LFU:online

The purpose of the course is to offer students (i) an introduction to comparative legal systems of sources of law, with a special attention on the distinctive features of the English common law and the European continental tradition of codified law (civil law); (ii) an introduction to comparative legal methodology in public law; (iii) a comparative analysis on protection of fundamental rights in common law and civil law jurisdictions.

Reference will be made also to international (European Court of Human Rights) and supranational (Court of Justice of the European Union) protection of fundamental rights as a field of application of the comparative method.

Classes will initially deal with the distinction of systems of sources of law as experienced in time and space (civil law, common law, socialist law, conventional law, customary law, religious law), with emphasis on common law (born in England and exported throughout  the Commonwealth) and civil law (with origins in Roman law and further shaped through a process of national codification, present also in North and South America, in former French, Portuguese and Spanish colonies, and allegedly in China and other former colonies in Asia). Common law and civil law make up the European (and Western) legal tradition and co-exist in the experience in international and supranational protection of fundamental rights.

Classes will then deal with methodological issues in comparative public law, going through the necessary steps that will allow knowledge and understanding of a method of analysis and legal reasoning that is becoming more and more relevant in the legal professions.

A third stage of the course will explore comparatively the field of protection of a few fundamental rights through the analysis of judicial decisions of common law and civil law jurisdictions, including also international and supranational European case-law.

Classes are a means for critical learning and teaching will therefore rely on a critical approach, with the purpose to train students to see and explain problems, to analyse similarities and differences, and to understand their respective rationale. Classes are based on a combination of lectures and of group discussion and they are meant to be as interactive as students will be willing to be.

Students are always welcome to ask questions, make comments and to suggest links between and among topics. Questions, comments and suggestions are preferably asked in class, so that all students benefit both from questions and answers.

Class work on case-law may be organised as distance teaching according to a schedule agreed in class that may be different from the one of the first part of the course that will be in presence.

The final exam will be written. Showing to have the basic information  is taken for granted for law students and is therefore not sufficient for passing the exam. Students are expected to be able to carry on legal arguments on the given topic employing the legal tools provided by reading materials and class work.

Grades are related not to the quantity of information exhibited but to the quality of personal legal reasoning.

No single text-book is indicated. The outlines of classes will be made available on the web. Further reading materials (essays, judicial decisions and comments) will be provided following the development of classes.

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Students interested in meeting the professor are kindly requested to contact him via email: roberto.toniatti@unitn.it