Constitutional Law

Study:
Code:	31824
ECTS:	4.0
Course coordinators:

Literature:

Description:

The Constitutional Law seminar enables students to deepen the understanding of constitutional concepts acquired during the ConLaw lectures; to critically evaluate those concepts and enhance their understanding of constitutional institutes in a comparative context.
The seminar revolves around selected topics, updated each year to reflect current issues in the sense of constitutional legal topics and challenges before the Republic of Croatia as well as the influential European and North American legal systems. Each of the seminar lecturers uses an individual syllabus, including topics of their own choice. For this reason, there is no pre-set lesson plan and/or bibliography.
The topics may include some of the following: Constitution and constitutional governance. Classical and contemporary constitutionalism. The Constitution as a legal act. Human rights and fundamental freedoms. Constitutional review. Basic institutions of democratic governance. System of government and accountability. Compound states and unions of states. Constitutionality of the European Union. Establishment of the independent Republic of Croatia. Basic features of the constitutional system in the Republic of Croatia. Fundamental rights guarantees in the Croatian Constitution. Croatian Parliament. Referendum in the Republic of Croatia. President of the Republic of Croatia. Government and central administration. Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia. The judiciary. Special institutions of constitutional review. Local and regional self-government. Consolidation of the Croatian legal system.

Cognitive Skills:

After successfully mastering the course, the student will be able to:

1. Differentiate between basic concepts of the rule of law, constitutional governance, constitutionalism and constitution;

2. Define the basic concepts and institutes as well as fundamental doctrines and principles of individual branches of law.

Practical and Generic Skills:

After successfully mastering the course, the student will be able to:

1. Show the position held by Croatian constitutional provisions and guarantees against the basic precepts of constitutional governance/constitutionalism and the content of the concept of "constitution" in comparative law;

2. Analyse the degree of devlopment of constitutional governance and constitutionalism in comparative and Croatian constitutional law;

3. Analyse practical issues of primacy of national or European law, taking into account the demands of the Croatian constitutional legal framework;

4. Evaluate the process of developing constitutionally-regulated institutes in the Republic of Croatia;

5. Critically compare the models of systems of government in comparative and Croatian constitutional law.

Consultations schedule: