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The aim of this study is to examine in a succinct and concise manner the salient features of the work of the Commissioner for the Rights of Trade Union Members (CROTUM). In this respect the Commissioner's powers are examined and analysed. There then follows a detailed discussion on the assistance she is able to give to trade union members. Statistics relating to this aspect are given. Certain important features of the Commissioner's Office are mentioned briefly (as, for example, reprisais by the union against its members, and the Commissioner's independence) before interstitial conclusions are reached.

In this essay, the author examines the main topic of civil liability and insurance cover of professionals, having regard to point out the rules of contractual and extracontractual liability. According to the rules expressed by the civil code, while in the contractual domain professionals are requested to give execution to contracts with good faith and due professional diligence (which is a standard somewhat more strict thon the ordinary diligence), in extra-contractual liability professionals are treated in a lighter way, because they are not liable for light fault : in other terms, they are liable only if they didn't apply due diligence in ordinary cases, while they are exempted in the solution ofhard cases. « Hard » cases are cases so qualified by practice, and normally by other professionals. Insurance contracts, according to the new trend of décisions, trying to appreciate with stricter standards professional's behaviour, are very detailed and ordinarily narrower thon before as to the kind of risks covered.

There are two kinds of adoptions in Francophone Africa : the first one which is legal and largely inspired from french law is implemented by States that have legislated on family matters, except Algeria and Morrocco where adoption is banned. The second one, which is practised ail over French speaking Africa can be qualified as de facto adoption. It consists more often in taking in a child in a family without the existing of any family relationships between the adopter and the adopted. Such relationships are infact very rare in the case of de facto adoption. We notice however that among the Sereres-Nones of Senegal, there exists a custom which allows a sterile woman to take in a child in conditions very much like the phenomenon of « surrogate mothers ». Legal adoption is accurately controlled as regards its conditions and effects. This is not the same for the de facto adoption which, except in Mali, is in principle unconnected to the law, even if it is not totally legally void since it may be certified in the appeal to certain legal mechanisms. The wide spread practice of de facto adoption, as opposed to an almost meaningless implementation of legal adoption, calls into question the option of the African legislators who only recognized and implemented the western type of adoption. This creates an imbalance between the law « required » by the States and that which is actually practised by the people. Such a situation is all the more deplorable in that in comparative law, the discussions of a possible reform of the law of adoption are directed towards what is called the alternative forms of adoption.