadrže dva važna dokumenta: Konvencija o ljudskim pravima i biomedicini i Bijela knjiga o načelima roditeljstva i njegove pravne posljedice.35 Pored toga, u prosudbama Europskog suda za ljudska prava sve više se izražavaju stajališta koja osnažuju pravo na saznanje vlastitoga podrijetla, naglašavanjem nužnosti okončanja 28 Roditeljstvo biološkim putem ostvaruje se rođenjem, koje može biti posljedica i medicinske oplodnje. U sklopu prava na roditeljstvo biološkim putem može se postaviti pitanje prava nerođenog djeteta. 29 Uz uvjet da se dijete rodi živo i da je bilo začeto u vrijeme davanja izjave o priznanju. Priznanje dato u oporuci, pravovaljano je ako je u vrijeme sastavljanja oporuke dijete bilo začeto. Usp. čl. 56. i 61. Obiteljskog zakona FBiH (Službene novine FBiH, br. 35/2004 i 41/2005) - dalje: ObZ FBiH. 30 Čl. 58. ObZ FBiH. 31 Vidi čl. 77. ObZ FBiH. 32 Tako prema grčkom pravu u slučaju smrti oca priznanje očinstva mogu dati njegovi roditelji, tj. djetetovi baka i djed. Izvor: Kovaček-Stanić G., Posthumno utvrđivanje i osporavanje porodičnog statusa deteta, Pravni život, Beograd, br. 2/2002, str. 720. 33 Usp. čl. 86. ObZ FBiH. 34 Dva su tipa nukleinskih kiselina u stanicama živoga svijeta: ribonukleinska kiselina (RNA) i deoksiribonukleinska kiselina (DNA). Sveukupna DNA neke stanice naziva se genom, a dio DNA koji određuje strukturu neke bjelančevine ili RNA zove se gen. 35 Konvencija iz 1997. uređuje dobivanje pristanka za sve medicinske intervencije, a spomenuta Bijela knjiga (Malta, 1997.) sadrži načela za utvrđivanje podrijetla i smjernice državama članicama VE za izradu propisa iz te materije. Izvor: Jakovac-Lozić, op. cit., fn. 32., str. 1133. 119 �postupaka i sporova u razumnom roku.36 U tom smislu je unutar obiteljskog zakonodavstva u BiH učinjen značajan iskorak, jer je u svrhu učinkovitog utvrđivanja roditeljskog odnosa, izrijekom u dva zakona - ObZ FBiH i Obiteljskom zakonu Brčko Distrikta BiH37 (dalje: ObZ BD) propisana mogućnost prisilnog dovođenja stranke38 radi obavljanja vještačenja analizom DNA, a koja se odnose na utvrđivanje ili osporavanje majčinstva ili očinstva. Usto, važeći obiteljski zakoni na prostoru BiH uređuju djetetovo pravo osporavanja majčinstva i očinstva do navršene 25. godine života.39 Prema odredbama PoZ RS (čl. 123. st. 1. i čl. 126.) i ObZ BD (čl. 60. st. 1.) do te dobi uređeno je i djetetovo pravo utvrđivanja majčinstva i očinstva, dok u federalnom zakonu nema takvog ograničenja. S obzirom da pravo na saznanje podrijetla ne egzistira u ograničenom životnom razdoblju, smatramo da samo u najmanjoj mjeri treba propisivati zapreke i ograničenja ostvarenja tog prava, pa tako i kod određivanja dobi podnositelja tužbe i rokova pokretanja postupaka utvrđivanja ili osporavanja majčinstva ili očinstva.40 Nekada specifične životne okolnosti rođenja djeteta mogu opravdano relativizirati njegovo pravo na saznanje podrijetla. Ovo pitanje posebice je bilo aktualno u Francuskoj,41 gdje je, pored Češke, Italije i Luksemburga dozvoljen anoniman porod - tzv. „l’accouchement sous X – porod pod X“. Svrha postojanja takvog prava je u posljedičnom izbjegavanju pobačaja, čedomorstva i napuštanja novorođenčeta od strane majke koja ne žele vlastito dijete. U Francuskoj se na odmjeren način pristupilo balansiranju spomenutih prava majke i djeteta – na način da se djetetov pristup podacima o podrijetlu favorizira ako to nije u suprotnosti s pravima majke.42 Iako se načelno ne može opravdati postupak majke, možemo reći da je ipak postignuto najbitnije – očuvanje života djeteta, 36 Primjerice u slučajevima Mikulić v. Croatia (Appl. no. 53176/99; Judgment of 7 February 2002) i Jevremović v. Serbia (Appl. no. 3150/05; Judgment of 17 May 2007). 37 V. čl. 302. st. 5. ObZ FBiH. Sadržajno iste odredbe ima i čl. 273. st. 5. ObZ BD (Službeni glasnik BD BiH, br. 23/2007) , a takvih odredaba o obveznom medicinskom vještačenju nema Porodični zakon (Službeni glasnik RS, br. 54/2002 i 41/2008) – dalje: PoZ RS. 38 Ako bismo usporedili važnost i vrijednost saznanje biološkog podrijetla za dijete s intenzitetom i prirodom „povrede prava“ na drugoj strani, možemo ustvrditi da je ovakvo zakonodavno rješenje opravdano. 39 V. čl. 79. st. 2. ObZ FBiH, čl. 131. i 134. PoZ RS i čl. 66. st. 2. ObZ BD. 40 Primjerice, prema odredbama čl. 249. do 252. srbijanskog Porodičnog zakona (Službeni glasnik Republike Srbije, br. 18/2005), dijete može podnositi tužbu za utvrđivanje ili osporavanje majčinstva ili očinstva bez obzira na rok. 41 Zanimljiv slučaj pred Europskim sudom za ljudska prava je predmet Odièvre v. France (Appl. no. 42326/98; Judgment of 13 February 2003), u kontekstu problematike suprotstavljenosti dvaju uređenih prava u pravnom poretku Francuske: prava majke na anonimnost poroda i prava djeteta na saznanje biološkog podrijetla. Sud je u odluci konstatirao da je važnija zaštita interesa majke da ostane anonimna, jer se time sprečava obavljanje pobačaja i čedomorstva. Time je donekle relativizirano formalno roditeljstvo i naglašena vrijednost stvarnog i željenog roditeljstva. O reguliranju ovog prava majke u francuskom pravnom sustavu v. podrobnije kod: Hlača N.,, Pravo majke na anonimnost poroda – »l'accouchement sous x – porod pod x«, Gynaecologia et Perinatologia, Zagreb, Vol.16 No. 3, 2007, str. 157-160. 42 Usp. Kovaček-Stanić G., Autonomija versus materijalna istina u komparativnom pravu o porodičnom statusu deteta, Zbornik radova Pravnog fakulteta u Novom Sadu, godina XLV, br. 3 (2011), tom I, str. 197. 120 �prepuštajući ga društvenoj skrbi i mogućem posvojenju. Kada je majka zbog teške životne situacije možda u dvojbi između života djeteta uz anonimnost majčinstva, i onog najpogubnijeg za dijete - pa izabere anoniman porod, onda bi bilo prezahtjevno, barem u takvim okolnostima, naglašavati bezuvjetnu nužnost saznanje vlastitoga podrijetla. Važan doprinos mogućnosti saznanja biološkog roditeljstva učinjen je pred kraj prošlog stoljeća u zakonodavstvu Francuske,43 Luksemburga i Belgije tako što je ukinuta zabrana priznanja roditeljstva za djecu rođenu iz preljuba ili incesta,44 te uvedena mogućnost priznanja očinstva od strane biološkog oca na temelju nepostojanja possession d’etat u odnosu na pravnog oca. Neka europska zakonodavstva45 u svrhu ostvarenja podudarnosti biološkog i pravnog roditeljstva, u situacijama kada razvod uslijedi nakon rođenja djeteta djelomično relativiziraju presumpciju pater est quem nuptiae demonstrant,46 tj. da je (bivši) muž djetetov otac.47 U sklopu ove materije zanimljivo je navesti i neke prosudbe Europskog suda za ljudska prava. Primjerice, ističe se nužnost okončanja maternitetskih i paternitetskih sporova u razumnom roku (Mikulić v. Croatia,48 Jevremović v. Serbia), naglašava se da medicinska ekspertiza iz tkiva umrle osobe radi utvrđenja očinstva ne narušava “privatni život” umrle osobe (slučaj Jäggi v. Switzerland),49 te da i kod postojanja zakonitog (bračnog) očinstva ne može se odbaciti mogućnost utvrđivanja izvanbračnog (biološkog) očinstva ako je to u najboljem interesu djeteta (Schneider v. Germany).50 43 Institut possession d’etat odnosno stanje slično braku, u francuskom pravu postojalo je između nekih osoba ako su prisutne činjenice: nomen – korištenje zajedničkog prezimena; tractus – ako se osobe ponašaju kao bračni partneri i fama – ako ih javnost tretira kao bračne partnere. Preneseno iz: Mladenović M.; Stjepanović S.; M. Živanović M., Porodično pravo, Pravni fakultet Univerziteta u Srpskom Sarajevu, Pale, 2003., str. 146. Inače u Francuskoj majčinstvo je moglo biti utvrđeno na temelju: akta o rođenju; possession d’etat tj. „posjeda stanja“ – u skladu s činjenicom da je dijete javno smatrano da potječe od osoba koje žive u izvanbračnoj zajednici; i sudskim putem. 44 Smanjena ograničenja u tom pogledu poznaje i današnji Code Civile des Français, kao i talijanski Codice Civile. 45 Primjerice u švedskom zakonodavstvu. Usporedno s navedenim i rok za osporavanje bračnog očinstva produžava se, a krug osoba ovlaštenih za osporavanje proširiva. 46 Relativizacija presumpcije bračnog očinstva a posebice heterologna oplodnja relativiziraju važnost biološke komponente krvnog srodstva, a time i ulogu obiteljskog imena – prezimena. Prezime svjedoči o povezanosti s precima, osigurava upis u redoslijed naraštaja, ono nadživljava osobu, „..dok ime umire ili se ponovno rađa sa svakom osobom koja ga nosi“. Stoga je reforma oko prezimena relativiziranje konkretne pripadnosti obitelji i srodničkoj zajednici. Schneider M., Zbrka među spolovima, Zagreb, 2008, str. 74. 47 Usp. Kovaček-Stanić, op. cit., fn. 4., str. 290. 48 Podrobnije o aktivnostima na provedbi te presude u Republici Hrvatskoj, vidjeti kod: Batistić Kos V., Pozitivne obveze prema Europskoj konvenciji za zaštitu ljudskih prava i temeljnih sloboda, Narodne novine d. d., Zagreb, 2012., str. 247 i 248. 49 Jäggi v. Switzerland, no. 58757/00 (Sect. 3), ECHR 2006-X – (13.7.06) 50 U tom slučaju Sud je odlučio „…i da kad postoji mogućnost da zakonski otac djeteta koji s njim živi nije i njegov biološki otac, sudovi ne mogu na temelju zakonske presumpcije odbaciti utvrđivanje biološkog očinstva, već moraju razmotriti posebne okolnosti slučaja i utvrditi je li u najboljem interesu djeteta utvrđivanje biološkog očinstva, te prava na viđanje i informiranje o djtetu od strane biološkog oca“. Preneseno iz: Batistić Kos, op. cit., fn. 47., str. 228. 121 �Zanimljiva je situacija utvrđivanja očinstva djeteta primjenom presumpcije bračnog očinstva prema domaćim zakonima, u okolnostima kada nakon prestanka braka, u razdoblju do 300 dana (odnosno 270 dana)51 žena sklopi kasniji brak i rodi dijete. Dvojba je u primjeni presumpcije pater is est …. Stajalište da je djetetov otac majčin muž iz ranijeg braka imalo bi argumentaciju u doslovnoj primjeni presumpcije; a argumenti za stajalište da je djetetov otac muž iz kasnijeg braka su u tome što suvremeni zahtjevi i trendovi upućuju na to da u zakonodavna rješenja i prosudbe pravne prakse veću važnost treba dati budućem statusu i potrebama članova obitelji, te da se ponajprije vrednuje i uvažava najbolji interes i obiteljskopravni status djeteta (roditelji su u braku). Bračni odnosno izvanbračni status djeteta upućuju na moguće razlike glede utvrđenja roditeljstva za to dijete. Sve dok dijete ima bračni status, egzistira i roditeljskopravni odnos s oba roditelja. Dijete izvanbračnog statusa može biti u jednoj od tri situacije: može imati pravom poznata, priznata ili utvrđena oba roditelja; imati samo jednog od njih; ili imati nepoznate roditelje. Roditeljskopravni odnos odnosno očinstvo iz braka i biološka stvarnost u pravilu se podudaraju, ali tu postoji i jedan paradoks: prirodni očinski odnos kao i onaj koji se takvim smatra može se osporavati i utvrditi njegovo nepostojanje, a roditeljskopravni odnos iz posvojenja „smatra“ se nespornim iako se zna da biološki ne postoji. Za zasnivanje i postojanje bračnog ili izvanbračnog roditeljstva, pored biološke sastavnice presudnu ulogu ima ljudska volja. Važnost očitovanja volje prema vlastitom roditeljstvu u braku se ogleda kao: mogućnost nijekanja – anonimni porod, te osporavanja vlastitog roditeljstva. Kod postojanja izvanbračne zajednice, kao i u okolnostima kada ona ne postoji, volja se očituje u mogućnosti anonimnog poroda, (ne)priznavanja roditeljstva, te njegovo osporavanje. Time suvremeni pristupi roditeljstvu u znatnoj mjeri vrednuju roditeljsku funkciju, a ne samo biološku povezanost. Posebne životne okolnosti rođenja djeteta mogu opravdano relativizirati njegovo pravo na saznanje podrijetla. U takvim situacijama egzistiralo bi pravo majke na anonimnost rođenje djeteta kao i očevo pravo na anonimnost. 2. 2. Posvojenje Analizu mogućnosti i opravdanosti ostvarenja prava na saznanje podrijetla kod posvojenja zanimljivo je razmatrati u sklopu dva pitanja: 1. važnosti pristanka bioloških roditelja na posvojenje njihova djeteta i 2. dvojbe o davanju prednosti tajnosti posvojenja ili djetetovom pravu na saznanje da je posvojeno. Iako Europska konvencija o posvojenju djece iz 1967. za zasnivanje posvojenja traži samo pristanak djetetovog oca ako je ono rođeno u braku, najnovija praksa Europskog suda za ljudska prava takav pristanak traži i od 51 Vidjeti čl. 54. st. 1. ObZ FBiH, a isto uređuje čl. 50. ObZ BD i čl. 109. st. 2. PoZ RS. 122 �djetetovog izvanbračnog oca, naglašavajući važnost i takve obiteljske veze.52 Na taj način izražava se tendencija osnaženja prava bioloških roditelja glede mogućnosti posvojenja njihova djeteta, odnosno njihova prava na saznanje podataka o posvojenju,53 što potvrđuje povezanost dvaju prava: bioloških roditelja – na saznanje informacija o posvojenju njihova djeteta; i prava djeteta na saznanje vlastitog podrijetla. Većina europskih država dopušta saznanje o posvojenju - nordijske zemlje, Velika Britanija; kao i SAD, Australija…, a postoje i tendencije prevladavanja i napuštanja spomenute dvojbe o tajnosti posvojenja na način da se stvaraju društveni uvjeti prihvaćanja činjenice da dijete može istodobno „imati“ i više od dva roditelja – primjerice dva oca s različitim statusom i ulogama - tj. sociološkog i biološkog oca.54 Sukladno odredbama Konvencije o pravima djeteta koja izričito uređuje djetetovo pravo znati tko su mu roditelji, Haška konvencija o međudržavnom posvojenju55 obvezuje države pristupnice kod zasnivanja međunarodnih posvojenja na čuvanje podataka o podrijetlu djeteta i omogućavanje djetetu dostupnosti tim podacima. Djetetovo pravo na saznanje posvojenja osnaženo je i u Preporuci Parlamentarne skupštine Vijeća Europe 1443 (2000.).56 U sklopu djetetovog prava na saznanje vlastitog biološkog podrijetla važno je navesti pristupe Europske konvencije o posvojenju djece (revidirane) iz 2008. godine.57 Konvencija načelno nudi rješenja s obzirom na pravo djeteta na saznanje vlastitoga podrijetla, ali je to pravo ipak relativizirano mogućim iznimkama koje državama strankama dopuštaju da se to pravo ne realizira.58 Djetetovo pravo je osnaženo odredbom čl. 16. Konvencije, kojom se uređuje međusoban tijek postupaka utvrđivanja očinstva ili majčinstva s postupkom posvojenja.59 52 Usp. Jakovac-Lozić D., Ususret novoj Europskoj konvenciji o posvojenju djece, Zbornik radova Petog međunarodnog savjetovanja: Aktualnosti građanskog i trgovačkog zakonodavstva i pravne prakse, Neum, 22., 23. i 24. lipnja 2007, str. 100. 53 O istraživanjima koja su pokazala da većina bioloških roditelja želi znati podatke o njihovoj djeci koja su posvojena te da posvojenje ne mora pratiti „konfuzija o identitetu“ Vidi podrobnije kod: Kovaček-Stanić, op. cit., fn. 14., str. 169-177. 54 Usp. Kovaček-Stanić, op. cit., fn. 4., str. 298. 55 Konvencija o zaštiti djece i suradnji na području međunarodnog posvojenja djece (1993.). 56 Ovom Preporukom se od država članica zahtijeva osiguranje prava posvojenog djeteta na saznanje vlastitog podrijetla najkasnije do punoljetnosti. 57 Konvencija u čl. 5. st. 1. (b) uređuje djetetov pristanak na posvojenje, u čl. 16. važnost postupaka utvrđivanja majčinstva i očinstva, a u čl. 22. st. 3. pravo posvojenog djeteta na pristup informacijama o njegovu podrijetlu. 58 Usp. Korać Graovac A., Europska konvencija o posvojenju djece (revidirana), Dijete i društvo, časopis za promicanje prava djeteta; Ministarstvo obitelji, branitelja i međugeneracijske solidarnosti, Godina 11, br. 1/2, Zagreb, 2009, str. 279 i 280. 59 Čl. 16. (Postupci za utvrđivanje roditeljstva), glasi: „U slučaju da je u tijeku postupak za utvrđivanje očinstva, ili, ako takav postupak postoji, za utvrđivanje majčinstva, pokrenut od strane navodnog biološkog oca odnosno majke, postupak posvojenja, ako je to primjereno, odgodit će se kako bi se pričekao ishod postupka o utvrđivanju očinstva odnosno majčinstva. Nadležna tijela će u takvim postupcima za utvrđivanje roditeljstva djelovati žurno.“ Izvor: http://www.mobms. 123 �Zanimljivo je navesti i neke prosudbe Europskog suda za ljudska prava. U predmetu Keegan v. Ireland, kojim je naglašena važnost postojanja biološkog roditeljstva izvanbračnog oca, odnosno statusa koji se može uspostaviti takvim roditeljstvom - skrbništvo nad djetetom, čime se štiti postojeći obiteljski status djeteta i ne dopušta posvojenje bez pristanka oca. U slučaju Görgülü v. Germany,60 Sud je, sukladno čl. 8. Europske konvencije o ljudskim pravima, procijenio da prednost zasnivanja roditeljske skrbi i posvojenja ima izvanbračni otac jer se time ostvaruje pravo na poštovanje obiteljskog života i dobrobit djeteta. ObZ FBiH i ObZ BD normiraju djetetovo pravo na saznanje vlastitoga posvojenja.61 S obzirom na komplementarnost djetetovih prava na saznanje podrijetla i posvojenja, držimo da bi pro futuro i PoZ RS trebao unijeti takve odredbe. Na prostoru BiH prije osamostaljenja tada važeći zakoni su uređivali tajnost posvojenja, odnosno nije postojala obveza upoznavanja djeteta s činjenicom posvojenja. Takvo rješenje zadržao je i važeći PoZ RS, 62 dok druga dva važeća obiteljska zakona unose novinu uređujući pravo djeteta na saznanje vlastitog posvojenja. Teorijski argumenti stajališta koji zagovaraju tajnost posvojenja su sljedeći: tajnost posvojenja jamči njegov uspjeh jer se time jačaju odnosi iz posvojenja kao vjerodostojni i jedini, što omogućuje potpuno uključivanje posvojčeta u obitelj; dijete ne će biti u situaciji razočaranja zbog saznanja da su ga napustili biološki roditelji; nema mogućnosti remećenja adoptivne veze od strane bioloških roditelja; a spomenuto stanje može odgovarati i biloškim roditeljima radi prikrivanja njihova identiteta i postupaka. Zakonodavci FBiH i BD63 smatraju važnijim djetetovo pravo na saznanje vlastitoga posvojenja, a federalni zakon uređuju i obvezu posvojitelja da upozna posvojče s činjenicom posvojenja, sukladno pravu djeteta da zna tko su mu (biološki) roditelji, najkasnije do njegove sedme godine života, odnosno odmah nakon zasnivanja posvojenja ako je posvojeno starije dijete. hr/media/19492/casopis%20dijete%20i%20drustvo%20god9_br2_2009_mobms_screen.pdf ; 6. 4. 2013. 60 Görgülü v. Germany (Appl. no. 74969/01; Judgment of 26 February 2004) , izvor: http://www.echr. coe. int/ECHR/EN/Header/CaseLaw/Decisions+and+judgments/Lists+of+judgments/ ; 20. 9. 2013. 61 Dok ObZ BD dosta oskudno uređuje to pravo („Dijete ima pravo znati da je posvojeno“ – čl. 77.), federalni zakon uređuje i obvezu posvojitelja da upoznaju posvojče s činjenicom posvojenja najkasnije do njegove sedme godine života, odnosno odmah nakon zasnivanja posvojenja ako je posvojeno starije dijete (čl. 92. st. 1. i 2.). Zakonska formulacija "do njegove sedme godine života" je nejasna, jer se ne zna misli li se na početak ili završetak sedme godine. 62 Obvezu upoznavanja djeteta s činjenicom posvojenja ne propisuje ni srbijanski Porodični zakon. 63 Primjerice i Obiteljski zakon Republike Hrvatske (Narodne novine, br. 116/2003, 17/2004, 136/2004, 107/2007 i 61/2011) u čl. 124. uređuje obvezu centra za socijalnu skrb da upozna posvojitelje s pravom djeteta doznati (od posvojitelja) da je posvojeno. I dok je ovo pravo prijeko potrebno za dijete - i to što ranije od samih posvojitelja, za osobe koje nemaju pravnog interesa uputnije je da činjenica posvojenja ostane nepoznata, pa ona i ima status službene tajne. Vidi pobliže kod: Alinčić M.; Bakarić Abramović A.; Belajec V.; Hrabar D.; Korać A., Komentar Obiteljskog zakona, II. izmijenjeno i dopunjeno izdanje, 2002., str. 61. 124 �Iako prije navedeni teorijski argumenti za tajnost posvojenja izgledaju na prvi pogled utemeljeni, oni su ipak samo prividni i necjeloviti. Jer nema potpuno opravdanih razloga prikrivati životnu stvarnost nekog ljudskog bića prikazivanjem samo drugog, iako korisnog srodničkog odnosa. Posvojenje unosi promjene u djetetov obiteljskopravni status i dotadašnje srodničke odnose. Stoga pravo na saznanje posvojenja istodobno otvara mogućnosti za cjelovito saznanje o postojanju i prirodi srodničkih veza tog djeteta. U svakom slučaju, oba djetetova prava - na saznanje biološkog podrijetla i na saznanje odnosa posvojenja, iznimno su važna za djetovu dobrobit i cjelokupan zdrav razvoj, i treba ih promatrati ravnopravno i kao jednu cjelinu. Ovdje je, kao i u ostalim životnim situacijama, istina istodobno važna i korisna. 2. 3. Medicinski pomognuta oplodnja Rađanje ljudskog bića u okolnostima nemogućnosti poznavanja njegovih vlastitih korijena je negacija temeljnih ljudskog prava na saznanje vlastitog podrijetla, prava na vlastiti identitet i prava na obiteljski i društveni život. Nepostojanje tih prava za ljudsko biće znači očito onemogućavanje potrebnog razvitka i života u uzajamnosti s drugim ljudima. Osvrnut ćemo se na neke situacije i okolnosti u sklopu uređivanja i provedbe metoda medicinske oplodnje, posebice stoga što je u takvim okolnostima pravo na saznanje podrijetla onemogućeno ili otežano. Najprije ćemo se osvrnuti na neke odredbe federalnog Nacrta zakona o liječenju neplodnosti biomedicinski potpomognutom oplodnjom (dalje u tekstu: Nacrt ZMPO).64 Nacrt ZMPO uređuje uvjete, način i postupak liječenja neplodnosti kod parova koji žive u bračnoj ili izvanbračnoj zajednici, tehnikama biomedicinski pomognute oplodnje, prava na oplodnju, primjenu postupaka medicinske oplodnje, darivanje spolnih stanica, uvjete pod kojima se postupci medicinske oplodnje obavljaju u zdravstvenim ustanovama, nadzor nad provedbom zakona, te druga pitanja važna za primjenu zakona. Vlada Federacije BiH utvrdila je Nacrt ZMPO na 28. sjednici održanoj 8. svibnja 2012. godine, te ga uputila u redoviti parlamentarni postupak donošenja. Sredinom 2013. godine, usvojen je tekst na oba doma Parlamenta Federacije BiH, a suglasno Zaključcima oba doma Parlamenta FBiH, provodi se javna rasprava o predmetnom zakonu. Na liječenje neplodnosti primjenom postupaka medicinske oplodnje imaju pravo muškarac i žena koji u vrijeme primjene tih postupaka žive u bračnoj ili izvanbračnoj zajednici,65 i to korištenjem vlastitih spolnih stanica (homologna oplodnja), ili korištenjem darovane jajne ili sjemene splne stanice 64 Može se uputiti primjedba na sam naziv zakona, jer on očito ne uređuje liječenje neplodnosti već nadomjestak, odnosno ostvarivanje začeća medicinskim tehnikama i metodama kada to nije moguće prirodnim načinom. 65 Vidjeti čl. 16. st. 1. Nacrta ZMPO. 125 �(heterologna oplodnja).66 Nacrt ZMPO izričito uređuje da darivatelj odnosno darivateljica spolnih stanica nemaju obveza ni prava prema djetetu koje je začeto od njihovih spolnih stanica u postupcima medicinske oplodnje. Time se relativizira roditeljstvo i kida iskonska biološka veza između ljudskih bića.67 S obzirom da heterologna oplodnja unaprijed podrazumijava nepodudarnost biološkog i pravnog roditeljstva i negira mogućnost ostvarenja prava djeteta na saznanje biološkog podrijetla,68 ovakvim zakonskim pristupom istaknut je prioritet namjeravanog, voljnog roditeljstva nad genetskim, supremacija prava i društvene sastavnice nad biološkom sastavnicom. Pravo djeteta na saznanje vlastitoga podrijetla je u svojevrsnoj koliziji s pravom njegovog biološkog ali „nepoznatih“ i pravnog a „priznatog“ roditelja. Biološki roditelj kao darivatelj reprodukcijskog materijala, ima pravo na privatnost odnosno tajnost, a pravom priznati roditelji i obitelj u cjelini imaju pravo na priznati integritet i stabilnost.69 Prema odredbama ObZ FBiH nije dozvoljeno u sudskom postupku utvrđivati ili osporavati majčinstvo i očinstvo djeteta začetog u postupku medicinske oplodnje.70 Zakon predviđa i iznimke71 od ovoga pravila: (1) Žena koja je rodila dijete začeto iz jajne stanice druge žene može osporavati svoje majčinstvo ako je u postupku medicinske oplodnje dijete začeto bez njezine pisane suglasnosti.72 Time je mogućnost osporavanja majčinstva ostavljena gestacijskoj, ali ne i genetskoj majci. Osim toga, (2. iznimka) i muž majke može osporavati očinstvo djeteta rođenog u braku ili u razdoblju 300 dana od prestanka braka, ako je u postupku medicinske oplodnje dijete začeto sjemenom drugog muškarca bez pisane suglasnosti muža.73 Možemo pojednostavljeno kazati da se u europskim zakonodavstvima, kao i u praksi Europskog suda za ljudska prava, majčinstvo načelno utvrđuje primjenom pravila mater semper certa est; a u slučajevima medicinske oplodnje darovanim sjemenom, ocem djeteta smatra se muž odnosno izvanbračni partner majke koji je dao pristanak na takvu oplodnju.74 Time je kod utvrđivanja majčinstva preferiran gestacijski u odnosu na genetski element, čimbenik; dok je 66 Čl. 19. Nacrta ZMPO. Vidjeti čl. 12. st. 3. tog zakona. Relativiziranjem biloške veze na taj način, kao i propisanom mogućnošću tajnosti roditeljstva od strane darivatelja spolnih stanica, na svojevrsan način se imitira životinjski svijet, gdje se kod mnogih vrsta očinska uloga svedena samo na davanje reprodukcijskoga materijala. 68 Čl. 20. st. 2. Nacrta ZMPO glasi: “Darivatelj/ica spolnih stanica nema prava ni obveza prema djetetu koje je začeto u postupku MPO-e.”. 69 Usp. Kovaček-Stanić G., Legislativa o ljudskoj reprodukciji uz biomedicinsku pomoć, Univerzitet u Novom Sadu, Pravni fakultet, Centar za izdavačku delatnost, Novi Sad, 2008., str. 20. 70 Čl. 89. tog zakona i čl. 74. ObZ BD. 71 Za razliku od dva navedena zakona, PoZ RS uređuje zabranu utvrđivanja očinstva (ne i majčinstva !) djece začete umjetnim putem, kao i mogućnost osporavanja očinstva od strane muža, ako je do začeća došlo umjetnim putem sjemenom drugog muškarca bez muževe suglasnosti. V. čl. 135. i 136. PoZ RS. 72 Čl. 90. st. 1. ObZ FBiH i čl. 75. st. 1. ObZ BD. 73 Čl. 90. st. 2. ObZ FBiH i čl. 75. st. 2. ObZ BD. 74 Usp. Jakovac-Lozić, op. cit., fn. 12., str. 1146. 67 126 �kod spomenute predmnjeve očinstva voljni element ispred genetskog. Međutim, ako bismo kroz suvremena europska zakonodavstva promatrali genezu stajališta o anonimnosti darivatelja reprodukcijskog materijala kod medicinske oplodnje, možemo kazati da postoje i izvjesna napuštanja takve mogućnosti, čime se postupno osnažuje pravo djeteta na saznanje vlastitog biološkog podrijetla.75 3. Umjesto zaključka Ljudsko dostojanstvo je osobno dobro koje kao najviša vrijednost pripada svakom ljudskom biću. Ono je uporište ljudskih prava i ključna poveznica obiteljskopravnih odnosa. Možda ni jedna etičko-filozofska i pravna pitanja nisu tako međusobno uvjetovana i povezana kao što su „ljudski život“, „ljudsko dostojanstvo“ i „ljudska prava“. Zbog toga se, kroz prizmu ova tri pojma gotovo uvijek mogu naći odgovori na suvremena prijeporna pitanja vezana za vrednovanje i status pojedinca i obitelji u suvremenim pravnim poredcima. I život u razvoju (primjerice embrij) obuhvaćen je zaštitom prava na dostojanstvo, a čovjek ga zadržava i nakon smrti, ono se ne može izgubiti i ne može biti oduzeto. U sklopu mogućnosti i važnosti zasnivanja roditeljskopravnog odnosa evidentno je da međunarodni normativni pristupi u sve većoj mjeri uvažavaju i osnažuju djetetovu volju za saznanjem vlastitoga biološkog podrijetla. Pravo djeteta na saznanje podrijetla poglavito se temelji se na odredbama čl. 7. Konvencije o pravima djeteta, čl. 8. Europske konvencije za zaštitu ljudskih prava i temeljnih sloboda, čl. 30. Haške konvencije o međunarodnom posvojenju, te čl. 5. Europske konvencije o posvojenju djece (revidirane). Za suvremena zakonodavstva i pravnu praksu posebno je delikatno pitanje kojem pravu dati primat u situacijama kada roditelji žele ostati anonimni i kada je to pravo u opreci s pravom djeteta na saznanje vlastitoga podrijetla. Želja za (ne)roditeljstvom u dosta slučajeva presudnija od istine o podrijetlu, odnosno roditeljstvo je često stvar volje a ne biološkog odnosa. To je poglavito izraženo kod prava na anoniman porod, utvrđivanja i osporavanja (izvan)bračnog očinstva, različitih oblika medicinske oplodnje, nekih situacija kod posvojenja. Smatramo da bi pravo na saznanje vlastitoga podrijetla trebalo izričito unijeti u međunarodne dokumente kao izvorno i neotuđivo ljudsko pravo, a da ostvarivanje tog prava treba ovisiti o djetetovoj volji, ali i zaštiti postojećeg roditeljskopravnog odnosa odnosno interesa drugih osoba. Isto tako, trebalo bi otklanjati mogućnosti i sprečavati postupke i slučajeve zlouporabe prava na stjecanje roditeljstva, posebice ako je to na štetu utvrđivanja biološkog roditeljstva. Nije potrebno posebno naglašavati da je to u svrhu ostvarivanja najboljeg interesa djeteta. Ne možemo zaobići i stajališta da 75 Početak takvog odnosa možemo pratiti nakon unošenja zakonskih odredaba o mogućnosti saznanja podataka o darivatelju za dijete u švedskom zakonodavstvu 1984, vrednovanjem tog prava kao ustavne kategorije u Njemačkoj 1989. i Švicarskoj 1992, itd. Detaljnije vidjeti u: Kovaček-Stanić, op. cit., fn. 14., str. 157-162. 127 �roditeljska odgovornost prema novom životu nastaje i prije rođenja djeteta, jer dajući novi život – roditelji su za njega odgovorni od trenutka njegova početka, tj. začeća. Roditeljskopravni odnos između biološkog roditelja i djeteta može se zasnovati primjenom predmnjeve o majčinstvu odnosno očinstvu majčina muža; priznanjem; utvrđivanjem u sudskom postupku. S obzirom na važnost i široke pravne učinke roditeljskopravnog odnosa na više osoba, i domaći zakonodavac je propisao mogućnost priznanja očinstva i prije rođenja djeteta, kao i utvrđivanja roditeljskog odnosa i onda kada je neka osoba iz tog odnosa (majka, otac ili dijete) umrla. Razvitak medicinskih znanosti i metoda utvrđivanja biološkog podrijetla, posebice postupka analize DNA dodatno su ojačali i učinili ostvarivim pravo na saznanje vlastitog biološkog podrijetla. U sva tri obiteljska zakona u BiH, trebalo bi u dijelu koji uređuje prava i dužnosti roditelja i djece unijeti izričitu odredbu o djetetovu pravu, bez obzira na dob, da zna tko su mu roditelji, te da se to pravo može ograničiti samo tim zakonom. U većini životnih situacija ostvareno pravo na saznanje podrijetla podrazumijava i egzistiranje roditeljskopravnog odnosa. Međutim, postoje i takve životne okolnosti – kada djetetovo pravo na saznanje podrijetla može biti opravdano i realizirano, iako se neće zasnovati roditeljskopravni odnos (primjerice kod anonimnog poroda, nekih situacija kod posvojenja, kod medicinski pomognute oplodnje kada pravna „istina“ ne odgovara biološkoj i sl.). Svakako je poželjno da u praksi bude što manje situacija i okolnosti u kojima se ostvarenje prava na saznanje podrijetla i i najbolji interes djeteta međusobno isključuju. Najpovoljnija životna kombinacija je u njihovom obostranom ispunjenju, tj. da je saznanjem biološkog podrijetla ostvaren i najbolji interes djeteta. Neupitno je da pravo na saznanje podrijetla treba postojati za vrijeme cijeloga života svakog čovjeka, a ne samo do njegove punoljetnosti. Stoga smatramo da se samo u najmanjoj mjeri i u opravdanim slučajevima mogu propisivati zapreke i ograničenja ostvarenja tog prava, posebno kod određivanja dobi podnositelja tužbe i rokova pokretanja postupaka utvrđivanja ili osporavanja majčinstva ili očinstva. Na kraju možemo zaključiti: ostvarivanje prava na saznanje vlastitog podrijetla trebalo bi uvijek omogućiti ako nije u suprotnosti s najboljim interesom djeteta i zaštitom postojećih obiteljskopravnih odnosa. 128 �Dr. sc. Željko Galić, Assistent professor, Law Faculty, University of Mostar RIGHT TO KNOW ORIGIN AND THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILD Summary: This paper analyzes the correlation of the right to know one's origins and the legal standard of the best interest of the child. The author presents the anthropological basis of evaluation of the right to know one's origins as the original human right and it’s attachment to the determination of a motherhood and a fatherhood. He gives a critical analysis of valid normative solutions of international and local acts, stating the difficulties and doubts in the realization of that right within the different segments of family relationships. He also emphasizes the relevance of principal and fundamental compatibility between the right to know one’s origins and the best interests of the child, as well as the specific circumstances of life as possible exceptions. The author's attention is specifically focused on giving potential objections and suggestions pro futuro. Key words: right to know the origin, maternity, paternity, the best interests of the child. 129 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 3039 Title A name given to the resource PRAVO NA SAZNANJE PODRIJETLA I NAJBOLJI INTERES DJETETA Author Author GALIĆ, Željko Abstract A summary of the resource. U radu se analizira korelacija prava na saznanje vlastitoga podrijetla i pravnog standarda najboljeg interesa djeteta. Autor iznosi antropološku podlogu vrednovanja prava na saznanje podrijetla kao izvornog ljudskog prava i njegovu vezanost za utvrđivanje majčinstva i očinstva. Kritički analizira važeća normativna rješenja međunarodnih i domaćih akata, navodeći poteškoće i dvojbe u ostvarivanju tog prava unutar različitih segmenata obiteljskopravnih odnosa. Ističe svrhovitost načelne i suštinske podudarnosti prava na saznanje podrijetla i najboljeg interesa djeteta, ali i navodi specifične životne okolnosti kao moguće iznimke. Autor je posebnu pozornost usmjerio na davanje mogućih primjedbi i prijedloga pro futuro. Ključne riječi: pravo na saznanje podrijetla, majčinstvo, očinstvo, najbolji interes djeteta. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Law faculty of University Džemal Bijedić Mostar Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Keywords Keywords. Article PeerReviewed K Law (General) https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/5ad6573cbdd358e4b243ba55acb44e40.docx 56129c698052f247c854d0d5ba6226ed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 3621 Title A name given to the resource Pravo preče kupovine kod suvlasništva na nekretninama u pravu Bosne i Hercegovine Author Author Oruč, Esad Abstract A summary of the resource. Sažetak: U radu je obrađen institut prava preče kupovine kao sadržajni element suvlasništva sa posebnim akcentom na suvlasničke zajednice na nekrentinama u pravu BiH. S tim u vezi, razmatrana su osnovna pitanja ovog instituta kao: pitanje pravne prirode prava preče kupovine, njegovog sadržaja, sudske zaštite usljed povrede istog, kao i pitanje da li i u kojoj mjeri pravo preče kupovine predstavlja ograničenje prava vlasništva? Kroz analizu zakonskih tekstova, ukazano je i na različitosti, odnosno specifičnosti u regulaciji pojedinih pitanja prava preče kupovine suvlasnika na nekretninama u entitetima, odnosno Brčko distriktu BiH. Pored navednog, ukazano je na određene propuste u regulaciji prava preče kupovine, te su predložena adekvatna zakonska rješenja. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Social Sciences Research Center Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Keywords Keywords. Article PeerReviewed K Law (General) https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/d9ae74a816d8c7a670f4d1df532e1262.pdf bba9ff1f2eb2f950cf779f3a82958baa PDF Text Text ��������������1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. �� https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/13a5afd62c8ebe8fb7dc64dd0e79da94.docx d008d37d19f3ab9a94b9fedb45fe57dc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 3094 Title A name given to the resource Pravo, pravda, sloboda i moral kao temeljne vrednote euroatlantskih integracija Author Author MATIJA, Ivan Abstract A summary of the resource. U ovome radu izlažemo naslovljenu temu, polazeći od temeljnih vrijednosti euroatlantskih integracija, ali u kontekstu tranzicijskih procesa s osobitim osvrtom na Bosnu i Hercegovinu (BiH), koja je, stjecajem historijskih okolnosti i ratnih stradanja, još uvijek ostala "nedovršena država". S obzirom da će ubrzo biti dvadeset godina od potpisivanja Daytonskog mirovnog sporazuma kojim je kompromisno okončan četverogodišnji rat u BiH, a da pri tome nisu izgrađeni čvrsti temelji samoodržive i funkcionalne države, u radu kritički problematiziramo stanje općih civilizacijskih vrijednosti koje su osnovica euroatlantskih integracija, a koje BiH, ustrojena prema ovome sporazumu, teško može implementirati u bosanskohercegovačko društvo. U prvom dijelu rada govorimo o pravu, pravdi i pravednosti. Drugi dio sadrži osvrt o uzrocima nepravdi i diskriminacije, dok u trećem dijelu razmatramo legitimitet društvenih i pravnih normi u odnosu na opći (ne)moral u tranzicijskim društvima. U četvrtom zaključnom dijelu ukazujemo na probleme, koji, ako se ne riješe u skoro vrijeme, mogu prouzročiti nekontrolirane procese opasne po opstojnost BiH kao jedinstvene države. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Pravni fakultet Univerziteta u Bihaću i Centar za društvena istraživanja Internacionalnog Burč univerziteta Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Keywords Keywords. Article PeerReviewed K Law (General) https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/feb20be2e5dac7e85e19d9b65e29c2b6.pdf 358a4f9a82add476da9123f8b19e2dba Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 3266 Title A name given to the resource Pre-Primary Teachers’ Beliefs about Early Foreign Language Learning in Slovenia Author Author Dagarin Fojkar, Mateja Abstract A summary of the resource. The introduction of foreign languages into the early years has spurred a need for qualified teachers. Most of the recent studies (e.g. Garton, Copland & Burns, 2011; Mourão & Lourenço, 2015; Murphy & Evangelou, 2016) reveal that there are not enough teachers who would be proficient in a foreign language and at the same time have thorough knowledge of the preschool curriculum and methodology of teaching foreign languages to young learners. More pre-service and in-service teacher training in this area is highly recommended. In Slovenia, there is currently only a two-year in-service teacher-training programme for pre-primary teachers who wish to gain a formal certificate to teach English to children from the ages of 3 to 6 and only a few teachers have finished it. Nevertheless, the research shows that in 2009/2010 almost half of Slovene kindergartens (47,5%) offered some form of foreign language teaching to children and we can assume that this number has grown in the last six years. Ideally, foreign languages would be taught by trained pre-primary teachers, proficient in foreign languages and early language teaching methodology, and therefore we have conducted a research among 369 pre-primary teachers, asking them about their beliefs about early foreign language learning. Questionnaires were administered to all the participants in the study. The results show that most pre-primary teachers have a positive attitude to early foreign language learning. Most of them think that children should start learning a foreign language in kindergarten and that foreign language learning should be integrated into the preschool curriculum. They think that foreign languages should be taught by qualified pre-primary teachers and approximately half of them are willing to train for early FL teaching. Their attitude to early foreign language learning brings an optimistic forecast into the future, but there is still a lot to be done for effective inclusion of foreign languages into pre-primary education. Keywords: preschool children, pre-primary teachers, foreign language learning Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available International Burch University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-04-12 Keywords Keywords. Article PeerReviewed PE English https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/7321b333cc9b37665b05c4df8b752d1b.pdf b4235ee18240c4be4d99ee2214fe921a PDF Text Text Pre- service teacher training: motivation, objectives and teaching strategies Daniela CecicMladinic Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain Abstract: Trinity College Diploma in TESOL offers a compulsory part of the course titled Unknown Language Learning Experience. It is an assessed part of the course and it accounts for 20% of the final mark. Trainees have to write a language journal guided by a semi- structured questionnaire after observing and participating in four lessons taught in an unknown language. The main objective of this experience is to introduce teaching methodologies and activities suitable for total beginners and to show how to write up a lesson plans and do a contrastive analysis. In 2003 we have organized a course on the island of Gran Canaria training 24 students from the UK, Australia and Spain. Eleven/twelve years after the experience, in 2015, we have asked them the very same questions they had to answer back in 2003 in their journals. This action research procedure has proven the validity of the unknown language experience. The questions we have analysed deal with feeling, motivation, teaching strategies, objectives and techniques. 100% of them valued the experience as a positive one and 40% of them stated that they could follow the lesson precisely because only L2 was used. 100% of the trainees said that they have used the same unknown language teaching strategies since they have considered them as a very useful in language teaching methodology. Due to the success of the experiment we have done trial experiments from 2011- 2013 at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria with the main aim to implement the Unknown Language Experience in the core curriculum at the Teacher Training Faculty. Keywords: L2, TESOL, journal, motivation, ULE 1. Introduction The current manuscript focuses on the on-going search for an appropriate and eclectic methodology for the teaching and learning of foreign languages, and, more specifically, on the practice of reflective teaching and learning as a pedagogical tool for teachers as learners, in this case for pre-service teachers. Recent investigation projects in the field of foreign language pedagogy within the research area of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) have focused on the search for more effective, communicative, student-centred and purposeful approaches in language learning contexts, as well as greater reflection on the second language teaching and learning process itself, which has, in consequence, triggered a renewed interest in teacher and learner beliefs about learning and teaching (e.g. Weimar, 2013; Wright, 2011; Pollard and Collins, 2005; Stronge, 2002). There is little doubt that a learner’s interpretations and conceptualizations influence their learning achievements, and this is a premise that will form the basis of the current study revolving around the pedagogical practice of reflecting on learning and teaching. Sometimes students’ beliefs do not coincide with those of their teachers, creating dissatisfaction and lack of interest on both sides and, frequently, these ideas �are very difficult to change, since these predetermined conceptions as well as misconceptions mostly consist of both good and bad previous language learning experiences. Therefore, initial teacher training in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Methodology might be the perfect opportunity to start developing critical reflection upon successful or ineffective teaching practice, and it might even be more effective if pre-service teachers could participate in a foreign language learning context as reflective and critical learners themselves, in which they can experience those processes or feelings their own future students might undergo in their own future teaching contexts. In consequence, we propose that teacher trainees should begin to master their reflective and critical skills during their initial training in order to further support their on-going professional learning and development. 2. Literature review A great number of us have experienced the mismatches highlighted by Van Manen (1995) as novice instructors and this feeling can, in fact, hamper pre-service teachers because of their lack of the awareness of the crucial role of reflection in combination with their limited knowledge about the learning/teaching process. As a response to this, this manuscript aims to prove the value for trainee teachers of understanding the way Foreign Language (FL) students learn, those methodologies that help these students learn and how we can enable them to feel at ease when in a formal learning context. Moreover, we consider that guided reflection during and after pre-service teaching training should form a compulsory part of official programmes as a means to further enable trainees to become more effective future language teachers. SLA research findings have furthered our comprehension of learning and teaching processes, and consequently we are aware that that there are certain methods and techniques that might seem to encourage learning, but more is needed to help teachers to be more successful in their daily teaching practice. Motivation can be said to be a factor of great importance in language learning and teaching contexts as well as SLA research, and “[...] provides the primary impetus to initiate L2 learning and later the driving force to sustain the long and often tedious learning process” (Dörnyei, 2002:65). From the multitude of published research into this complex concept which affects the learning process, we can confirm that motivation is one of the strongest pillars when learning a second language. Moreover, Dörnyei also states that “factors underlying motivation can override the aptitude effect on the individual variability in language learning achievement“(cited in Öz et al.,2015:3). It would seem logical that the essential aim of SLA research should be to assist teachers in their daily practice in the classroom by exploring the role of factors affecting learning such as these. Unfortunately, we might suggest that some SLA investigation does not contribute much towards teaching practice unless it includes the multiple cognitive and affective factors affecting learning. 3. Methodology Croatian was chosen as the unknown language in our ULE research project, and this is due to the fact that it is so different from Spanish and English. It is an Indio-European language and therefore it shares some minor similarities in grammar and lexis, but none of these elements (such as words of Greek or Latin origin) were used by the researcher, on purpose, to show �that you can understand and participate totally in a foreign language classroom if the context and methodology are the right one. Content analysis is a research method that uses a set of procedures to make valid inferences from a text. (Weber:1990) “Two of those procedures are part of our research: code openended question and identify the intention of the communicator.” (1990:9) Our students by participating in answering questions and by writing a diary about the experience have offered us a sound material to be analysed qualitatively as well as quantitatively. We have calculated the percentages of most frequent answers and examined in detail both diary entries and openquestion answers. We have classified the data into fewer categories by taking into account common traits among answers. According to Weber, these categories or classifications have to be reliable, consistent and they have to generate variables that are valid above all. Since our aim was to prove the validity and usefulness of ULE in teacher training programmes, we have decided that our research design had to be three-fold: qualitative, quantitative and mixed. Regarding the qualitative data, we have analyzed the diary entries by means of content analysis procedures, for the collection of quantitative data we have the adapted Trinity College London Diploma questions, and with regard to the mixed aspect, triangulation is present since we have addressed the same research questions by means of both quantitative and qualitative data. We consider that only one type of research design would have been insufficient and inadequate, for it would have failed to give a full insight into the learning/teaching processes and the role of reflection. For us, the problem or the issue was and is mainly qualitative, since it provided richer data in this case and there seems to be insufficient research about the inclusion of ULE in teacher training, and we have wanted to show its validity in order to offer a solid grounding for its implementation within Spanish teacher training programmes, both in graduate and in postgraduate programmes. In our case, one of the main objectives was to obtain insights into motivation when teaching or learning a foreign language and the only approach we could use to investigate this phenomenon was a qualitative one accompanied by a small scale quantitative design for triangulation purposes. The nature of the design itself belongs to the social research analysis tradition: “Social research is the systematic analysis of research questions by using empirical methods (e.g. of asking, observing, analyzing data.) Its aim is to make empirically grounded statements that can be generalized or to test such statements” (Flick,2015:10.). 4. Data analysis Our data are going to be presented in the form of graphs and tables. We have used the ‘Microsoft Excel’, spread sheet software to display and analyse the data. In our case, we have coded the data and used ‘Excel’ spread sheets to create the graphs and tables that are presented in this study. We have also used content analysis procedures to analyse our diary data, which is a method used in qualitative research to illustrate the meaning of analysed texts. Although at the beginning it concentrated mainly on the frequency of certain words within the given information. This research period comprises a span of eleven/ twelve years. The first research experiment was in 2003 and was carried out for the Trinity College of London students with 23 students in total. They have participated in an absolute-beginner-level lesson of an unknown language �(Croatian) and apart from that, they took notes, as well as observed themselves and their peers in a unique experience of witnessing how we learn foreign languages. Thanks to the social media we have found ten of them who still kept the original diaries and were willing to answer the very same questions after more than a decade of the original experiment. 5. Results Question 1: How have you felt? ( 2003 and 2015 respectively) For these subjects who were participants in the Trinity College of London D¡ploma training course from the 2003 research period, only positive feelings such as ‘relaxed’, ‘interested’, and ‘entertained’ can be perceived in their questionnaire responses. It shows us that positive feelings correspond to the most frequent in both cases, accounting for almost 50%, and ‘amazement’ and ‘fun’, with approximately 12%, were the same given answers. Once again in the responses to the same questions obtained from the same subjects in 2015, we have only positive feelings expressed in the following terms: ‘best part of the course’, ‘very useful’ and ‘memorable’. �Question 2 :What methods, strategies, activities and teaching techniques were used by the teacher to help you to make sense? Here, we can encounter surprising positive responses to this question: the most popular was ‘because you have used only L2 (40%), which was followed by visual aids (35%). The same responses were offered eleven or twelve years after the original ULE: ‘visual aspects’ (35%) and ‘body language’ and ‘mime’ represent approximately 20%. In 2015, 40% answered ‘use of L2’ and the other 60% account for ‘visuals’ and ‘concept checking’. Question 3: Will you be able to apply any strategies to your own teaching? In this case, the results are exactly the same as the ones obtained in 2015 as 100% of the subjects answered ‘yes’ to this question. Question 4:What do you remember now/ what did you learn? ‘Communication’ and ‘vocabulary’ account for 68% of the given answers in 2003 and it shows that ‘vocabulary’ and ‘expressions to communicate’ were the most common answers (between 26% and 42%) in 2014/15. Moreover, 91% state ‘basic vocabulary’ and ‘expressions’. �With regard to the qualitative data obtained for this research period, we shall present here a selection of diary entries that match each question asked and the quantitative data described above. Content analysis of these above-mentioned contributions has revealed semantic groups and key words. For example, for the first area of feelings as we have mentioned before, only positive feelings were felt by the subjects: ‘confidence’, ‘excited’, ‘keen’, ‘positive reinforcement’, ‘feeling good’ and empathy. For the second questions, we have found the following categories: ‘pair work’, ‘scaffolding’, encouraging students to talk’, ‘creating a friendly atmosphere’, ‘the power of gestures and ‘visuals’, VAK’, ‘interaction patterns’ (teacher- student, student- student), ‘paralinguistics’ and ‘multiple intelligences’. Some of these former diploma students remember more what they learnt, and other remember more why they have learnt it. One of them mentions Vygogtsky and his ZPD. The concept of ZDP is crucial in any learning process and it is related to scaffolding, mainly as it shows how to be effective teachers. It involves encouragement provided by the teacher, who gradually lets their students perform more independently. 6. Discussion We have found out that some students felt uncomfortable at the beginning of the ULE process, but thanks to encouragement and appropriate teaching strategies they have overcome those initial negative feelings, as their own future learners might be able to do. Moreover, being in your learners’ shoes is an unparalleled experience that cannot be replaced by reading or listening about strategies or techniques that really work. They have reflected upon the learning process itself on a metacognitive level, and offered some very valid answers to the questions posed. In addition, they believe that the Communicative Approach is an appropriate method for learning languages, since it caters for the innate human need to communicate and to be a member of a group or community. It promotes real contexts and interpersonal or discoursal features, so it is not surprising that students prefer or benefit most from this kind of teaching. The sample diary contributions and open- ended questionnaire answers we have selected once again confirm the importance of triangulation between quantitative and qualitative data since when analysing quantitative data; we cannot obtain a full insight into the complex process of learning languages. In this case, these students mention scaffolding (keep it simple and get the basics taught first.), learning styles (VAK), and a highly important strategy that any teacher should use with their students since it ensures solid and sequential progress from using simple words to complex sentences. This phenomenon is connected to the way we learn our L1. Additionally, knowing our own learning styles can be beneficial, not only for language learning but for learning in general. Nowadays, we cannot imagine any lesson preparation or discussion of competences if we do not mention Gardner. His Multiple Intelligences theory shows us that all of us are different in the way we approach tasks and learning, so in class we should cater for all these different kinds of intelligences, ensuring that our students do learn and, even more importantly, learn to learn more effectively. 7. Conclusions �The Unknown Language Experience (ULE) seems to be a unique opportunity to develop reflective criticism towards ones’ own learning and teaching processes. If future teachers become accustomed to using reflection thanks to the inclusion of reflective practice offered by participating in a ULE as part of their training, then it is highly probable that they are going to continue doing it in the future. This experiment should enable them to construct their own meanings and to determine their level of reflective engagement, and these findings are going to influence their future teaching and pedagogical abilities. Moreover, this experience should help them to make appropriate decisions in the classroom and to develop the practice of critical thinking as well as the active, on-going habit of reflection. According to Ellis, teacher´s cognition influences highly the way they act, since they hold their own theories about how to learn languages, but sometimes these beliefs come into conflict with something that Woods (cited in Ellis, 2012: 12) has called ‘hotspots´. Due to their participation in the unknown language learning experiment, future teachers have the opportunity to train their own abilities to assess concepts and (mis)conceptions about learning and teaching. Reflective thinking is essential for any teacher, no matter the level of their experience, because if teachers reflect upon the foreign language learning and teaching process, then they can take control and make decisions which will affect the success of their own teaching practice. As a result, teachers should become more skilled or able professionals, and even act as change agents in the educational system. References: Dörnyei, Z. (2002). An Introduction to Applied Linguistics, London: Arnold Ellis, R. (2012). Language Teaching Research and Language Pedagogy. New Jersey, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Flick, U. (2015). Qualitative Inquiry—2.0 At 20? Developments, Trends, and Challenges for the Politics of Research. Qualitative Inquiry, DOI: 1077800415583296, Retrieved from: http://qix.sagepub.com/content/21/7/599, last accessed on 30th October 2015. Öz, H., Demirezen, M., &Pourfeiz, J. (2015). Willingness to Communicate of EFL Learners in Turkish Context. Learning and Individual Differences, 269–275. doi: 10.1016/j.lindif.2014.12.009, last accessed on 02nd November 2015. Pollard, A. & Collins, J., (2005). Reflective Teaching: Evidence-Informed Professional Practice. New York, NY: Continuum Intl Pub Group. Stronge, J.H. (2002). Qualities of Effective Teachers. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Van Manen, M. (1995). On the Epistemology of Reflective Practice. Teachers And Teaching: Theory and Practice, 1(1), 33-50. DOI: 10.1080/1354060950010104, last accessed on 18th September 2015. Weber, R. P. (Ed.). (1990). Basic Content Analysis (No. 49). London: Sage. Weimer, M. (2013). Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Wright, G. (2011). Student-Centered Learning in Higher Education. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 23(3), 92-97. Retrieved from: http://www.isetl.org/ijtlhe/pdf/IJTLHE834.pdf, last accessed on 02nd November 2015. �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 3256 Title A name given to the resource Pre-service teacher training: motivation, objectives and teaching strategies Author Author Cecic Mladinic, Daniela Abstract A summary of the resource. Trinity College Diploma in TESOL offers a compulsory part of the course titled Unknown Language Learning Experience. It is an assessed part of the course and it accounts for 20% of the final mark. Trainees have to write a language journal guided by a semi- structured questionnaire after observing and participating in four lessons taught in an unknown language. The main objective of this experience is to introduce teaching methodologies and activities suitable for total beginners and to show how to write up a lesson plans and do a contrastive analysis. In 2003 we have organized a course on the island of Gran Canaria training 24 students from the UK, Australia and Spain. Eleven/twelve years after the experience, in 2015, we have asked them the very same questions they had to answer back in 2003 in their journals. This action research procedure has proven the validity of the unknown language experience. The questions we have analysed deal with feeling, motivation, teaching strategies, objectives and techniques. 100% of them valued the experience as a positive one and 40% of them stated that they could follow the lesson precisely because only L2 was used. 100% of the trainees said that they have used the same unknown language teaching strategies since they have considered them as a very useful in language teaching methodology. Due to the success of the experiment we have done trial experiments from 2011- 2013 at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria with the main aim to implement the Unknown Language Experience in the core curriculum at the Teacher Training Faculty. Keywords: L2, TESOL, journal, motivation, ULE Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available International Burch University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-03-08 Keywords Keywords. Article PeerReviewed PE English https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/4d2b06c9e7a20227df2b793f3499053b.pdf fee7b9f7b84d4cbabd083621ba0d563b PDF Text Text 1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo PRE-SUFI NOVELS: DORIS LESSING‘S NATURAL INCLINATION FOR SUFI THOUGHT Shahram Kiaei, PhD Faculty Member, Department of English, Islamic Azad University, Qom Branch, Qom, Iran shahramkiaei@yahoo.com ABSTRACT:This paper discusses the impact of certain sufistic ideas on one of Doris Lessing‘s celebrated novels: The Memoirs of a Survivor. This novel is the example that shall be analyzed as Lessing's markedly Sufistic novel in order to show the characteristics of Lessing's works which scholars recognize as undeniably influenced by Sufism. The discussion in this novel is important in order to examine the differences on the craftsmanship of the novel even before Lessing incorporated officially to Sufism in her succeeding novels right after she has known about Sufism. This paper also argues Lessing‘s expected inclination to Sufism, or her visions before she finally realized how Sufism has influenced her art and her holistic evolution. Key Words: Sufism, Holistic, Mysticism, Sufistic INTRODUCTION LESSING‘S VISION Lessing offered us her views on Communism, feminism, mysticism, human relationships, politics, and life in general, and she took us to outer space when the earth proved too small for her visions. Drabble (1972: 52) describes her as a writer who ―changes tense, tone, place, … skips decades, moves from the past to the future, documents, speculates, describes, with relentless urgency‖. She appears to remain enigmatic and diverse, perhaps because she prefers ambiguity to the traditional labels with which we like to classify our writers. Yet her work is of a piece, when evaluated from a Sufi point of view, and not so radically different over the years. This orientation of Sufism is easily compatible with the already clear preoccupations and patterns in Doris Lessing‘s previous fiction: her interest in breaking through the conventional ways of thinking and being, the urge to understand and extend the parameters of consciousness, the mystical intimations expressed in her characters, the desire to overcome the dialectical antithesis of perceived experience in favor of a synthesizing vision of wholeness. In fact, even works written before Lessing began to explore Sufi ideas reveal her natural inclination for Sufi thought and demonstrate ways in which she was already working through processes of self-study and development. Lessing expresses this inclination in a letter to Roberta Rubenstein: ―When I read The Sufis I found that it answered many questions that I had learned-I feel too belatedlyto ask of life. Though that book was only the beginning of a different approach‖ (Rubenstein The Novelistic Vision 1979: 121). The very core of Lessing's insights has been the same-that is, the need for perpetual evolution on all levels: individual, national, worldwide, and universal, and this concern in evolution has been as much biological as it is spiritual. Fahim (1994: 136) has remarked on the progress of Lessing's style in the body of her work. For instance she writes, While The Grass is Singing and The Golden Notebook dramatize the need for personal equilibrium and The Memoirs of a Survivor enlarges on the theme of personal and collective equilibrium, Canopus in Argos: Archives comprehends and complements the earlier works. Fahim (ibid 137) explains the search for equilibrium in the space-fiction series as the dynamic force and the drive of the action in the individual novels. Sprague and Tiger (1986: 13) recognize a change from The Children of Violence series and African novels to Briefing for a Descent into Hell, The Summer before the Dark, and The Memoirs of a Survivor. In the latter three works, they see hints of the upcoming galactic voyages of the Canopus series, which they call ―a kind of secular triptych‖. Draine (1983: 167) recognizes Lessing's tendency to commit to the role of prophet who will move the reader to a desirable state of consciousness. She also recognizes allegory and teaching stories in Lessing's fiction and addresses Lessing's tendency to preach ―whenever she feels the burden of evil to be just too heavy to be borne in silence‖. Later, Lessing preaches also because she wants to educate us about the Sufis. 1112 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Sufi thought has confirmed Lessing's insights and validated what she had suspected all along: the possibility of individual and world amelioration. Variations of this belief in evolution are echoed in all of Lessing's works under one guise or another, as the following two passages from novels written twenty years apart demonstrate: Doeg, the protagonist in The Making of The Representative for Planet 8 (1982: 49), a product of Lessing's so-called space-fiction era in the early 1980s, says, ―Do not sleep in all day in your dark rooms, but rouse yourselves, work, do anything-no, bear the burden of your consciousness, your knowledge, do not lose it in sleep‖ . These words recall Saul Green's words to Anna Wulf in The Golden Notebook (1962: 618): ―We will use all our energies, all our talents, into pushing that boulder another inch up the mountain. . . and that is why we are not useless after all‖. Both of these passages signal a positive outlook. As Fahim (1994: 76) notes, Lessing alters the myth of Sisyphus in her retelling of it. The rock described by Saul Green does not roll back all the way but ends a few inches higher than where it started, every time. In other words, there is progress and evolution in Lessing's vision of the world, which does not align with Camus's heroism of the absurd. THE MEMOIRS OF A SURVIVOR The Memoirs of a survivor is a dystopian novel by Doris Lessing in which a woman is struggling to survive in a violent post-apocalyptic world. Traumatized by both the war she's lived through and the regular atrocities that each day brings, she retreats from reality into a bizarre Victorian dream world within herself. However, when she takes in a teenage girl called Emily, she is drawn back into the harsh reality of her crumbling city and its feral street gangs. Desperate for some kind of salvation, she becomes convinced that her fantasy world of the past holds may hold the key to a better future. Doris Lessing described The Memoirs of a Survivor as ‗an attempt at autobiography‘, but the book – set in a frightening near-future world amidst the collapse of civilization – has the magical quality of a fable or allegory. From her window, the narrator watches a city where everyone has to fight for survival, and where men, women and even children are brutalized by necessity. She also watches over Emily, a girl entrusted to her while a child by a stranger who vanishes. Emily herself is guarded too by Hugo – an animal half-dog and half-cat – a creature who dominates this tale. ANALYSIS OF THE MEMOIRS OF A SURVIVOR Reading The Memoirs of a Survivor in light of Sufism allows on the one hand a useful additional way of reading some of the events in Lessing's other book called; The Golden Notebook and on the other hand provides a necessary way of reading some of the events in The Memoirs of a Survivor. Sufism accounts for the difference in Lessing's vision between these two novels. In various interviews, Lessing has maintained that her seeming change of vision from utopian politics to spirituality or mysticism is not really so radical and that both areas deal with a psychological understanding of people, groups, and social developments. Furthermore, Lessing claims in a 1982 letter to Mona Knapp that ―I became interested in the Sufi way of thought because I was already thinking like that, before I had heard of Sufis or Sufism‖. This is in fact the case when one evaluates The Memoirs of a Survivor which reflects the many aspects of the protagonist‘s life from the Sufi point of view. In The Novelistic Vision of Doris Lessing: Breaking Through the Forms of Consciousness Rubenstein (1979: 122) raises the point that the quest for the self implicit in Lessing‘s pre-Sufi novels is not altered but deepened in the context of Sufi thought. It is noteworthy to say that even though The Golden Notebook was written without Lessing's prior knowledge of Sufism; it anticipates her turn to Sufism, while later novels, such as The Memoirs of a Survivor (1974), build upon that turn. Following her immersion in Sufi study in the early 1960s, Lessing became more didactic in her novels in which analogies to Sufi experience were more overtly suggested and more clearly applicable. The narrator in The Memoirs of a Survivor-a novel written twelve years later was taken much further in the protagonist's self discovery comparing Lessing‘s other novels including The Golden Notebook, which suggests that perhaps Lessing later knew and did not only intuit that there was a further place to which one could go. Lessing was able to carry the narrator of The Memoirs of a Survivor into new worlds which she created and which she later explored at greater length in her space fiction. The space behind the wall in The Memoirs of a Survivor, for instance, is clearly a metaphor for the narrator's inner life, which, like the infinite rooms behind the wall, daily unfolds into a rich tapestry of experience and self-discovery. It is also noteworthy that Lessing introduces the carpet imagery in The Memoirs of a Survivor, the weaving of carpets being one of many basic teaching tools in Sufism: the narrator sees a roomful of people gathered around a faded carpet, colors and patterns of which emerge brightly in patches as individuals find their particular piece in the carpet and place it on the faded material that is, as they fulfill their destiny. This carpet episode is further analyzed by Fahim 1113 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo (1994: 108) as well as the four-walled garden and the iron egg as mandala symbols that activate the process of contemplation by inducing certain mental states which encourage the achievement of equilibrium between the levels of perception. Like a Sufi tale, The Memoirs of a Survivor is written to be read on different levels. As one peels the layers, one moves deeper along a spectrum from the political and rhetorical readings at one end, to the psychological and spiritual at the other. It is further suggested by Fahim (1994: 87) that in reading of The Memoirs of a Survivor, rational, psychological, and spiritual modes of consciousness are fully integrated to bring the different strata of the novel together. Given Lessing's Sufi knowledge, it is justifiable to suggest a mystical reading of The Memoirs of a Survivor without dismissing other readings. This has been the intent of Sufi teaching tales, as well: to offer many lessons to many audiences at many levels. In turn, my thesis, aims to provoke further discussion on all sides, not to foreclose it. Sufism makes a noticeable difference in Lessing's vision as Lessing moves from her previously written novels to The Memoirs of a Survivor. There seems to be a continuation from these to The Memoirs of a Survivor. The Narrator of The Memoirs of a Survivor breaks through the walls of reality almost in the opening pages of the novel. Lessing, here, as a writer influenced by Sufism, sees that it is only in the fullest development and balancing of all available faculties that human beings can free themselves from mere predetermined repetition and so evade catastrophe. This evolution of consciousness is a precious ability which foresees the future course of human evolution. Emily and her guardian are aware of chaos, too, as it unfolds daily around them; but for them, Lessing can draw on the Sufi Path to self development and transformation. In The Memoirs of a Survivor (1974: 81), political and economic calamities prompt people to band together in tribes and move out of the cities, while those who remain behind resort to stealing, killing, growing their own food, and building air filters to survive. During this time Emily is left with the narrator who records the events and mood of the times: ―Inside it was all chaos: the feeling one is taken over by, at the times in one's life when everything is in change, movement, destruction-or reconstruction‖. In light of Sufism, this guardian, who remains unnamed in the novel, could represent the mature Emily. Emily and the narrator of the novel are the same, otherwise how could the narrator, who is certainly not omniscient, view scenes of Emily‘s past. I argue that when the narrator and Emily are read as one and the same character, they create a whole, a state of integration and wholeness to which Sufis aspire. The guardian shares Emily's identity, especially during the times when she pays frequent mysterious visits to a space through and beyond the faded designs of the old wallpaper, where she is confronted with rooms in shambles. In the Sufi context, this imaginary space serves as a metaphor for Emily's inner life and childhood, and the guardian is the adult part of Emily who has committed herself to working on reconciling her inner and outer worlds, or her essence and personality, as well as her past and present. My interpretation here is that Emily's childhood scenes are necessary steps for learning about her past. She is aware that the past influences the present, as in the connection between baby Emily's frigid white nursery and teenager Emily's present sense of deprivation and isolation. These episodes show that Lessing believes in ultimate salvation which comes to the individuals who can achieve wholeness within themselves, again a state which is in accordance with Sufi thoughts. At the heart of Sufi thought is the necessity for individual and cosmic evolution and the idea that men and women do not know themselves, nor their potentials. This corresponds comfortably to Lessing's natural inclinations, so that Idries Shah's representation of Sufism reinforces Lessing's own belief in an evolution of a more whole society. As a result, Lessing readily incorporates Sufi perceptions of human beings in her very involved and lengthy novels. Sufis see human beings as incomplete and expect them to transcend their merely human state of incompletion through ―work‖ in the Sufi Way. This is not only the situation humanity and its potential in most of Lessing's novels, but is also intentionally emphasized in the lives of her characters. In The Memoirs of a Survivor, Lessing‘s vision encompasses the discomfort her protagonist feels when faced with social and ideological corruption and fragmentation, her own and that of the rest of the world. When The Memoirs of a Survivor is considered against the backdrop of Sufism; it will lend itself to an additional reading: spiritual destitution. This despair is echoed in The Memoirs of a Survivor, which reminds DuPlessis (1979: 4) of an abstract Four-Gated City because in this novel Lessing repeats similar arguments regarding the end of the world and spiritual transformation. As a mystic, Lessing means us to take the reality of her narrator‘s time-travel literally. Lessing here is inventing a new world behind the walls which can be interpreted as if Lessing is giving hope to her readers in creating this world. She actually wants to transform our view of reality but interprets that transformation only as an intellectual exercise in stretching one‘s perceptions. The interpretation of the two realms, the inner and the outer, on either side of the wall can illustrate how the two worlds nourish each other in the narrator‘s life. Lessing actually is pointing out Sufi theories of literature to explain the 1114 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo two irreconcilable universes in the world of The Memoirs of a Survivor, the realistic and the fantastic. In the light of Sufism, teenager Emily in The Memoirs of a Survivor (1974: 34) feels ―a hunger, a need; a pure thing, which makes her face lose its hard brightness; her eyes their defensiveness. She is a passion of longing‖. Here, the Sufi context offers not only an additional reading but provides the crucial key to understanding The Memoirs of a Survivor. Lessing does not define what Emily longs for, but the novel as a whole invites an allegorical reading. Through ―working‖ on herself and fighting her battles, Emily has the chance to transform herself and thereby satisfy her longing. Walker (1989: 95) calls The Memoirs of a Survivor ―an allegory of psychological integration‖ but also more literally a story of two ―human beings painstakingly forming a social bond‖. Walker (ibid 114) argues that The Memoirs of a Survivor is allegorical in the way Spencer‘s Faerie Queene is allegorical; a single image in the novel often signals both social and psychological meaning. As its dust jacket describes it, The Memoirs of a Survivor is ―an attempt at autobiography,‖ which claims Lessing confirms in Under My Skin (1994). Here Lessing offers revelations on The Memoirs of a Survivor‘s autobiographical dimension. Greene (1995: 149) adds, ―That Lessing's mother and grandmother were both named Emily suggests why autobiography is a relevant term‖. Lessing had only recently encountered Sufism when she wrote The Memoirs of a Survivor and the narrator's trips behind the wall can be read easily as Lessing's own allegorical quests for her ―self.‖ (Greene 1995: 149) When evaluated in light of Sufism, the world behind the wall in The Memoirs of a Survivor emerges as the only real world, while the reality of daily life on the pavement pales in contrast. The classical Persian Sufi poet Omar Khayyam (d.1132) describes the human being as a lantern of imaginings inside a lamp: one's petty and mundane experiences are the lantern of imaginings trapped within the brightness of the only real world (Shah The Way of the Sufi 1968: 60). If read in light of the Sufi tradition, The Memoirs of a Survivor becomes a satisfying novel, one that offers more than a mere futuristic ghost story as Melvin Madoocks (1975: 79) calls the novel. To a great extent, Emily in The Memoirs of a Survivor lives during a time of ―death and destruction‖ which seems stronger than life. She lives under the pressures of the dead and dying Western civilization, fighting in her own ways to escape death. In direct correlation with Sufi thinking that we are incomplete and need years of hard work to complete ourselves, the guardian, during her earlier visits behind the wall, finds discord and turmoil, as any would-be seeker does at the outset of his or her ―work.‖ ―To make the rooms inhabitable, what work needed to be done!‖ (The Memoirs of a Survivor 1974: 14) she tells us. The guardian adds, I stood there marking fallen plaster, the corner of a ceiling stained with damp, dirty, or damaged walls. . . The exiled inhabitant: for surely she could not live, never could have lived, in that chill empty shell full of dirty and stale air? (ibid) From a Sufi perspective, the rightful inhabitant exiled from this place would be Emily's perfected self who may not return until Emily is properly prepared to receive her. However, for the time being, the incomplete Emily hides behind a cold, impervious, hard, and enamelled presence (The Memoirs of a Survivor 1974: 16). Throughout the course of the novel her guardian tries to get past or around Emily's defenses, and the closest she gets to the Emily who is in hiding is when she walks through the old wallpaper into Emily's inner world. However, the two worlds on either side of the wall still remain disconnected, ―one life excluding the other‖ (ibid 25). The guardian recognizes this impasse that is so sharply pronounced in Emily and comments on the prison in which we all live and the difficulty we have in allowing anyone to come close to us (ibid 31). This idea later led to the title Lessing chose for her book of essays, Prisons We Choose to Live Inside (1987). As the novel progresses, more and more of the influence of the world behind the wall remains with the guardian when she returns to the external world. These memories help the guardian to protect Emily during the present disharmony. In fact, the trips behind the wall become such an obsession and an obligation that she experiences a sense of fear and of lowered vitality whenever she is about to cross over again, for what she finds there is chaos and turmoil as if savages and soldiers had been there (The Memoirs of a Survivor 1974: 40). She finds chairs and sofas slashed with their stuffing spewing out, curtains ripped off, and feathers and blood everywhere. She works hard to clean and reorder, scrubs; the walls with buckets of hot water, and airs out the rooms with the sun and wind. However, she tells us, ―Whenever I re-entered the rooms after a spell away in my real life, all had to be done again. It was like what one reads of a poltergeist's tricks‖ (ibid 64). In the light of Sufism, the apparent result of being out of touch with one's inner self is a spiritual sterility, which Emily describes as a drying up of the well. This dried up state leaves behind a mere machine that is efficiently in control, but lifeless. Emily suffers from an experience of longing for meaning. Only in her case, this longing is more deliberately fashioned by Lessing, given the Sufi 1115 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo context that can now accommodate such thirst and that can enrich Lessing's vision. Emily has felt deprived of fertile surroundings since she was a baby, and she still knows very little about the world behind the wall. Before she can grow out of her stifled existence, it is necessary for her to know this world thoroughly. In The Memoirs of a Survivor, Lessing has set up less than ideal surroundings to provide her protagonist with the friction against which she must work. Emily retains her glass wall almost to the end of her stay with her guardian and only rarely allows parts of herself to show through. The Sufi hopes to reach the essence within and to help it grow into maturity. One's inner world needs to keep up with, or catch up with, one's external development in everyday life. Of course, a mind that could possibly begin to think creatively about its own improvement is one which is uncluttered. In order to reach one's essence, one is expected to undo the ―useless superstition, habits, convention, irrelevant assumptions, and expectations‖ which one has been fed, so that the mind can see what is really there (Courtland 2002: 86). ―To follow Sufism is to die gradually to oneself and to become oneSelf, to be born anew and to become aware of what one has always been from eternity (azal) without one's having realized it until the necessary transformation has come about‖ (Nasr 1973: 17). On this subject the thirteenth-century Persian Sufi poet, Sa‘d ud Din Mahmud Shabistari, writes in The Secret Garden: Go sweep out the chamber of your heart. Make it ready to be the dwelling place of the Beloved. When you depart out. He will enter it. In you, void of yourself, will He display His beauties. (Friedlander 1975: 23) The process of voiding oneself is an essential step toward acquiring real self-knowledge. But of course, this nothingness brings with it hopelessness and despair. This train of thought is evident in The Memoirs of a Survivor (1974: 66) when the guardian frantically scrubs and cleans out the area behind the wall, trying to make it inhabitable for ―the other‖ Emily. She also does her best in the apartment in her ―real‖ life in order to accommodate Emily's growing life; or, in the Sufi context, the grown up Emily's personality accommodates the essence of Emily that is still in embryo. It is important to note also that Emily's room in her guardian's apartment is no larger than a closet space and that she shares even this space with her closest friend, the cat/dog-like beast, Hugo. This narrow space is symbolic of the underdeveloped state of Emily's essence. She remains stifled literally as well as figuratively until that time when her inner and outer worlds join in harmony. Meanwhile, the process of purification continues behind the wall. The guardian describes how she scrubs and paints the walls until the sheets of dust have been replaced by clean and clear whiteness like ―new snow or fine china‖ (ibid). In the Sufi context, the choice of concentrating on the hurdles in life, or deliberately engaging in conscious labor and intentional suffering, is essential for real transformation to take place. Just as the guardian literally works in the grimy areas of that other world, self-work in the Sufi Way is carried out in the problem areas of Emily's psyche. It is also essential to recognize the difference that emerges in Emily‘s experience between ordinary and intentional suffering. In Sufism ordinary suffering is an indulgence in one's negative emotions, whereas intentional suffering always produces a new person. Ordinary suffering is self-pity grown out of self-importance, vanity, sloth, fear, jealousy, or greed; and the Sufi aspires to convert such suffering into a conscious act. Intentional suffering is impressively and deliberately demonstrated in The Memoirs of a Survivor. Each of the guardian's journeys behind the wall into young Emily's disturbing world is an example of intentional suffering. At the end of these journeys, the guardian's and Emily's lives are changed. Every journey contributes to balancing the aspects of Emily's character within a unified person and to bringing her closer to completion and (psychological and spiritual) rebirth. Often the guardian witnesses Emily trying futilely to bring order into her life behind the wall. A poignant image depicts Emily trying to amass fallen leaves into heaps. But as she sweeps and makes piles, the leaves fly about in the wind. Emily/the guardian works faster and faster, trying to empty a whole house full of leaves to no successful end, while ―The world was being submerged in dead leaves, smothered in them‖ (The Memoirs of a Survivor 1974: 137). Emily continues her frantic and desperate fight against nature - in this case, her own nature. And while going through this process of self purification, she appears discouraged and maddened with the seeming futility of her task: ―Her stare, fixed, wide, horrified. . . She saw only the fragments of the walls that could not shelter her, nor keep out the sibilant drift‖ (ibid 137), and she vanishes among the rustling leaves and decaying world. Moreover, in the Sufi tradition, only conscious efforts without expectation of rewards lead one to true liberation. The guardian in The Memoirs of a Survivor learns that unless one makes an effort, 1116 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo one gains nothing real. This message is inherent in this novel and is shown overtly by Lessing throughout the course of the novel. The Sufi idea that a conscious reactivation of memory can play an important part in the individual‘s quest for self-development has also had a noticeable influence on this novel. The Narrator stipulates that during her ‗‗visits‘‘ behind the wall she is brought into contact with ‗‗personal‘‘ scenes involving family situations. Although such incidents primarily concern Emily‘s childhood experiences, the emotions which are aroused are stated to be universal, and they prompt the Narrator into commenting that she is ‗‗conscious of memories assaulting me, claiming, insinuating‘‘ (The Memoirs of a Survivor 1974: 38). Moreover, in The Memoirs of a Survivor (1974: 148), as Emily develops further, her guardian begins to remember more and more of the world behind the wall. This symbolically implies that Emily is becoming more and more successful in her selfremembering and that her essence is becoming increasingly empowered to assert itself over her personality. At first, this self-remembering manifests itself in the form of the guardian's ability to hear a child crying faintly in the distance, miserable, lost, and weighed down with incomprehension. Yet, whenever the guardian asks anyone else about hearing this sound she discovers that it is only she who hears it. Emily cannot hear the cries. Sometimes the sobbing is almost inaudible and the guardian has to strain her ears to hear it. At other times, she ―twists and turns inwardly not to hear that miserable sound‖ (ibid). This attempt not to hear the crying is the natural human response to one's own pain. The fact that Emily's guardian can hear the crying even when she is on the ordinary side of the wall signals the break Emily has made through her personality to her essence or the breakthrough the adult Emily has made to the young Emily. Rumi-the Persian Sufi poet says; Sema-our prayer-is an awakening. But he who awakens in a dungeon of course does not wish to wake up. However, he who has fallen asleep in the rose gardens … If he wakes up, his joy increases, and perhaps he is spared from fearful dreams (Divane-e Shams-e Tabrizi: 1984 my translation from Persian). In Emily's case, her inner world that used to be in shambles, worn out, pained, dark, mossy, smelly, tortured, and stifled, begins to be lifted out of Rumi's dungeons into the rose gardens. At least Emily is now awake enough to hear herself cry, her glimpses of truth stretching into periods of consciousness. Emily takes pains to get to know herself and to arrive at that new person in herself who is capable of growing. Lessing‘s previous protagonists like Anna of The Golden Notebook does not go any further in her self-searching, perhaps because these novels were written during the time Lessing had been newly exposed to Sufism and this could be the reason why Anna lacks the further development which Emily experiences in The Memoirs of a Survivor, written twelve years later. This can be viewed as a kind of cumulative evolution in Lessing‘s fiction. The Martha Quest-the character of Children of Violence-who emerges after The Golden Notebook carries not only the seeds of completeness but also evolution. This is rightly so, considering Lessing‘s deepened and enhanced perception of the human psyche since her introduction to Sufi thought. Anna of The Golden Notebook only experiences a temporary madness and depression from which she is restored to a healthier and more whole person, while Emily undergoes a permanent transformation. Emily's experiences can be read as a self-work manual which illustrates how one can transform one's self. As Emily awakens, there is new life behind the wall, a few rotting planks lying about on earth that was putting out shoots of green … clean earth and insects that were vigorously at their work of re-creation … The smell of growth came up strong from the stuffy old room (The Memoirs of a Survivor 1974: 101). The work Emily's guardian has to do is not completed yet; but after this breakthrough, her task becomes easier and more rewarding. She now has new creation and not the moss and the shambles with which to contend. Greene (1995: 59) recognizes the same theme in Landlocked, in which ―creation of the new requires the destruction of the old.‖ She also sees that this new creation ―is based on intuitive rather than logical faculties, the first step toward which is a radical disorientation‖ (ibid). This is similar to the disorientation that Emily experiences in The Memoirs of a Survivor until she gains some strength and balance. Lessing points out that the guardian's journeys and activities behind the wall were never really her choice, but her duty. The narrator/guardian remarks, Very strong was the feeling that I did as I was bid and as I must. I was being taken, was being led, was being shown, was held always in the hollow of a great hand which 1117 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo enclosed my life (The Memoirs of a Survivor 1974: 101). This is reminiscent of the greater evolutionary cause of the Sufis. If an individual's personal growth can help to raise the level of the whole of humanity even a very slight degree, this is considered a success. Emily's guardian feels ―too much beetle or earthworm to understand‖ (ibid) the greater purpose behind her own actions, but she still feels compelled to walk into that ―other‖ world in order to explore and unearth the ―real‖ Emily. In this role, she is, according to Greene (1995: 26), a female Christ figure or cosmic mother, as are other saviors in Lessing's oeuvre, such as Al-Ith in Shikasta or Martha Quest of The Children of Violence. Greene (ibid) sees these protagonists as Christian, rather than Sufi seekers and saviors. In Sufism, the color black denotes wisdom and leadership. Romance and glory are not qualities sought after by Sufis. Rather, rebirth or real transformation is possible only after hard work and a strong presence of being that results from self-remembering. After the disaster in the unnamed city in The Memoirs of a Survivor, the guardian is able to share her vision with Emily, Emily's lover Gerald, and her pet Hugo, feeling confident that the world behind the wall is now strong enough to withstand intrusion from outside. And together, they witness the following vision as it unfolds: ―a bright green lawn under thunderous and glaring clouds, and on the lawn a giant black egg of pockmarked iron but polished and glossy (The Memoirs of a Survivor 1974: 216). Lessing could have chosen a real egg, or a crystal egg far the occasion of Emily's rebirth; however, an iron egg by nature is difficult to break open, and this in itself provides the symbolic meaning of the difficulty of one's task in the Sufi Way. In a Sufi light, the dissolving of the walls marks Emily‘s death and rebirth; it is only when the walls of the old rooms are demolished that Emily can move on to become her new, enlightened self. As Emily and her entourage stand looking at the iron egg, it breaks open ―by the force of their being there‖ (The Memoirs of a Survivor 1974: 216), revealing the apparition for whom the guardian had been waiting throughout the navel. Following this Being is Emily, but the new, transmuted Emily and her beast Hugo, followed by Gerald and the savage children of the ordinary world. When all of Emily‘s family crosses into that new order, ―the last walls dissolve‖ (ibid 217). As a point of comparison, a classical Sufi account of renewal and rebirth, as it was experienced by Rumi-the Persian Sufi Poetseven hundred years ago, is related by Ira Shems Friedlander below: Like the Prophet before him, the angels descended to earth, cut open his breast, and removed the thin shell that remained over his heart. They removed the last bit of ego that remained within him and filled his heart with Love. Then they made his breast as it was before. As this was happening, Mawlana Rumi was in his garden lost in deep meditation, in a state of disassociation from his body, experiencing the highest initiation he would know until his 'wedding day' … He was now ready to reenter the world. (Friedlander 1975: 55) The ―wedding day‖ refers to death, which is celebrated as a union with God, the Beloved, and marks one's rebirth. Aspiring Sufis must remember at all times that their purpose is to rise on the vertical ladder of enlightenment and share the fate of the legendary phoenix, the beautiful, graceful white bird that is reborn out of its own ashes after burning itself on a fire kindled with a-hundred trees. With its final breath the phoenix sings a most beautiful song from the depths of its soul, sounding a plaintive cry as it dies to its old self (ibid 153). In Gerald's efforts to build a new family structure, Gayle Greene (1995: 150) recognizes the necessity for destruction that can make new creation possible: Human beings produced by the prison of the family are incapable of making a free society, and the ruined garden of Gerald's commune represents the impossibility of making anything new from existing social conditions: you can't get there from here. It is required of all humans and beasts to beast the phoenix, the emblem of immortality, between each of its deaths and rebirths. Similarly, students of Sufism are asked to work hard to preserve themselves, something that can be possible only through a lifetime of harmonious development, which involves the induced growth of the essence to an equal proportion with the personality. In support of self-preservation and transformation, which in turn contribute to the preservation and evolution of the human race, Lessing has remarked in an interview, ―Maybe out of destruction will be born some new creature. I don't mean physically. What interests me more than anything is how our minds are changing, how our ways of perceiving reality are changing‖ (Raskin 1982: 66). Lessing, like the Sufis, expects that humanity will continue to participate in cosmic evolution. Beyond this, Sufis make no provisions; nor do they argue about whether every individual has the potential to share the lot of the phoenix. Gurdjieff (1975), for instance, speaks of the acorns that do not all become oak trees. Most serve as fertilizer while very few take root and develop into an oak. Sufi context allows Emily to have an added new horizon comparing Lessing‘s previous protagonists. As for Lessing's vision, Emily in The Memoirs of a Survivor is clearly delivered into a 1118 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo new sphere in which the limitations upon her can be lifted. Emily's search for herself is presented to us as a spiritual quest, similar in many ways to the Sufi Way. In The Memoirs of a Survivor, Lessing is able to develop this idea further, because she is able to reinforce her perceptions with Sufi truths. As a student of Sufism, Lessing not only paints this world in new colors and strokes, but she would like us to believe in the mimetic dimension of the other world, as well. For example, the breakthrough to the other world at the end of The Memoirs of a Survivor is not only metaphorical. The guardian and Emily are finally able to join forces in earnest, share the same vision, purpose, and future because of the guardian's preceding Sufi ―work‖ behind the wall to make their union possible. No matter what the external circumstances, they are now one whole individual, who is able to withstand the challenges of daily life even at a time of war and destruction. Such a character is not only important in her thematic and synthetic dimensions but is equally important in her mimetic dimension. She is not a freak in the novel to be read only for the ideas she represents, but a plausible human being who is seeking something more than ordinary life. Any supernatural phenomena in Lessing's later novels really belong to the same world that we experience daily. However, as Lessing points out, only the socalled mad ones in her novels know and believe this to be true. CONCLUSION Two things become very clear from my analysis of The Memoirs of a Survivor, written after Lessing's exposure to Sufism: one, that Lessing was naturally inclined to promote ―work‖ on oneself; and two, that the Sufi tradition has offered her a very welcome pathway to explore beyond the limitations of psychology, psychiatry, politics, Communism, Jungianism, or any other ―ism‖ to which she had appealed prior to her study of Sufism. More specifically, The Memoirs of a Survivor is totally built upon Lessing‘s turn to Sufism. Throughout the novel Lessing explicates the protagonist‘s selfdiscovery, draws her on the Sufi Path how to transform and develop her self. She actually wants to transform our perception of reality by giving us an intellectual exercise to stretch our insight. In the light of Sufism Lessing‘s vision is enriched and she could accommodate the thirst and longing for a meaning in life which Emily in The Memoirs of a Survivor is suffering from. Furthermore, Lessing, through this novel, reminds us that ordinary suffering does not make a transformed person but what makes a new person is nothing but intentional suffering. These characteristics are impressively illustrated in The Memoirs of a Survivor when the guardian journeys behind the wall into young Emily‘s disturbing world. The significance of colors and the idea of rebirth and transformation are also remarkably demonstrated by Lessing in this novel of which black color denotes wisdom and leadership. Finally, Lessing invites us to understand that those who withstand the challenges of ordinary life, no matter internal or external, are thematically, synthetically and mimetically important to her. 1119 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo REFERENCES Courtland, Lewis. (2002). ‗‘A visit to Idries Shah.‘‘ Lewin: Longman. Drabble, Margaret. 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(1987). ‗‘Omar Khayyam.‘‘ New Statesman 74 (Dec): 847. 1121 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Lessing, Doris. (1987). Prisons we choose to live inside. New York: Harper. Lessing, Doris. (1987). The wind blows away our words. New York: Vintage. Lessing, Doris. (1988). The fifth child. New York: Knopf. Lessing, Doris. (1964). ‗‘An elephant in the dark.‘‘ Spectator 213: 373. Lessing, Doris. (1972). ‘‘The temptation of Jack Orkney.‘‘ The temptation of Jack Orkney: collected stories. Vol. 2. London: Cape. Lessing, Doris. (1973). Preface to the golden notebook (June 1971), The golden notebook, London: Granada Publishing, Panther Books. Lessing, Doris. (1973). The summer before the dark. New York: Vintage. Lessing, Doris. (1975). ‗‘A revolution.‘‘ New York Times 22 Aug. 31. Lessing, Doris. (1992). African laughter: four visits to Zimbabwe. New York: Harper. Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. 1973. Sufi essays. Albany: State U of New York P. Raskin, Jonah. (1974). ' Doris Lessing at stony brook: an interview', in a small personal voice, Paul Schlueter (ed), New York: Alfred A. knopf. Rumi, Mowlana Jalaluddin. (1898). Selected poems from the Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi. Translated by Reynold A. Nicholson. London: Cambridge UP. Sprague, Claire & Virginia Tiger. (eds). (1986). Critical essays on Doris Lessing. Boston: Hall. Sprague, Claire. (1982). ―Naming in marriages: another view. ―Doris Lessing Newsletter 7 (1): 13. Sprague, Claire. (1983). Double talk in the golden notebook. ―Papers On Language And Literature 17 (Spring): 181-97. Sprague, Claire. (1987). Rereading Doris Lessing: narrative patterns of doubling and repetition. Chapel Hill; U of North Carolina P. Walker, Jeanne Murray. (1989). ―Memory and culture within the individual: the breakdown of social exchange in memoirs of a survivor. New York: Kaplan 1122 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 590 Title A name given to the resource PRE-SUFI NOVELS: DORIS LESSING‘S NATURAL INCLINATION FOR SUFI THOUGHT Author Author Kiaei, Shahram Abstract A summary of the resource. This paper discusses the impact of certain sufistic ideas on one of Doris Lessing‘s celebrated novels: The Memoirs of a Survivor. This novel is the example that shall be analyzed as Lessing's markedly Sufistic novel in order to show the characteristics of Lessing's works which scholars recognize as undeniably influenced by Sufism. The discussion in this novel is important in order to examine the differences on the craftsmanship of the novel even before Lessing incorporated officially to Sufism in her succeeding novels right after she has known about Sufism. This paper also argues Lessing‘s expected inclination to Sufism, or her visions before she finally realized how Sufism has influenced her art and her holistic evolution. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-05 Keywords Keywords. Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed P Philology. Linguistics https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/cd68c6b3a73c7694884001e66028b2e6.pdf 4974918779334aaec889660ca8102d45 PDF Text Text International Conference on Economic and Social Studies, 10-11 May, 2013, Sarajevo Predictability of Financial Crisis in Developing Countries: Turkey, Argentina and Thailand M. Ali Avcı Pamukkale University, Denizli, Turkey aliavci20@hotmail.com N. Oğuzhan Altay Ege University, İzmir, Turkey oguzhan.altay@ege.edu.tr Harun Sulak Süleyman Demirel University, Isparta, Turkey harunsulak@sdu.edu.tr Since 1980’s, financial liberalization policies that implemented without adequate infrastructure in order to decrease inflation and interest rates also construct a sustainable growth process led to many financial crisis which have significant effects throughout the world. Therefore many models have developed to explain these crises. Main purpose of these models is to increase the predictability of financial crisis by identifying the factors that affecting the formation of crisis. Determining factors affecting the formation of financial crisis and trying to predict the crisis is very important in preventing crisis. In this context the aim of this study is analysis the predictability of financial crisis that occurred in developing countries which are Turkey, Argentina and Thailand 1990-2010 periods, by using Markov Regime Chance Model. In generated models, indices of financial pressure were calculated as dependent variable and fifteen different indicators were chosen from the literature to describe these indices. Successful indicators in predicting financial crises are: for Turkey; trend deviation of real exchange rate, domestic credits/industrial production, inflation and M2/reserves, for Argentina; stock price, difference in real interest rate, inflation and M2/reserves and for Thailand; trade balance, terms of trade, M2/reserves and oil prices. As a result of this study, financial crises such as 1994 and 2001 crises in Turkey, 1994, 2002 and 2009 crises in Argentina and 1997 and 2009 crises in Thailand were successfully predicted. Keywords: Financial Crisis, Financial pressure, Markov Regime Chance Model, Predictability. 191 � https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/fbe70e39d5ba9feecfb5a0957ad76bf0.docx 391314f2890baa9ae240369e0c3bdbbc https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/1df8a18e763450743ebc3bcb8b5e966a.pdf 1151cb26deb7732c36b181f3ade92eb3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 1629 Title A name given to the resource Predictability of Financial Crisis in Developing Countries: Turkey, Argentina and Thailand Author Author M. AVCI, Ali N. OGUZHAN, Altay SULAK, Harun Abstract A summary of the resource. Since 1980’s, financial liberalization policies that implemented without adequate infrastructure in order to decrease inflation and interest rates also construct a sustainable growth process led to many financial crisis which have significant effects throughout the world. Therefore many models have developed to explain these crises. Main purpose of these models is to increase the predictability of financial crisis by identifying the factors that affecting the formation of crisis. Determining factors affecting the formation of financial crisis and trying to predict the crisis is very important in preventing crisis. In this context the aim of this study is analysis the predictability of financial crisis that occurred in developing countries which are Turkey, Argentina and Thailand 1990-2010 periods, by using Markov Regime Chance Model. In generated models, indices of financial pressure were calculated as dependent variable and fifteen different indicators were chosen from the literature to describe these indices. Successful indicators in predicting financial crises are: for Turkey; trend deviation of real exchange rate, domestic credits/industrial production, inflation and M2/reserves, for Argentina; stock price, difference in real interest rate, inflation and M2/reserves and for Thailand; trade balance, terms of trade, M2/reserves and oil prices. As a result of this study, financial crises such as 1994 and 2001 crises in Turkey, 1994, 2002 and 2009 crises in Argentina and 1997 and 2009 crises in Thailand were successfully predicted. Keywords: Financial Crisis, Financial pressure, Markov Regime Chance Model, Predictability. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available International Burch University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-05-10 Keywords Keywords. Article PeerReviewed Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ISSN 978-9958-834-23-3 https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/1442be9e93e204a2eba097332c2279c0.pdf e8f3228199b40a8c40d82ad3cc7bdedb PDF Text Text Journal of Economic and Social Studies Predicting Banking Distress in European Countries Ahlem-Selma MESSAI Business School of Tunis Manouba University, Tunis, Tunisia asm_j@hotmail.fr Fathi JOUINI Faculty of economic and management sciences of Sousse University of Sousse, Sousse, Tunisia fathi.jouini@fdseps.rnu.tn ABSTRACT This paper seeks to investigate internal and external factors with relation to regulations in order to predict difficulties which the banks are exposed. The sample consists of 368 banks in 8 European countries for the period 2004-2007. The model was built primarily only on a set of ratios constituting the CAMEL rating system (Capital adequacy, Asset quality, Management quality, Earnings ability, Liquidity position). Secondly, we added the variables related to the regulatory environment. The application of the method panel logit shows that financial ratios relating to the rating system (CAMEL) are correlated with the likelihood of problems measured by binary variables. The probability of occurrence of problems in these banks is positively correlated with the presence of an explicit system of deposit insurance and negatively correlated with the presence of auditors who provide information to regulators in the event of illegal activities committed by managers. The ability to prosecute these regulators for their actions has a negative effect on the probability of distress. The role of the Central Bank in monitoring activity is also very important to maintain system’s stability. KEYWORDS regulation, CAMEL, banking distress, deposit insurance. ARTICLE HISTORY Submitted:16 December 2011 Resubmitted:19 January 2012 Resubmitted: 24 April 2012 Accepted:21 May 2012 JEL Codes: G21, G28 Volume 3 Number 1 Spring 2013 61 �Ahlem-Selma MESSAI / Fathi JOUINI Introduction The current crisis which has started since about 2008 has taken a set of considering the events it has induced incite to give special attention to the pertinence of regulations in the inside as well as in the outside of institutional organization such as banks. The accession of dysfunction incites to challenge classic methods usually used to predict the factors which constitute some of the causes of crisis inducing high costs to be avoided. More generally, the main questions we can make are concerned with the fact if the procedures which are adopted by some authorities take into account the special state of bank institutions when making decisions to enforce regulations? Is it possible that classic plans, such as the conventional device, the deposit insurance, the external auditors, and the lender of last resort, incite to increase the exposition of financial institutions to greater risk? The primacy of recessions and scandals which have gone with the rapid spreading of tension in the international level leads to conclude that the progress realized in the in smoothing the vulnerability remains insufficient and inadequate. Considering these questions this paper seeks to reconsider the question about the early warning systems (hereafter EWS) which allow to identify the banks likely to be object of distress and failure. Secondly it permits to take necessary steps likely possible to solve the problem of dysfunction before it occurs. The specificity of this study compared to previous one is that it links the stability of financial institutions to standard norms usually applied in international level. These norms includes among others techniques of internal analysis (Ratios) as well as institutional mechanisms which are able to give response to correction of asymmetric information worries and that of hazard moral (regulation variables). In this line, it will be important to give the large sample of banks to use methods already used in order to analyze the positions of financial institutions before the crises. Results are in conformity the idea that standard tools to predict in an irrevocably ways the distress. Once there are institutional ones, the dispositions usually used leads sometimes to exacerbate the moral hazard problems. This phenomenon which is more likely to appear in economies with good risk management is realized through a large diversification followed by a high centralization of assets. Organizations largely known as systematic (that with large size) are consequently at the forefront of public attention. This study seeks to detect early difficulties and not failures to allow political and monetary authorities to have enough time to take the appropriate 62 Journal of Economic and Social Studies �Predicting Banking Distress in European Countries corrective measures and fill gaps that might disrupt the normal functioning of banks. In fact, we tried to make a synthesis between the various previous studies. The objective of this study is to determine the integration effects of variables related to the regulatory environment, not just the effect of accounting ratios of bank distress. The integration of these variables can provide insight on improving supervision system. The remainder of this paper is organized as follow: the first section presents the literature review and the previous empirical findings about the prediction of failures. The second describes data and methodology. Results and discussions are presented in the third section. Finally, the section 4 concludes. Literature review Following the multiple economic crises literature gives more attention to the prediction of bank failures. This approach presents great importance in real economy since it allows to judge the effectiveness of the process of regulations revised for many times spanning the last decades. Since the study of Sinkey (1975), numerous authors developed several techniques to predict the failure of financial institutions. This author has used multivariable discriminative analysis considering a sample of 220 American banks. About a half of these banks have been object of failure during the 1969-1972 period. Among the one hundred variables he used only ten which have presented a significant effect especially that related to the specificity of banks. Altman (1977) developed a system for identifying serious financial problems in savings and loan associations. He used 25 ratios representing liquidity, asset quality, capital adequacy and earnings. Only12variables can explain the banking failure. Pantalone and Platt (1987) proposed a model integrating relative ratios of the CAMEL rating system. They used a sample of 113 failed banks and 226 non-failed over the period of the early 80s. Using the logit method, the significant variables are representative of profitability, management quality, leverage, diversification and economic environment. Volume 3 Number 1 Spring 2013 63 �Ahlem-Selma MESSAI / Fathi JOUINI Thomson (1991) examined the bank failures that occurred in the United States during the 1980s. He used 16 variables. Unlike other studies, he included variables related to economic conditions in domestic markets banks. Variables specific to the banking sector ratios were calculated from the balance sheet and income statement and represented capital adequacy, the risk of the loan portfolio, risk management, liquidity and income. The result shows that the probability that a bank will fail is a function of variables related to its solvency. Economic conditions in the markets where a bank operates also appear to affect the probability of bank failure as much as four years before the failure date. Barr and Siems (1997) proposed a model for early warning of bank difficulties, whose aim is to realize the difficulties two years prior to insolvency. The explanatory variables included are representative of the CAMEL rating system plus a variable to capture local economic condition, quality management has been approximated using technical efficiency, derived from the nonparametric DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) methodology. The result indicates that management is, indeed, important to the successful operation of a bank. Capelle-Blanchard and Chauveau(2004) used the same methodology for the main European commercial banks from 1993 to 2000 and have examined the potential contribution to bank supervision of a model designed to include an off-site proxy of the management quality based only on publicly available financial information. The relevance of their EWS depends to some extent on its accuracy in predicting which banks will have their solvency degraded. They show that proxies for CAMELS (S: Sensitivity to market risk) do a good job for identifying the banks that are likely to have their solvency degraded in the future. Gonzalez-Hermosillo (1999) examined the bank failures in the U.S., Mexico and Colombia, which took place in the 1980s and 1990s. She used the macroeconomics and microeconomics variables. The result shows that a low capital equity and reserves coverage of problem loan ratio is a leading indicator of bank distress, signaling a high likelihood of near term failure. Doganay et al., (2006) developed warning systems to predict bank failures, for at least three years before the date of bankruptcy. Using a sample of 42 banks in which 19 have been object of failures during the period 1997-2000 and considering twenty seven ratios, the authors conclude that logit model are the most appropriate to predict bankruptcy. Testing the same model for a sample of 906 institutions in which 319 have supported failures spanning the 64 Journal of Economic and Social Studies �Predicting Banking Distress in European Countries period from 1980 to 1984, Barth et al., (1985) found that the composition of the loan portfolio, the capital ratio and the income structure affect significantly the bank failures. Godlewski (2003) integrated CAMEL variables in the specific case of emerging countries over the 1999-2000 period. The sample includes 1853 banks from Asia, Latin America and some Central and Eastern Europe countries with 270 of them are failed banks. Using the logit model, the author concludes the probability of bankruptcy is negatively correlated to the variables he used in his model. To investigate the same phenomenon for the cases of Japanese and Indonesian banks Montgomery et al., (2005) Introduce 18 financial ratios considering information in balance sheets and income statements. Similarly, Konstandina (2006) identified for the case of Russia six macroeconomic factors and thirteen other specific explanatory variables related to banks to predict their failure. The author attributes specifically the increase in bankruptcy to the raise in bad loans and to the purchase of treasury bills. The use of a proportional hazard models have enabled her to identify the factors that are able to slow down the risk of bank in a period of financial crisis. Similarly to what have been theoretically predicted, the author confirms the result according to which the first banks exposed to bankruptcy risk are less efficient. Considering 134 banks from sample composed of 11European countries Naouar (2007) found that variables measuring the regulatory, institutional and legal environments such as set in La Porta et al., (1998) and given in the World Bank reports constitute the most influential since they impact the process of risk taking. This confirms largely the fact that this factors are not without effects. The same results are shown in Abdennour et al., (2008). The use of an early warning system for banking problems based on accounting ratios and factors related to regulatory, institutional and legal environment has been with great importance for financial institutions in emerging countries. In this line, Badjio (2009) proposed application for the countries of Central Africa. He introduced variables representing the CAMEL rating system and taking into account the management style of banks in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community. Three variables have been statistically significant which are ratios measuring (Equity / Total loans), (Total Deposits / Total Assets) and (Total operating income / Total assets). The first has a negative effect while the two others have a positive influence on the dependent variable of his model. Giovanis (2010) developed a model of EWS of distress using a logistic regression and an Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS). He adopted the same procedure in Gentry et al, (1985) to specify whether or not the company has been through some financial distress. In- Volume 3 Number 1 Spring 2013 65 �Ahlem-Selma MESSAI / Fathi JOUINI stitutions that distribute a few dividends may be having financial difficulties. Using a sample of 179 financial institutions from Taiwan Security Exchange (TSE) during the period 2002-2008, the author concluded, finally, that the Neuro-Fuzzy Inference system constitutes the most appropriate tool for financial risk management and for decision making in the Central Bank. Besides the financial ratios some researchers have used macroeconomic variables. Banks are strongly influenced by contractions that the economy experiences over time. Banking distress is highly influenced by a number of macro variables. Among the variables, there are: interest rate, inflation, real GDP growth, output downturns, adverse terms of trade shocks, credit expansion, market pressure and losses of foreign exchange. These macro variables influence the functioning of financial and economic systems as a whole ( Demirguc-Kunt and Detragiache 1998, 2000; Hutchison and McDill, 1999; Hutchison, 2002; Domac and Mertinez-Peria, 2000; Frankel Langrin, 2001; Heffernan, 1996; Borovikova , 2000; Yilmaz, 2003 ; Gunsel, 2008). The use of the macroeconomic variables will not be the object of our search. Our principal objective of this study is to determine the integration effects of variables in the regulatory environment, not just the effect of accounting ratios of bank distress. Data and methodology The sample: Our sample consists of European banks. The choice of these countries is motivated by the number of bank defaults in these countries. It is very important in recent years. Many European banks were hit by the 2008 crisis, as U.S. banks but to a lesser degree. Banks do not seem to remember the lessons of past crises. Some countries in our sample have been hit by a crisis of indebtedness. Indeed, the Greek state has destroyed the entire financial and monetary European system. Recognizing the principle of “Too Big To Fail”, we select only big sized banks. We adopt this selection since the large banks are behind the latest crisis. Once they benefit from an implicit insurance against bankruptcy these banks increase their risky activities. So, to improve their profitability they are tempted to take more risk.The 66 Journal of Economic and Social Studies �Predicting Banking Distress in European Countries data used was from the BankScope database. It includes balance sheets and income statements of the selected banks. This information helps to build a set of ratios constituting the CAMEL rating system. The pretreatment of the data gave a sample of 368 banks in eight European countries. Initially, a total asset was used as a criterion for exclusion of small banks. This technique was already applied by Godlewski (2004). The size of those banks is below the fifth percentile. So to integrate the counterparty risk, we selected the financial institutions that provide more credit. i.e banks whose total loans / assets ratio is greater than 32, 88% (the fifth percentile is eliminated). A commercial bank is characterized by a high level of deposits. For this reason we opted for banks with high levels of deposits. The elimination of the fifth percentile can retain the institutions whose total deposits/ total assets is greater than 45,83% . The incentives to undertake excessive risk come mainly from the banking regulation, and then two sources were used. The first comes from the study of Barth et al.,(2001) made to the World Bank and the second made by Demirgüç-Kunt and Detragiache, (2008). In the first study, the data collected from several surveys have been subdivided into ten sub-bases. Each one focuses on one aspect of standardization activity and prudential supervision: supervision of capital, the adoption of a system of deposit insurance, market discipline, the transparency of the banking market, ownership structure, liquidity and management of monitoring committees. The second study identifies factors that influence decisions about financial security of a country. It uses a comprehensive data covering 180 countries over the period 1960-2003.This analysis focuses on how institutional factors influence the adoption of a system of deposit insurance. The majority of this data is qualitative (often binary). The variables: Within the model, we attempt to explain the dependent variable (Y) which presents the probability of distress: prob Yit  1  Volume 3 1 1 e Number 1  i  X it Spring 2013 67 �Ahlem-Selma MESSAI / Fathi JOUINI Yi,t is the binary dependent variable latent bank (i)at the period (t) i: the number of banks from1 to 368; Xi,t is the explanatory variable of bank (i) at (t). t: is the study period from 2004 to 2007. : the constant i: the coefficient of explanatory variable Xi. Yit = 1 if the bank is undercapitalized Yit = 0 if the bank is well capitalized. So to distinguish between a healthy bank and another in difficulty, we used the binary values 0 and 1. A distressed bank = 1. A healthy bank = 0. Researchers often use the Tier (1) capital ratio, which is equal to 4%, or the ratio of capital Tier1 + Tier 2, which is equal to 8% as a threshold to distinguish between the two states. As part of this work, we refer to the works of Estrella et al., (2000) and Abdennour et al,(2008), taking 5.5% as an indicator. This proxy is considered a good indicator to detect early the first signs of banking fragility. Indeed, a bank whose capital ratio is above 5.5% is a healthier bank then a bank whose capital ratio is below 5.5% is considered in difficulties. Presentation of the explanatory variables: Our model includes two types of variables to predict the banking distress which are CAMEL variables and those related to regulatory environments. Everywhere in the world, the systems of supervision try to evaluate the situation of banks through a set of financial ratios. Compared to other monitoring systems (PATROL in Italy, SAAB in France, BAKIS in Germany), CAMEL seems the easiest and the quickest to establish. It includes the most important indicators of fragility covering risks related to the capital adequacy, the asset quality, the profitability and the liquidity position. Moreover, the treatment of fragility using other systems can be made case by case, which generates a late prediction of problems. In addition, in the operating framework, they seem more costly than the CAMEL, so they present different disadvantages to the regulator. The CAMEL reveals financial information extracted from balance sheet and income statement of the bank. Calculated ratios 68 Journal of Economic and Social Studies �Predicting Banking Distress in European Countries can explain the situation of banks. The acronym CAMEL combines the following five criteria: the capital adequacy (C), the asset quality (A), the management quality (M), the earnings ability (E), and the liquidity position (L). Each indicator is approximated by one or several financial ratios. In this study, two ratios were used to explain each criterion by the acronym CAMEL. The choice of these ratios is based on them which are most relevant to the studied topic. Table 1 presents all ratios we used in our model as well as their expected signs. The first two ratios (R1 and R2) indicate the adequacy of capital to the total loans. The ratio equity / total assets (R1) evaluates the ability of banks to assume their obligations to absorb unexpected losses and to absorb shocks. The second ratio, Equity / Total loans, is considered as a buffer to absorb potential losses (Godlewski, 2004). It measures the hedge funds against credit risk. These first two ratios affect negatively the probability of default. The quality of the assets, as approximated by R3 and R4 ratios, affects positively the probability of being undercapitalized. Table 1. List of CAMEL’s variables Ratios Variables CAMEL R1 Equity / Total Assets R2 R3 Expected sign C - Equity/ Total Loans C - Net loans / Total Assets A + R4 Total Other earnings / Total Assets A + R5 Personnel expenses / Total operating expenses M - R6 Total operating income/ Total Assets M - R7 Net income/ Equity (ROE) E +/- R8 Net income / Total Assets(ROA) E +/- R9 Total Deposits / Total Assets L +/- R10 Total Deposits / Total liabilities L +/- The ratio Net Loans/Total Assets explains the importance given to loans. Indeed, the core business of banks is granting credits. This is, however, a risky activity increasing normally the likelihood of difficulty. The ratio of Total Other Operating Income / Total Assets measures the share of income generated outside the activity of the banking intermediation. It has a positive effect on the probability of default. Indeed, banks with investments in other projects (often high risk) present a significant probability to be in difficulty. Volume 3 Number 1 Spring 2013 69 �Ahlem-Selma MESSAI / Fathi JOUINI Management quality is assessed by the ratios Personnel expenses / Total Operating Expenses (R5) and Total Operating income / Total Assets (R6). Indeed, the effectiveness of managing risk increases with the consideration of the needs of staff (personnel costs while positively affecting the quality of management). Moreover, the probability of presence of problems in credit institutions is negatively correlated with the proportion of personnel costs of total operating expenses. The banks are undercapitalized characterized by low profitability. This profitability is measured by the ratios R7 and R8. The ratio Net income / Equity allows shareholders to monitor the returns earned on their investments, it is a guarantee of a sustainable solvency. According to the CAMEL model, this ratio allows to assess the level of profits relative to the capital invested. The ratio Net income/ Total Assets, measures the rate of return on average total assets held by the institution. This is an indicator of overall profitability. The large level of deposits in total assets and total liabilities, measured respectively by R9 and R10 can have positive or negative effects on the likelihood of difficulty of the banks. The increase in deposits is an indicator of liquidity’s availability. Thus, the bank can meet its commitments. In case of bank runs, the rush of depositors at the counters increases the distress probability. The regulatory environment variables and assumptions with CAMEL’s variables, we also incorporated the external determinants of default, which are more particularly variables related to the regulatory environment. These estimated variables (binary variables), allow regulators to act in the interest of the bank has a serious trouble(the possibility of prosecution of supervisors for their acts, auditors inform the supervisors of illegal activities committed by managers, monitoring function is performed by the Central Bank and the existence of an insurance deposit system). So, we formulated the following hypotheses: H 1: When the auditors inform the supervisors about illegal activities through the audit report, the supervisors can then take appropriate disciplinary actions and can ensure system stability. H 2: The presence of an insurance deposit system can prevent bank runs and can ensure stability. H 3: The possibility of prosecution of supervisors for their acts, reduces the likelihood of distress. H4: The system stability can be maintained when the oversight function is delegated to the Central Bank. 70 Journal of Economic and Social Studies �Predicting Banking Distress in European Countries Goodhart, (2008) used several regulatory variables mentioned in recent studies as factors that explain the failure of the system. Among these elements we can evoke: 1. Deposit insurance system; 2. Insolvency of the bank, and effectiveness “prompt corrective action”; 3. Money market operations performed by Central Banks. Indeed, when the Central Bank oversight decreases the probability of being undercapitalized. First, the introduction of a deposit insurance fund protects depositors. It can reduce the excess of banking risk that no longer generates significant revenues to indicate a good performance to its customers and thus avoid liquidity problems. In most cases, all deposits are not covered and therefore a minimum of market discipline on the part of depositors are insured. This encourages banks to take more risks. Table 2. Variables of regulatory environment Dummy D1 D2 D3 D4 Variables Définition =1when the auditors report fraud or abuse committed by the regulatory discipline (-) leaders to supervisors =0 otherwise Deposit insurance =1 in the presence of a system of explicit deposit insurance (+/-) =0 otherwise Responsability supervisors Auteurs Barth and al (2001) Godlewski(2003), Abdennour and al (2008) Barth et al (2001) Godlewski(2003), DemirgüçKunt.A and Detragiache. E (2008), Naouar(2007) Abdennour and al (2008) (+/-) of =1 in the case of prosecution of Barth and al (2001) supervisors for their actions. Godlewski(2003), =0 otherwise Naouar(2007) Abdennour and al (2008) Role of CB monitoring (+/-) in =1 if the Central Bank has the task Barth and al (2001) of monitoring and supervision Abdennour and al (2008) =0 if the control and the supervision are carried out by another independent institution. Volume 3 Number 1 Spring 2013 71 �Ahlem-Selma MESSAI / Fathi JOUINI Regarding the variable of the insurance deposits, we note that all the countries (eight countries) have an explicit system of deposit insurance. Therefore it is difficult to estimate the impact of this variable on the bank situation. For this reason, we follow the reasoning proposed by Demirguc-Kunt and Detragiache (2008) by integrating the determinants of the deposit insurance system. DemirgüçKunt and Detragiache (2008) compile eight characteristics of deposit insurance. These are: The coverage ratio, insurance of foreign deposits, the coverage of interbank deposits, the existence of an insurer, the payment of coverage, premiums are adjusted for risk, the administration of the premium (for the state or the private sector), and membership is voluntary or mandatory. Based on this study, we approximated the variable relating to the existence of a deposit insurance system and its determinants by using the principal component analysis (PCA). Table3. Determinants of deposit insurance Factor F Measure 1 if there exists 0 otherwise Co-insurance (D6) 1 if there exists (+/-) 0 otherwise Interbank deposit insurance (D7) 1 if there exists (+/-) 0 otherwise The premium risk-adjusted (D8) 1 if exists (+/-) 0 otherwise Funding for the premium (D9) 0 by the bank only (+/-) 1 by the state and the bank together Administration of the guarantee fund (D10) 0 public (+/-) 1 private Variables Foreign deposit insurance (D5) (+/-) Author DemirgüçKunt et al. (2008) Analysis and interpretation of results: To test a model for detecting banking distress, it is useful to make these three tasks: • The determination of correlations between the dependent variable and different ratios. 72 Journal of Economic and Social Studies �Predicting Banking Distress in European Countries • Logit regression on CAMEL variables. • Logit regression on CAMEL variables and factors that explain the regulatory environment. According to t-test for independent sample, we note that healthy banks have higher solvency ratio and hedge ratio of loans by equity. Distressed banks have the following characteristics: - These banks have a low capital ratio. - They cannot cover all loans. - They have also several related activities, - less personal expenses and - A weak economic profitability. Table 4. T-Test for independent sample Ratios Mean DistressedMean The student’s t banks Healthy banks R1 Equity / Total Assets 0.037366 0.092207 -31,339*** R2 Equity / Total Loans 0.078390 0.155895 -15,695*** R3 Net loans/ Total Assets 0.561438 0.639403 -7,687*** R4 Total other operating income / Total Assets 0.390487 0.301731 9, 113*** R5 Personnel expenses/ Total operating expenses 0.478710 0.492294 -2,129** R6 Total operating income / Total assets 0.020373 0.037457 -13,703*** R7 Net income/ equity (ROE) 0.112839 0.085162 5,184*** R8 Net income / Total Assets(ROA) 0.003974 0.008146 -10, 465*** R9 Total Deposits / Total Assets 0.730666 0.726927 0, 347 R10 Total Deposits / Total liabilities 0.760226 0.802188 -3,692*** Significant at the level of : ( *** ** * ) 1%, ( ) 5% or ( ) 10%. Indeed, in the presence of difficulties probability, a bank has a risk of insolvency and a low level of coverage of loans. This is explained by the negative and significant difference of the first two ratios. Concerning profitability (presented by the ratios R7 and R8) two cases may exist: the bank that has a probability of default generates a low profitability. Or, the bank seeks by all way to realize more revenues and therefore take more risks. Since profitability is an increasing function of risk (a positive mean difference indicated by the ratioR7). Moreover, an increase in profitability increases the excess risk and potential distress. Volume 3 Number 1 Spring 2013 73 �Ahlem-Selma MESSAI / Fathi JOUINI Correlation The correlation between the explanatory variables and the dependent variable is presented in the table below. The majority of the explanatory variables have expected signs. Table 5. The correlation between dependent variable et independents variables corrélation T student R1 Equity / Total Assets -0.772876 -46.69796*** R2 Equity / Total loans -0.563211 -26.13278*** R3 Net loans/ Total Assets -0.217567 -8.546381*** R4 Total other operating income / Total Assets 0.253322 10.03998*** R5 Personnel expenses/ Total operating expenses -0.058349 -2.240956** R6 Total operating income / Total Assets -0.450022 -19.32112*** R7 Net income / Equity (ROE) 0.143175 5.546553*** R8 Net income / Total Assets(ROA) -0.355255 -14.57115*** R9 Total Deposits / Total Assets 0.070277 2.701125*** R10 Total Deposits / Total liabilities -0.071572 -2.751183*** Significant at the level of : ( *** ) 1%, ( ** ) 5% or ( * ) 10%. The correlation test shows that there is a strong relationship between the approximate ratio of the solvency position and banking problems. This is the similar case of management quality approximated by the ratio (Total Operating Income /Total Assets) and the ability to realize revenues represented by profitability (Net Income / Total Assets). Logit model application: This study covers a period exceeding one year. The econometric method used is the Logit Panel. Indeed, when using panel data, incorporating a fixed effect in an empirical model representing the individual effect of each bank assumes that the dependent variable can vary according to institutions independently of all the explanatory variables in the regression. Nevertheless, the use of fixed effect can lead to undesirable results when the estimation period is short (eg. only two years). Moreover, when the explanatory variable does not vary with time (eg. regulatory variables) we use the random effect. About the estimated qualitative Logit model, the fact, integrating a fixed effect requires exclusion from the sample of all establishments which have not had problems (well-capitalized banks). However, it is preferable to use a 74 Journal of Economic and Social Studies �Predicting Banking Distress in European Countries random effects model since the use of this technique involves the loss of a significant amount of information (Demirguç-Kunt and Detragiache, 1998). The use of the bivariate correlation between the explanatory variables shows the presence of dependence between certain variables. Then they were tested separately seeking the most significant outcome. Indeed, indicators are classified by their degree of relevance for explaining the deterioration in the ratio capital of banks. In addition, each ratio must pass through a sieve of introduction or elimination depending on his individual contribution to explaining the dependent variable. The dependence between the ratios retained must be low (see the Pearson correlation for independent variables). In fact, among the 10 ratios only five ratios were selected to avoid the problem of multicollinearity. Table 6. Pearson correlations for independent variables R2 R2 R4 R4 R6 R8 R10 1.000000 0.310776 1.000000 (12.53606) R6 R8 R10 0.344680 -0.298530 (14.07790) (-11.99269) 1.000000 0.374857 -0.165892 0.464892 (15.50263) (-6.449770) (20.13204) 0.284409 0.228212 -0.030003 -0.112675 (11.37413) (8.986933) (-1.150869) (-4.347731) 1.000000 1.000000 Value in parentheses is the t-student The estimation results of models are presented in the table below. First, we test the Logit model (model 1), where it was built only from the five CAMEL variables. Then, in the second model, we add variables related to the regulatory environment except the variable relating to the existence of a deposit insurance system (D2). The latter is subsequently added at the third model after the application of the principal component analysis (PCA). By estimating these three models were found almost the same expected signs. The main activity of the bank is granting of credits. The ratio R2 (Equity / Total Loans) is the rate of recovery of loans granted by the equity. This ratio is one of the best indicators of banking problems. It has negative consequences on the likelihood of having problems of bank failures. Indeed, when this variable is high, the bank has enough funds to withstand difficultie Volume 3 Number 1 Spring 2013 75 �Ahlem-Selma MESSAI / Fathi JOUINI Table 7. Results for the Logit model application R2 Variables Model 1 Model 2 Equity/ Total loans -1.249984 *** -1.089388*** *** Model 3 *** 0.3536902 -1.111983*** 0.4349359*** R4 Total other operating income / Total Assets 0.486333 R6 Total operating income / Total Assets -.0227529*** -0.019039*** -0.026969*** *** * R8 Net Income / Total Assets -0.288018 -0.2373362 -0.371062*** R10 Total Deposits / Total liabilities 0.0419052 -0.139140*** -0.14169*** D1 Audit D2 Deposit insurance -15.54379 *** 2.853437* *** D3 Responsibility of supervisors -14.05587 D4 Role of CB -4.414858** C -11.41524*** *** -12.14776*** -10.3024*** 24.10395*** Constant -5.511353 27.6227 Wald chi2(5) 285.01 438.76 767.62 Likelihood ratio test 401.81 107.34 104.62 AIC 404.134 375.644 374.925 BIC 441.195 428.588 433.163 Number of observations 1472 1472 1472 Significant at the level of : ( *** ) 1%, ( ** ) 5% or ( * ) 10%. The asset quality of the credit institution by the ratio R4 (Total Other operating Income / Total Assets) is significant and affects the probability of being in trouble positively. A high level of this ratio can be seen as a signal of presence of difficulty in banks. Management quality represented by the ratio R6 (Total Operating income / Total Assets) is statistically significant and negatively correlated with the probability of default. The economic profitability of the bank (Earning / Total Assets) has an expected negative sign and it is significant at 1%. Most often under-capitalized banks have low profitability. The liquidity is approximated by R10 (Total Deposits / Total Liabilities) and is a positive sign. By this standard, a troubled bank is a bank that has a high proportion of deposits. Following a bank run, depositors rush to withdraw deposits for counters because they are worried about the health of their banks. During the first estimate (model1), this variable appears insignificant. On these variables prescribed type, it was seen that after applying the first model we found significant results with the exception of R10. 76 Journal of Economic and Social Studies �Predicting Banking Distress in European Countries Following the introduction of variables related to the regulatory environment by estimating the second model, there was improvement in the quality of the model (D1 (Audit), D3 (Responsibility of supervisors) and D4 (Role of Central Bank) as proposed by Barth et al. (2001). This improvement is justified econometrically by smaller values of AIC and BIC criteria from the first estimated model and the degree of significance. The coefficients for the new variables have negative signs and are significant at 5%. If we compare the results of this second model to those of the first, it shows that the ratio (R10) became significant with a negative sign. This can be explained by the presence of an explicit deposit insurance system in these eight countries. Indeed, in the presence of these systems, depositors are protected in case of bank failure. Depositors have no need to remove their funds deposited with banks. Therefore, this guarantee of deposits may limit the bank runs. The results show that the probability of banking distress is reduced when the auditor report to supervisors, by obligation, illegal activities such as fraud or abuse committed in the internal management by bank managers. The operation of the bank may be threatened by the audit check report prepared by the auditor and disciplined when it carry out this carefully and objectively. Hypothesis 1 is then accepted. This probabili t y is a decreasing function when it is possible to take legal action against the supervisors for their actions (hypothesis 3 is confirmed). This action has the role of early warning of distressed banks in order to encourage them to make adjustments to their capital. Accountability of supervisors creates greater regulatory discipline and makes more efficient the monitoring process. These two variables (D1 and D3) are significant at 1% level. The coefficient of D4 (sign is negative) shows that the Central Bank plays an active role in monitoring and supervision and has authority to deal with the problems of failure. The exercise of control and supervision of the Central Bank is negatively correlated with the probability of being undercapitalized (This variable is significant at 5%). Hypothesis 4 is then accepted. To approximate the variable D2, (presence of deposit insurance) a third model using factor analysis (principal component analysis is the procedure followed by Demirgüç-Kunt and Detragiache, 2008). This author examines the determinants of deposit insurance, along with other variables used in his study; he describes the deposit insurance scheme). Using a single factor (F) presenting the three critical variables of a system of deposit insurance (The administration of funds; Coverage of deposits i.e. foreign, co-insur- Volume 3 Number 1 Spring 2013 77 �Ahlem-Selma MESSAI / Fathi JOUINI ance and interbank; and Financing of the premium) shows that the probability of difficulty increases with the presence of such a guarantee fund. The presence of such a system discourages depositors to monitor their banks because they feel protected. Therefore, banks do not respect market discipline that motivates them to take more risks. This result is significant only at a threshold of 10%. Hypothesis 2 was therefore rejected. Whatever the model, the probability of having problems and being undercapitalized is negatively correlated with the solvency ratio, quality management, economic profitability approximated by ROA (return on assets) and the share of deposits in liabilities. By cons, this probability is an increasing function of income from other activities. Furthermore, a bank in distress has the following characteristics: - A low capital ratio, - a poor quality of management, - a low profitability, - Important revenues from other activities and a small proportion of deposits compared to total liabilities. Finally, we can conclude from the results that the banking supervision has a significant effect on the detection of potential problems in the credit institutions. The resu lts of our study also indicate that the regulatory environment influence risk taki ng by financial institutions. The use of an advanced detection system incorporating external variables related to the regulatory environment is very useful for European banks. We found that a bank can resist to the turbulence when it has an explicit insurance system, when the central bank has monitoring power and take disciplinary measures to supervisors for their management. Conclusion This paper presented a model for detecting problems that the distressed banks may know. The sample consists of 368 institutions from eight countries. The analysis showed that financial ratios relating to the rating system for predicting default CAMEL are correlated with the likelihood of problems measured by binary variables. 78 Journal of Economic and Social Studies �Predicting Banking Distress in European Countries A bank in distress, which represents specific characteristics, can be summarized as follows: a low ratio of capital, poor management and low profitability. In front of difficulties, banks earn significant revenues from non-traditional activities. This result confirms the idea which concludes that regulation encourages banks to take more risks by circumventing the regulatory framework. Thus, diversification of activities complicates the monitoring system and increases the likelihood of difficulties. The establishment of deposit insurance systems which protects the depositors and makes risk-taking more expensive would further aggravate the moral hazard. So believing they are protected, the banks take more risks. In return, the presence of auditors providing information to regulators in case of rules default reduces potential problems in the banks. Moreover, sanction against negligent managers would be recommended. Similarly, the decreasing relationship between default probability and the role of the Central Bank in monitoring activity demonstrates that this organization plays an important role in maintaining stability and control of credit institutions. Overall, the results of the analysis, given the limitations of the technique have confirmed that a robustness tightening of supervision and control are able to reduce the probability of credit institutions distress. This conclusion might create problems of costs to establish this measure. From another point of view, it is likely to encourage banks to innovate more and harden supervision. Ultimately, we note that this study can be further enriched if one takes into account other types of variables. Indeed, the predictive power of the model can be improved by adding variables that take into account the macroeconomic environment (inflation, growth rate of GDP, (Wong, 2010)). We can also add variables which describe the state of governance (internal, external) or use artificial intelligence as the adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy inference system (Giovanis, 2010) and artificial neuronal network (Shu and Lin, 2010). Volume 3 Number 1 Spring 2013 79 �Ahlem-Selma MESSAI / Fathi JOUINI References Abdennour F. & Houhou S., (2008). un modèle d’alerte précoce de difficulté bancaire pour les pays émergents . Économie internationale, 114, 69-92. Adrian T. & Shin H. S., (2009). Money, Liquidity and Monetary Policy. la Banque Fédérale de réserve de NewYork , Staff Report N° 360. Altman, E.I., (1977). Predicting Performance in the Savings and Loan Association Industry. Journal of Monetary Economics, 3, 443-466. Badjio, D.S., (2009). Réglementation et modèle de prévision de difficultés bancaires en zone CEMAC ”, HEC - Management School-University of LIEGE, Working paper, February 09 / N° 200902/02 . Barr R.S. & Siems T.F., (1997). 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Volume 3 Number 1 Spring 2013 81 �Ahlem-Selma MESSAI / Fathi JOUINI Shu L., & Lin A, (2010). Two-stage logistic regression-ANN model for the prediction of distress banks: Evidence from 11 emerging countries. African Journal of Business Management , 4, 3149-3168. Wong.J, Wong T.C., & Leung P. (2010). Predicting banking distress in the EMEAP economies. Journal of Financial Stability, 6, 169–179. 82 Journal of Economic and Social Studies � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 2376 Title A name given to the resource Predicting Banking Distress in European Countries Author Author Messai, Ahlem-Selma Fathi, Jouini Abstract A summary of the resource. This paper seeks to investigate internal and external factors with relation to regulations in order to predict difficulties which the banks are exposed. The sample consists of 368 banks in 8 European countries for the period 2004-2007. The model was built primarily only on a set of ratios constituting the CAMEL rating system (Capital adequacy, Asset qu ality, Management quality, Earnings ability, Liquidity position). Secondly, we added the variables related to the regulatory environment. The application of the method panel logit shows that financial ratios relating to the rating system (CAMEL) are correlated with the likelihood of problems measured by binary variables. The probability of occurrence of problems in these banks is positively correlated with the presence of an explicit system of deposit insurance and negatively correlated with the presence of auditors who provide information to regulators in the event of illegal activities committed by managers. The ability to prosecute these regulators for their actions has a negative effect on the probability of distress. The role of the Central Bank in monitoring activity is also very important to maintain system’s stability. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available International Burch University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-03-10 Keywords Keywords. Article PeerReviewed HG Finance https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/56654ded39270dde599ac211dd39c8f8.pdf 8e2871dab454dcf442a74e4b3334aca6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource IT Senior Design Projects Description An account of the resource The IT Senior Design Projects (SDPs) category showcases innovative and practical final-year capstone projects developed by undergraduate and graduate students in the field of Information Technology. These projects represent the culmination of students' academic and technical expertise, demonstrating their ability to solve real-world problems through software and hardware solutions. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource PREDICTING CUSTOMER CHURN USING MACHINE LEARNING: A DATA-DRIVEN APPROACH FOR RETENTION STRATEGIES Author Author DŽELILA TINJAK Abstract A summary of the resource. Customer churn poses a critical challenge to business sustainability, leading to significant revenue loss and signaling potential issues in customer satisfaction. This project addresses this by developing a robust machine learning framework to accurately predict customers at high risk of discontinuing service, equipping businesses with a data-driven tool for proactive retention. The methodology encompasses the entire data science lifecycle, beginning with the preprocessing of the Telco Customer Churn dataset, where advanced feature engineering and the Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique (SMOTE) were applied to enhance data quality and address class imbalance. A diverse portfolio of classification algorithms—including logistic regression, random forests, and gradient boosting—was trained and rigorously evaluated using metrics such as accuracy, precision, recall, and AUC-ROC. To maximize predictive power, a soft-voting ensemble was constructed from the top-performing models. The final ensemble achieved an overall accuracy of 76.8% and, critically, a recall of 73% for the churn class, demonstrating strong reliability in identifying at-risk individuals. A key deliverable is an interactive user interface allowing stakeholders to leverage model predictions, visualize churn trends, and interpret the key factors driving customer behavior. This study culminates in a predictive tool that provides actionable insights, enabling businesses to transition from a reactive to a proactive approach in managing customer relationships. By identifying at-risk customers, companies can deploy targeted interventions to enhance loyalty, reduce churn, and secure long-term profitability, creating a practical bridge between advanced analytics and strategic decision-making Keywords Keywords. Customer Churn, Predictive Modeling, Machine Learning, Customer Retention, Classification, Ensemble Learning, Feature Engineering, Data Science. customer churn data science machine learning prediction https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/aadf1e90460f20eab873f5560771d8b3.pdf 2987dcc83603d295cda42928b37c46d8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource IT Senior Design Projects Description An account of the resource The IT Senior Design Projects (SDPs) category showcases innovative and practical final-year capstone projects developed by undergraduate and graduate students in the field of Information Technology. These projects represent the culmination of students' academic and technical expertise, demonstrating their ability to solve real-world problems through software and hardware solutions. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Predicting Sleep Disorders Using Machine Learning Algorithms Author Author Fikret Zajmović Abstract A summary of the resource. Sleep disorders such as insomnia and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) affect millions globally and are linked to significant physical, cognitive, and psychological impairments. Traditional diagnostic methods—including polysomnography and self-reported questionnaires—are resource-intensive, time-consuming, and often unsuitable for large-scale or early-stage screening. To address these limitations, this study proposes a non-invasive, machine learning–based framework for the automated classification of sleep disorders using demographic, behavioral, and physiological features. The research utilizes the publicly available Sleep Health and Lifestyle Dataset, comprising 400 records with 13 features, including age, gender, BMI category, sleep duration, stress level, blood pressure, and physical activity level. Five supervised learning algorithms were developed and evaluated: Logistic Regression, Random Forest, Support Vector Machine (SVM), XGBoost, and an Artificial Neural Network (ANN). The models were trained to classify individuals into one of three sleep health categories: No Disorder, Insomnia, or Sleep Apnea. A comprehensive preprocessing pipeline was implemented, involving data cleaning, feature scaling, one-hot encoding, and SMOTE-based class balancing. Model development followed a nested 5-fold cross-validation strategy, with hyperparameter optimization conducted using GridSearchCV. Performance was evaluated using standard classification metrics: accuracy, macro-averaged precision, recall, F1-score, and ROC-AUC. Results showed that XGBoost and ANN achieved the highest performance, with almost all scores exceeding 0.9, indicating strong predictive accuracy and generalization across validation folds. Feature importance analysis revealed that sleep duration, blood pressure, and BMI category were the most influential predictors. Visualization tools—including confusion matrices, radar charts, and feature importance plots—were used to enhance model interpretability and diagnostic transparency. Despite the promising results, limitations exist. The relatively small dataset (n = 400) and the absence of critical variables such as sleep stage architecture, oxygen saturation, and environmental or comorbidity data constrain generalizability and clinical applicability. Future research should focus on incorporating larger, more diverse datasets and integrating longitudinal or real-time data from wearable devices to improve predictive robustness. In conclusion, this study demonstrates the feasibility and effectiveness of machine learning algorithms in classifying sleep disorders using non-invasive inputs. The findings support the development of scalable, AI-driven diagnostic tools that can enhance sleep disorder screening in both clinical and consumer health settings, contributing to the advancement of telemedicine, digital health innovation, and personalized preventive care. Keywords Keywords. sleep disorder classification, insomnia, sleep apnea, machine learning, XGBoost, artificial neural networks, SMOTE, predictive modeling, telehealth, health informatics classification models data science machine learning sleep disorder