LFU:online

The purpose of the course is to offer students:

(i) an introduction to Comparative Legal Systems and to Comparative Public Law, to the purposes and functions of the comparative method as an approach to understanding the contemporary worldwide legal experience;

(ii) an introduction to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and to the organisation and functions of the European Court on Human Rights (ECtHR) as sources of international law and case-law applicable in domestic jurisdictions of member-states;

(iii) an introduction to the multilevel protection of fundamental rights in Europe;

(iv) a specific focus on protection of “freedom of thought, conscience and religion” (art. 9 ECHR) in a European context of cultural pluralism.

Classes will deal with substantive and methodological issues in comparative public law, and will introduce to

(a) the distinction of systems of sources of law as experienced in time and space;

(b) the growing relevance of judicial case-law in setting the law;

(c) the process of internationalisation of protection of fundamental right after world war 2;

(d) the case-law of the ECtHR on freedom of religion.

Classes are a means for critical learning, with the purpose to train students to see and explain problems, to analyse similarities and differences, to elaborate alternative solutions and to understand their respective rationale.

Classes are based on a combination of lectures and of group discussion introduced by students. Classes are going 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 (rather than through individual emails), so that all students benefit both from questions and answers.

Most if not all of us in class are presumably not English native speakers and share the same difficulties at expressing our legal reasoning in a foreign language. However, the chance of practicing this foreign language in our professional legal field is to be most welcome by all. 

The final exam will be written, in the form of an essay hand-written by students in class without access to the web. Students are given a topic and shall elaborate their paper within a time-limit of 90 minutes. Consultation of materials, whether digital or in print (with the exception of a language dictionary), is not allowed during the exam.

Students are expected to be able to carry on their personal legal reasoning by employing the tools provided by active participation to classes, by reading materials and by group-work in class. Showing to have the basic information is taken for granted for law students at UIBK and is therefore not sufficient for passing the exam.

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

1. Textbook: The European Convention on Human Rights, by Jacobs, White, and Ovey, Oxford University Press, 8^th edition, 2021 (The book is available at ReWi Fakultät, Bibliothek für Europarecht)

Selected Chapters:

Part 1: Institutions and Procedures
Part 2: Convention Rights

17: Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion

Part 3: Reflections
25:Results and prospects

2. ECtHR’s decisions dealing with freedom of religion (in OLAT)

3. Lectures in class are supported by reading materials that will be provided to the students (in OLAT).

4. Further reading materials may be made available in OLAT.

Students interested in meeting with the teacher are kindly requested to contact him via email: roberto.toniatti@uibk.ac.at