With the support of the 1st edition of the PRA Heritage mini-grant (mini-grant under the supervision of Dr. Hab. Marcin Kwiecień), the IURA service was enriched with digital versions of the first volume of the “Volumina Constitutionum” edition. This is the current paper edition of the legacy of the Old Polish Sejm, initiated and managed for several years by eminent law historian Prof. Dr. Hab. Stanisław Grodziski. The digitised volume includes the years 1493-1526. The project was made possible by cooperation with the Sejm Publishing Office, which agreed to make the first two volumes of the edition available through IURA; and the Księgarnia Akademicka publishing company, which supported the digitisation of the text. Thanks to the implementation of the mini-grant project, the edition has become more accessible and searchable.
Read More oThe Central and Eastern European (CEE) Constitutional Heritage Research Group, based at the Jagiellonian University, is a group of scholars from Poland, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Hungary, Latvia and Bulgaria. We focus our research on examining the role of the CEE countries in shaping a common European constitutional heritage based on national and regional constitutional traditions.
The concept of a common European constitutional heritage is trending and highly relevant for contemporary European states and their citizens, though also extremely puzzling. It is based on the premise that despite the cultural, religious, political, social and economic differences shaping the identity of European states and their societies, there are values shared by all of them, such as inviolable and inalienable human rights, human dignity, freedom, equality, democracy and the rule of law.
The research project is funded by Priority Research Area Heritage, Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative at the Jagiellonian University
Read More oThe project has scholarly and didactic characteristics. Its objective at the scholarly level is to initiate interdisciplinary research into the problem of constitutional identity, while in the didactic variant it purposes to involve in this research a group of Jagiellonian University students studying diverse academic disciplines.
The concept of constitutional identity is analysed in the legal disciplines in a very narrow way that does not reflect the essence of the scientific problem. The legal understanding of constitutional identity is completely out of step with the commonplace understanding of the concept. In public discourse, constitutional identity is seen as an element of national identity and derives from the characteristics that define the nation, which the text of the Constitution only reflects and exposes. The issue of constitutional identity requires an interdisciplinary analysis taking into account the legal perspectives, as well as those of the sociological sciences, political sciences, psychology, and philosophy.
The project is being undertaken in the form of a series of academic seminars with a variable format. Academicians representing various scientific disciplines will be invited to participate in the seminars and consult the results of the students' research. The final result of the project will be a monograph on the interdisciplinary dimension of constitutional identity with scholarly texts prepared by students - M. Florczak-Wątor, M. Krzemiński (red.), Interdyscyplinarny wymiar tożsamości konstytucyjnej, Księgarnia Akademicka 2022.
The goal of the project is to create a research group consisting of scholars from several European countries who will work together on the issue of diversity in marriage and marital relationships in Europe from a human rights and pluralism perspective. The focus will be on the connections between law, society, and culture.
The main research questions for the group include:
1) How does social, religious, and cultural pluralism in Europe influence marriage and other types of relationships?
2) What are the positive and negative aspects of pluralism in different types of relationships in the context of the European human rights system?
3) What is and should be the legal reaction to pluralism of relationship types in Europe?
The issues analysed by the group are:
1. The reaction of European states to the emergence of diverse models of relationships in increasingly pluralistic societies from a human rights perspective;
2. Changes in the legal sphere concerning types of relationships previously unrecognised by state authorities;
3. The marital situation of immigrants and refugees in European countries such as Germany, Malta, and Spain;
4. Religious norms of marriage in Islam.
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A significant proportion of social, academic, and professional activity, especially among young people, has moved into cyberspace. The increase in interest in the podcast format is particularly remarkable. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, streaming platforms have seen an increase of more than 300% in demand for this kind of content. The project 'Maks Konsulski in action - audioserial detective in public international law' is an attempt to meet the expectations of modern audiences and develop modern and engaging teaching tools for the viewer, combining a contemporary and attractive podcast format with valuable academic content. The project involves the creation of an online audioseries. Its individual episodes will be descriptions of challenges in the area of public international law faced by a fictitious young diplomatic officer, Maks Konsulski. Audience members will be able to follow the adventures of the protagonist and, together with him, identify and solve problems based on public international law standards. For each episode, solutions will be developed in the form of an e-book, with an indication of the legal bases and necessary background information. The innovative nature of the project also becomes visible in the fact that the audioseries and the e-book will be the result of cooperation between academicians and students, making the idea of a university a reality. The beneficiaries of the project will be the lecturers, a group of students developing the teaching materials, and other students using the audioseries and e-book as part of course and non-course activities. An important aspect of the project is the realisation that the current challenges and problems faced in public international law can be solved by using the normative heritage of the past.
The project had a didactic and scholarly character. At the scholarly level, it created an opportunity for an exchange of experience and discussion with well-known authorities from several European countries dealing with the problems of the rule of law and the origins of the idea of the rule of law itself, its evolution, and the state of its implementation in individual legal systems, as well as predictions and postulates for the future. On the didactic level, it also allowed a large number of students and doctoral students – participants of the summer school – to discuss the issue. The lecturers, discussants, and moderators were Polish and foreign academics dealing with constitutional law, European law, legal theory, and criminal law. This allowed for a multi-faceted discussion of the issues, taking into account the results of research that these academics had conducted in these specialities, as well as the experiences of other practitioners. The summer school took place from 19-22 July 2022.
Recordings of the meetings are available on the YouTube channel.
The project was realised as part of the work of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Constitutional Studies, and was led by Dr. Marcin Krzeminski.
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Editorial project - first stage of a critical study of Polish legal works of the modern era (within the provisions of a mini-grant, - selected works by Bartłomiej Groicki, Grzegorz Czaradzki, and Teodor Ostrowski). Writings were selected which were generally regarded as being of significant importance in legal practice (Ostrowski's work was also translated into German as a source of knowledge of Polish law during the time of Prussian partition). The compiled texts will be published in the database "IURA. Early Law Sources" (www.iura.uj.edu.pl), which will allow them to be linked by a system of hyperlinks, tags, and advanced search engines to other objects in the base. In this way, future users will have at their disposal an edition of content-linked texts constituting historic systems of law in Polish territories. The tasks provided for in the project consist in modernising spelling in accordance with acknowledged principles, developing the critical apparatus, and, in the case of Grzegorz Czaradzki's Lawsuit, collating two different editions. Weronika Barabasz, Piotr Drążyk, Damian Klimczak, Anna Marcol, Maciej Mikuła (PI), Arkadiusz Piskorz, and Izabela Wasik participated in the project.
Read More oTwo research stays in Portugal and Italy financed by ID.UJ-Heritage allowed Prof. Adam Dyrda to prepare two chapters of the “Handbook of Law and Evolution” (Edward Elgar Publishing, eds. A. Dyrda, W. Załuski, S. Burgouise-Gironde 2023; Research Handbooks in Legal Theory series; 2nd level publishing house). The handbook is scheduled for publication in 2023 (editing work currently in progress). Working titles of the chapters are:
(1) THE “GROWTH” OF THE LEGAL MEANING OF ‘THE PRAGMATIST PERSPECTIVE’
(2) THE EVOLUTIONARY GROUNDS OF INSTITUTIONAL ACTION (or: Darwin’s and Darwinian Theories of Institutions)
During these two research stays Prof. Dyrda presented two papers: one at the International conference on legal realism (Genoa, Tarello Institute), and another at the legal theory seminar at Bocconi University (Milan).
Within the framework of the project, a research team was formed consisting of a project manager, a doctoral student, and nine undergraduate students. The purpose of the project was to develop and introduce into the knowledge base "IURA. Sources of Law from the Past" hitherto unknown Polish Supreme Court decisions from 1918-1939. As a result of the work, a total of 70 Supreme Court decisions from 1920-39 were found and compiled, including 6 orders, 1 pardon opinion, 1 resolution, and 62 judgments. In addition, one Supreme Court decision from 1949 concerning a war criminal sentenced to death was found and published in passing. Of the rulings dating from 1920-39, eighteen were issued in disciplinary cases against judges, and the rest in criminal cases. The published rulings cover not only the Cracow judicial district, but also various other areas of the Second Republic, including Kolomea, Lublin, Lvov, Stanislawow, and Vilnius.
Particularly valuable are those rulings that were issued in disciplinary cases against judges. Until 2001, disciplinary proceedings against judges in Poland were closed to the public, and therefore no court rulings made in these cases were published. Hence, the first known disciplinary rulings date only from 2001. Any case dating from before that date is therefore valuable, and even more valuable are those dating from before 1939 (as is well known, the Supreme Court archives where the originals of these rulings were kept burned down in 1944). The remaining rulings concern criminal cases, and are mostly judgments rendered as a result of cassation appeals against rulings by district courts, and, less frequently, appellate courts. They mostly concern cases of the most serious criminal offenses, but there are political cases as well.
The published rulings concern, among others, activists of the Communist Party of Poland, including those who had consequential careers after World War II, such as Oskar Karliner (military prosecutor, deputy chairman of the Supreme Military Court in 1949-1953), Boleslaw Drobner (Minister of Labor, Social Welfare and Health of the Polish Committee of National Liberation, and the first post-war mayor of Wroclaw), and those who, although they did not live to see People's Poland, had heroic status in it, such as such as political activist and member of the Polish resistance Roman Sliwa. Among the published rulings are also those concerning the most famous criminal cases of the interwar period (described, among others, by Janusz Szwaja, Stanisław Waltoś, and Stanisław Salmonowicz in "Krakow Pitaval", such as the Jan Ręczmień case of 1932 or the Maciej Paluch case of 1927).
All the sentences have been compiled according to the uniform standard published by Ireneusz Ihnatowicz ("Project of publishing instructions for historical sources of the 19th and 20th centuries"), and provided with a critical apparatus, enabling identification of the legal acts cited in them. Almost all of them were also with provided with theses, i.e. extracted key legal views that were contained in the justification. Due to their inherent succinctness, theses were not added to individual rulings.
In the carrying out of activities undertaken during the implementation of the "(Un)lost heritage..." grant, it was discovered that in the National Archives in Krakow, in the complex of the Regional Court in Krakow, in addition to the files of criminal cases covered by the previous project, there are also numerous files of civil cases in which there are hitherto unknown Supreme Court decisions from the interwar period. As in the case of the "(Un)lost heritage" project, the project's premise was based on the use of copies of unknown rulings (for the originals – as today – were left at the Supreme Court, and as a result, those from before 1939 were burned in their entirety in 1944), that were attached to the files of the main court cases and sent with those files to local courts, and later transferred to the state archives. These rulings were found, compiled and published in the knowledge base "IURA. Sources of Law from the Past".
The project involved a manager and four students. A total of about 150 Supreme Court rulings were found and compiled, covering a broad spectrum of civil cases including cases of obligations, property, inheritance, family, and commercial law. There are also numerous rulings in which the essence of the problem is related to the court’s interpretation of procedural law. Among these rulings there are also those issued by enlarged panels comprised of as many as seven judges or sometimes even the entire chamber. The rulings that have been compiled concern issues that appear to be of purely historical interest (such as the effect a forced marriage would have on the validity of a subsequent marriage; or the effectiveness of the acquisition of property after taking a vow of poverty), as well as the most current ones (there are definitely more of these; including issues related to the scope of Pauliaen protection, the prerequisites for revoking a donation, the filing of an indictment as a means of defamation, or the making of settlements in a manner that is today referred to as the "two-condition theory"). Among the rulings found are also those that may have biographical significance, as they concern public figures, including the literary figure Tadeusz Peiper, and the well-known art collector and diplomat, Franciszek Pustulowski. Several rulings dating back to the first years after World War II, also previously unpublished, have also been found in the margins of the works.
All the rulings have been compiled to a uniform standard and provided with a critical apparatus. As with the "(Un)lost heritage..." project, the vast majority of the rulings are also accompanied by theses.
The purpose of the project was to develop, finance, and test the expansion of the knowledge base "IURA. Sources of Law from the Past" with additional tools that significantly enhance the possibilities associated with the use of the base, and finance its information service, as well as to carry out work related to its overall improvement. The latter consisted of auditing the metadata of objects entered in the database. Each unit of the database is provided with a series of metadata to improve its functionality and to ensure the innovation of the project. There is a need to thoroughly check and improve the metadata in order to ensure their harmonization and consistency, since the work to date has been of an implementational nature, and this has resulted in certain inconsistencies.
Thanks to the project, it was possible to develop and implement tools to improve the functionality of the database, both from the perspective of the user and the administrator:
1) a tool for displaying objects collected in the database not only in .pdf format, but also in .html format;
2) a tool that allows for the editing of objects collected in the database from the editor's panel;
3) a tool that integrates spatial metadata collected in the database with Google Maps, the State Register of Geographic Names, the Wikidata knowledge base, and the GeoNames database,
4) a tool that allows users to navigate to individual objects from the home page, without having to search for them in collections.
In addition, the project made it possible to fund an upgrade of the DiNGO software used by the database to the latest version.
One of the hottest contemporary topics related to the judiciary is the issue of responsibility for discipline of judges. This topic has never been as popular as it is today, especially since, until 2001, proceedings on the subject in Poland were closed to the public. As a result, no case law of disciplinary courts was published, and almost no publications on the subject appeared. Not surprisingly, there must be a great research gap in this area today. In work does not deal with issues related to the organization or functioning of disciplinary courts. It is more concerned with issues related to the understanding of "impeccability of character" and determining whether contemporary judges act more morally than their predecessors or less so, as well as the possibility that the conduct of judges today is no different from what it was a few decades ago.
Research divided into four stages – the history of responsibility for discipline of judges: (1) from the formation of the modern judiciary in the mid-19th century to 1918, (2) during the interwar period, (3) in the so-called People's Poland (1944-1990), and (4) in the transitional period from 1990 to 2001.Research trip to the University of Vienna was devoted to working on the first of these phases. In Vienna, it was consulted with the staff of the Faculty of Law, and conducted library searches, but is consider the most important element and result of stay to be the finding in the State Archive of some 300 rulings of disciplinary courts for judges (mainly of the Supreme Disciplinary Court in Vienna, but also of courts of first instance). They date from the 1850s to 1918. Of these 300 rulings, about 100 concern court judges. The vast majority of them are, of course, in German, but a certain number of first-instance court rulings are in the official languages of the various territories of the Austrian empire (in Polish, but also in Italian, Czech, and Sorbian/Croatian).
The files found are all the more valuable because they have never been the subject of a scholarly study until now, nor is it likely that any was ever attempted. The stay in Vienna was too short for conducting an in-depth analysis of even the "Polish" part of the jurisprudence of the Supreme Disciplinary Court in Vienna, but it at least allowed us to determine what can be found there, and therefore what further research hypotheses can be proposed.
In June 2022, I paid a study visit to the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. The purpose of the trip was primarily to learn about various ways of digitizing sources of law, with particular emphasis on oral history aspects of the history of the judiciary implemented in the Forschungsstelle DDR-Recht (Joint Research Centre of the German Democratic Republic’s Law.
Forschungsstelle DDR-Recht is a project whose subject is much narrower than that of the Jagiellonian University’s "IURA. Sources of Law from the Past" project, however, it struggles with similar problems. Some of the elements implemented as part of the Forschungsstelle DDR-Recht were also implemented at the Jagiellonian University some time ago – for example, the digitization of all doctoral dissertations from the period 1945-90. The differences in the methods of operation of the Forschungsstelle… are mainly due to the specificity of German higher education. A decisive part of the tasks is carried out by other university entities (such as the library, which deals with the digitization and OCR processing), but also because, unlike the law of the People's Republic of Poland, the law of the German Democratic Republic after 1990 has basically lost its relevance completely.
However, the most interesting and innovative project implemented in the Unit seems to be the oral history of law project – recording, preserving, and interpreting historical information based on the personal experiences and opinions of various speakers – in this case people associated with the legal system of the GDR: judges, prosecutors, attorneys, members of government administration, and professors of law. Although, of course, projects related to oral history are also developing in Poland, none of them is oriented towards law. However, this trend is present in many other countries of the world, and is particularly popular in the US. In Germany, Forschungsstelle… is also one of the first units to carry out such activities.
An important place on the map of Polish legal culture is held by the early Polish law on judicial proceedings of 1523, namely the Formula processus. The 500th anniversary of its enactment provides a framework for research into the history of civil procedure in Polish territories over the five centuries that have elapsed since the publication of one of Europe's first laws regulating the principles of judicial procedure. The objective of this research initiative is to present the historical development of European civil procedure in the context of its evolution in Polish territories in three different periods: the early modern period (16th-18th centuries), the time of the Partitions (1795-1918), and the recent and present times. The result of the research will be a presentation of the Polish experience with the introduction and application of judicial procedure in the context of European achievements in the area of civil procedural law.
A team of legal historians and lawyers from the Jagiellonian University, as well as researchers from foreign research centres, including from Germany, France, Austria, and the USA, undertook the analysis of that research. The area of interest of the research group will include several major scientific issues presented chronologically. Emphasis in the research plan has been placed on showing the specificity of Polish judicial proceedings in the early land law system (Prof. Izabela Lewandowska-Malec and Dr Kacper Górski), in towns (Prof. Maciej Mikuła), in villages (Prof. Krzysztof Fokt), in the context of the development of the Roman canonical process (Rev. Prof. Franciszek Longchamps de Berier), and in the German common civil process (Prof. Martin Loehnig), as well as in the Anglo-American process (Prof. Vincent R. Johnson and Prof. Jan Halberda).
The research will include an analysis of the applicability of foreign civil procedures on Polish territory during the period of partitions in connection with their history in the countries of origin (Prof. Dorota Malec, Prof. Grzegorz Smyk, Prof. Kamila Staudigl-Ciechowicz, and Dr. Abdoul Yatera). An additional objective of the planned studies is also to present the development of Polish civil procedure in the twentieth century from the perspective of the influence of foreign laws on the Polish Code of Civil Procedure of 1930 (the code entered into force in 1933, so 2023 is its 90th anniversary), and the transformations of Polish procedural law after World War II (Prof. Andrzej Dziadzio, Prof. Radosław Flejszar, Prof. Andrzej Olaś, and Dr Grzegorz Blicharz). The final result of the research will include a monograph published in English.
The summer school project is organised within the framework of Polish-Czech cooperation between the Jagiellonian University Centre for Interdisciplinary Constitutional Studies and the Chair of Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law of Charles University in Prague.
Its objective at the academic level is the exchange of experiences and the initiation of discussions among recognised authorities on contemporary challenges to democracy, taking into account the heritage of the constitutional state and transitions within its functioning. Considering the history and evolution of democratic governance, the joint effort will analyse current processes and phenomena affecting both society and the political systems in European countries. Inter alia, these will include financial crises and economic unrest, the problem of migration and the formation of multi-ethnic societies, restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic, the rapid growth of populist and nationalist movements, the growing importance of sovereignty and the autonomy of the nation state, instances of departures from the principles of liberal democracy and the values of the rule of law, increased persecution of minorities, and restrictions on human and civil rights and freedoms. At the didactic level, the project purposes to enable undergraduate students, doctoral students, and other young academics to participate in the discussion. The lecturers and moderators will be Polish and Czech scholars dealing with constitutional law, European law, sociology, and theory and philosophy of law. They will be both academics and other persons with experience in the adjudication of cases in the highest courts. This will allow for a multi-faceted discussion of the issues covered by the topic of the summer school, taking into account both the results of research in these specialisations by academics, and the experience of practitioners.
Ladies and Gentlemen.
We would like to invite you to participate in the 17th International Conference, which will take place in a hybrid form on 25th-27th of May (Thursday - Saturday). Participation will be possible both in an online form via MS Teams (25th and 26th of May, Thursday and Friday) and stationary form in Cracow (27th of May, Saturday).We recommend online form especially for those, who will not be able to arrive in Cracow in person.
The event - held by the Jagiellonian University's Student Society for State and Legal History, Chair of Polish Legal and State History, Chair of World Legal and State History at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Jagiellonian University and the Jagiellonian University's Student Society for Civil Procedure- is aimed at researchers in fields of law and history - in particular at graduate students, PhD students and PhD graduates.
It is extremely difficult to overestimate the role of civil law and its meaning for the nations and for individuals. The multitude of its functions and tasks, which have been transforming throughout history, have been the subject of numerous scientific studies until present day. In 2023, we celebrate the anniversaries of the legislative enactment of several important legal acts concerning both substantive and procedural civil law. 90 years ago the Polish Obligation Code and Presidential Act on Limited Liability Company were issued (1933). 125 years ago the Japanese Civil Code and French Act on Employer Responsibility in case of Workplace Accident went into effect (1898), 240 years ago there was Austrian Ehepatent also known as Marital Patent of Joseph II (1783), 155 years ago there was Austrian Marriage Act for Galicia Notzivilehe (1868) . In 2023 we also commemorate 205 years of Hypothec Law of Kingdom of Poland (1818). Furthermore, 340 years ago the Danish Code of Christian V – Danske Lov (1683) was introduced.
We also hope that the above events will encourage a comprehensive discussion on the role and importance of civil law in the past, present and future, as well as the presentation of the results of your academic research.
Suggested topics include the following:
1. functions and tasks of civil law
2. the conception of contract
3. the rules of civil procedure
4. history of institutions of obligation law
5. history of institutions of hereditary law
6. history of institutions of property law
7. history of institutions of family law
8. history of the labor law
9. history of company law
10. evolution of civil procedure
Any other research topics that are in line with the conference topic will of course also be warmly welcomed.
If you are interested in taking part in the conference, please send the topic, form and day of participation on email: hpip.tbsp@uj.edu.pl until 4th of May, 2023. The length of the speech should not exceed 30 minutes. We accept speeches in English, Polish and German*
We keep the right to select the abstracts.
*German-speaking panel will be scheduled in case of 3 or more abstracts of speeches in this language.
Below is a link to the registration form :
https://forms.gle/yHoAf8YSChTyLKD96
For more information, please contact us by email: hpip.tbsp@uj.edu.pl or via the Historia Państwa i Prawa TBSP UJ page on Facebook
During the international conference ‘SIHDA’ - Société Internationale Fernand de Visscher pour Histoire des Droits de l’Antiquité (Brussels, 13-17 September, 2022) - the annual SIHDA conference meeting (one of the most important world conferences of the specialists in Roman law studies and legal history studies) - I gave a paper in English, untitled ‘The Roman jurist and the sphere of sacrum. Moments of irrationality in rational dogmatic argumentation of Roman jurists’. After the presentation a discussion took place.
The topic of my presentation: ‘The Roman jurist and the sphere of sacrum’ was related to the argumentative moment in discourse of Roman jurists, when they - departing from their innate rationality - allowed themselves to irrational, even slightly crazy, rationalisation of interpretative decisions. It is well known that the archaic law of ancient Rome was strongly connected with religion, and thus it was a kind of medium between the world of the sacred and the language of signs, solemn verbal formulas, gestures. As a result of this reciprocal relation several institutions of private law, not entirely rationally justified, were invented, such as a sacramentum in the oldest private legal procedure, a lance et licio search in the case of theft, a fear that gave rise to certain legal consequences in cases of the birth of a monstrum vel prodigium etc. The presence and activity of the gods was seen there. Over time, already in the republican period, law separated itself from religion, and ‘secular’ jurists began a discussion on the rational creation of law through interpretation. Nevertheless, not having complete freedom in their practical activity, for some reasons (tradition, religion and customs of their ancestors, the meaning of fides, protection of some special values etc.) Roman jurists decided to maintain specific institutions marked with elements proper to the sphere of sacrum (e.g. iusiurandum), which provoked specific legal effects (e.g. legal fictions, presumptions). In this way, in the jurisprudential dogmatic discourse particular traces of old and current beliefs and superstitions were present (what can even be considered a specific ‘legal ideology’ of the past). The aim of the speech was to show these moments, as well as to determine the possible reasons for their presence in the reality created by Roman jurists for the Roman community.
The presentation was delivered. It will not be published separately, as the topic is part of a larger study, which is in preparation.
The Department of Roman Law at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, together with the Religious Freedom Clinic at Harvard Law School, are co-founding a research group aimed at conducting and integrating comparative research on law and religion, with a particular focus on the legal aspects of religious freedom. Activities conducted include both historical and comparative legal research in the areas of Roman law and the European legal tradition, common law methodology, American law, public international law, comparative constitutional law, and the law of freedom of religion. The research will be expanded to include the law-making activities of international organizations and the procedural aspects of the protection of rights, including before international tribunals.
The research group includes:
– on the European side: Rev. Prof. Franciszek Longchamps de Bérier (UJ), Prof. Michal Kowalski (UJ), Prof. Andrzej Bryk (UJ), Prof. Maciej Mikuła (UJ), Prof. Paweł Cichoń (UJ), Prof. Andrea Simoncini (University of Florence), Prof. David Magalhães (University of Coimbra) and Dr. Grzegorz Blicharz (UJ)
– on the American side: Prof. Ruth L. Okediji (Harvard Law School) Prof. Josh C. McDaniel (Harvard Law School), Prof. Eric C. Rassbach (Becket Fund/Pepperdine University School of Law) and Prof. Michael A. Helfand (Yale Law School/Pepperdine University School of Law).
A joint two-day online conference was held in November 2022, addressing the issue of Religious Freedom and Legal Education in two parts: Day 1 Religious Freedom in Practice: Comparing Transatlantic Approaches and Day 2 Religious Freedom in Education: A Growing Field - https://www.law.uj.edu.pl/kprz/transatlantic/ In May 2023 another conference of the research group is planned. Joint scientific publications will also be an intended outcome of the cooperation.
On December 17, 1523, the Sejm held in Piotrków came to an end. At the Diet an act was passed that reformed judicial proceedings before land law courts – the so-called Formula processus. One of its most important provisions was the introduction of appeals to the Polish court procedure (the so-called land trial). Thus, the year 2023 marked the 500th anniversary of the presence of this institution in the Polish legal system. This occasion gave rise to the conference at the Jagiellonian University devoted to appeal, other remedies and appeal proceedings from a historical and contemporary perspective. The event was a joint initiative of Rafał Dzyr, President of the Court of Appeal in Kraków, and Prof. Jerzy Pisuliński, dean of the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Jagiellonian University. On the part of the Faculty, the employees of the Department of the History of Polish Law and the Department of General History of State and Law were responsible for the organization.
The conference took place on June 6–7, 2023 in the Collegium Novum of the Jagiellonian University. A total of twelve papers were presented. The first day was devoted to the history of appeals, remedies and appeal proceedings in pre-1795 Poland, on Polish lands under partitions (late 18th-beginning of 20th centuries) and in the interwar period (1918-1939). The proceedings were opened by Prof. Jerzy Pisuliński, dean of the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Jagiellonian University. Papers were delivered by: Prof. Wacław Uruszczak, Prof. Adam Moniuszko, Dr. Kacper Górski, Prof. Marian Mikołajczyk, Prof. Andrzej Dziadzio, Dr. Jakob Maziarz.
The second day of the conference was devoted to contemporary problems of appeals and appeal proceedings. Legal historians gave way to dogmatists – scholars and legal practitioners. The meeting was opened by Rafał Dzyr, President of the Court of Appeal in Kraków, and was followed by speeches by: Prof. Radosław Flejszar, Dr. Mariusz Sorysz, Dr. Józef Forystek, Prof. Barbara Nita-Światłowska, Dr. Małgorzata Malczyk and Dr. Tomasz Kozioł, President of the District Court in Tarnów.
A large number of listeners participated in the deliberations. Many of them were invited judges of the Krakow appellate district, as well as retired judges. The event was a great opportunity to meet and discuss representatives of the academic community (both dogmatists and legal historians) and the judiciary. Recordings of the papers presented will be published. A report on the event will also be published in issue 17/1 (2024) of Cracow Studies of Constitutional and Legal History. The conference has been supported by a grant from the Faculty of Law and Administration under the Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative at Jagiellonian University.
The goal of this project was to give students an opportunity to present the results of their work concerning the history of law in Europe. While presenting at the conference, they could receive feedback from experienced researchers, in order to help their scientific growth.
During the seminar, each of the participants introduced a topic they researched. Then, everyone participated in a discussion concerning the speeches. The discussed papers ranged from the ancient legal systems to regulations of the nineteenth century.
As a result of the participation in the seminar, students raised their experience in conducting research and explaining results of their scientific work. They were also able to gain experience in speaking during conferences and broadened their knowledge by familiarizing themselves with the presentations of the other participants.