2008 General focus

General focus of the conference

Profound social changes have occurred in the Central European countries since 1990 (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia).  These countries are currently democratic, respect human rights, are members of the European Council, the European Union and NATO.  The transformation, through which law in the aforementioned countries has passed during the last 20 years, has no historical analogy.  Perhaps no one seriously doubts about the fundamental positive trend of this process.  However, at the same time it is obvious that such a complex social transformation is accompanied with serious problems, which, inter alia, manifest in the area of law.  Which problems do legal theorists consider to be the most important,  which do they consider to be common and which are considered to be specific for one or more countries? In what the position of law differs in the countries of the Western Europe from the transforming countries of the Central Europe? Have the mentioned countries contributed by something new to the traditional legal culture of the Western Europe? Do we witness deterioration of law, or are these temporary excesses, which necessarily accompany complex transformation of society as a whole? Should we, after twenty years of transformation, connect causes of imperfections in the area of law more likely with the past, or are these the consequences of erroneous political steps after 1990? These are the kinds of questions we keep asking ourselves.

A common conference of lawyers from the countries with a similar historical experience can significantly contribute to identification of problems, their hierarching and to potential proposals for their solution.  Although the conference is held by legal theorists, it should not be only a purely theoretically focused conference.  For the Czech party the conference will be attended not only by theorists but also by legal historians, specialists in deliberation, especially the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic and the European law specialists.  The thing, which connects them is above all their ability and willingness to describe the main features of legal problems of their countries, rank them according to their gravity and prospectively define those, which they consider to be specific for a particular country.  It is clear to us, that such a task is of a long-term nature.  Therefore, we understand the conference to be the first step, which should open possibilities of widely structured cooperation in the area of research into material problems of law in the countries of the Central Europe.

Expert guarantors:  JUDr.  František Cvrček, CSc., JUDr. PhDr. Zdeněk Masopust, DrSc.