Introduction into Central European Legal Culture - HNOPVS0007

• Title: Introduction into Central European Legal Culture
• Guaranteed by: Department of Legal Theory and Legal Doctrines (22-KTPPU)
• Faculty: Faculty of Law
• Actual: from 2024 to 2024
• Semester: winter
• Points: 0
• E-Credits: 5
• Examination process: winter s.:
• Hours per week, examination: winter s.:1/0, Ex [HT]
• 4EU+: no
• Virtual mobility / capacity: no
• State of the course: taught
• Language: English
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan; enabled for web enrollment
• Guarantor: prof. JUDr. Zdeněk Kühn, Ph.D., LL.M.
• Incompatibility : HPOP0000, HPOP3000, HP0681

Annotation

English

This course focuses on the legal culture of Central Europe, particularly on Poland, Hungary and the countries of former Czechoslovakia. We would briefly explain the origins of Central European legal culture. After this historical introduction, we would deal with the communist legal culture as developed in the four decades of Eastern European communism and with its impact on the transforming Central European legal cultures. We will compare various features of legal and judicial culture and its ideology in Central Europe with Western European legal culture. Last but not least, the issue of democratic backsliding in the region will be addressed. Although targeting central Europe proper, we will also debate the development in other countries (Ukraine, Russia, the Baltic states, the Balkans etc.).

Last update: Šicnerová Barbora, Mgr. (13.05.2025)

Czech

This course focuses on the judicial culture of Central Europe, particularly on Poland, Hungary and the countries of former Czechoslovakia. We would briefly explain the origins of Central European judicial culture. After this historical introduction, we would deal with the communist judicial culture as developed in the four decades of Eastern European communism and with its impact on the transforming Central European legal cultures. We would compare various features of judicial culture and its ideology in Central Europe with Western European judicial culture and try to assess what new these countries can bring to the emerging new European legal culture. In the framework of this course, the constitutional systems of the new EU candidate countries, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Turkey, will be analyzed.

Last update: Šicnerová Barbora, Mgr. (13.05.2025)

Requirements to the exam

Essay on the selected Topic (the students will be given the choice of several topics and choose one to write an essay). 

Means of communication:

Moodle

Last update: Šicnerová Barbora, Mgr. (13.05.2025)

Syllabus

Topics

1. The Concept of Europe • The Historical Emergence of Eastern Europe • The Emergence of Central and Eastern European Legal Tradition • The Issue of Human Rights in the Region   2. Marxism and Law • Positivism or Anti-Positivism? • The Role of Judges and Law in Marxist Theory   3. The Practice in the 1950’s: The Stalinist Judicial Culture: General Features, its Central European Variations • The Emergence and the Decline of Communist Anti-Positivism • Emancipation Thesis alas Some Positive Features of the Communist Legal Culture    4.  The Practice in the 1970’s and 1980’s: Communist Post-Stalinist Legal Culture in Central Europe • Making a Post-Stalinist Ultra-Positivism   5. The 1990s and the Early 2000s: The Transformation of Post-Communist Legal Systems • Dealing with the Communist Crimes  • Lustration • Judiciary   6. Constitutional Courts of Central Europe • The Transformation of the Legal System via Constitutional Adjudication • The Emergence of New Constitutionalism   7. – 8. Democratic Backsliding •  The Fall of New Constitutionalism • The Rise of New Authoritarianism • Poland and Hungary • The Power of the EU • European Court of Human Rights and Democratic Backsliding   9-10. Constitutional Systems of the New EU Countries: Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia (Lectures by Professor Hofmann) Course Goals / Learning Outcomes: Upon completion of this course, students will be able to: ●             get basic orientation in the legal systems of Central Europe and the EU ●             get basic information about the legal and constitutional systems in the region and will be able to understand the problems liberal democracies face in Central Europe ●             will become familiar with the region’s past and current problems vis-à-vis law and human rights

Reading is based on the coursepack, including:

Topics 1-6:

Mirjan DAMAŠKA: The Faces of Justice and State Authority. A Comparative Approach to the Legal Process. New Haven, London, Yale University Press, 1986.
Agata FIJALKOWSKI: The Judiciary’s Struggle towards the Rule of Law in Poland, in: The Rule of Law in Central Europe (Jiří Přibáň, James Young eds.), Dartmouth: Ashgate, 1999
John HAZARD: Communists and their Law. A Search for the Common Core of the Legal Systems of the Marxian Socialist States. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, London, 1969
Martijn W. HESSELINK: The New European Legal Culture, Kluwer-Deventer, 2001
Zdeněk KÜHN: Worlds Apart. American Journal of Comparative Law, 2004
LENIN V. I.: State and Revolution. http://www.marxists.org (excerpts)
Wojciech SADURSKI: Marxism and legal positivism, in: Essays In Legal Theory (Galligan D. J., ed.), Melbourne University Press, Victoria, 1984
Larry WOLFF: Inventing Eastern Europe, Stanford, 1994

Topics 7-10:

Stanimir ALEXANDROV: Paving the way for Bulgaria’s accession to the European Union. - Fordham international law journal, 21 (1998) 3, pp. 587-601
Davor BOŽINOVIČ: Croatia and the European Union, in: Review of international affairs, 54 (2003) 1111, pp. 25-31
Dinesh D. BANANI: Reforming history: Turkey’s legal regime and its potential accession to the European Union, in: Boston College international and comparative law review, 26 (2003) 1, pp. 113-127
The selected case law and statutes

Last update: Šicnerová Barbora, Mgr. (13.05.2025)