COMPARATIVE CIVIL PROCEDURE
Language of the course
English, unless all students who apply for the course understand Croatian and
express their wish to hold classes in that language. In any case, students may opt
to write their final essay either in English or in Croatian.
Main lecturer
Prof. dr. sc. Alan Uzelac
Other lecturers
Other teaching staff of the Chair for Civil Procedure, guest professors (e.g. from
the ERASMUS programme)
Course status
Elective course
Teaching hours
30 hours
ECTS points
4
The course sets forth several topical themes of comparative civil procedure, inter
alia by discussing the following issues:
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Syllabus
General and special
knowledge obtained in
Civil procedure as a regular method of legal protection.
National judiciaries and their roles. Adjudication and state sovereignty.
Procedure and organization – two mutually dependent elements.
The lawsuit: notion of the trial. The comparative perspective on
the course of the lawsuit. Fundamental procedural principles. Judicial
activism and party autonomy. Faces of justice.
Legal traditions: common law and civil law. Precedents (judge
made law) and statutory legislation. Law in books and law in action.
Post-Socialist countries and their legal tradition. Specific procedural
styles: the main features of German, Austrian, French and English
systems and the recent developments and reforms on the European
continent.
Procedural structures and oppositions. Professional and lay
judges. Concentrated and piece-meal trial. Publicity and confidentiality.
Franz Klein and his inheritance for procedural law of Europe.
Jury trial as a human right? Appeal as a human right?
Evidence taking in a comparative perspective. Burden of proof
and standard of proof in various legal systems. Anastasia case – panel
discussion on the finding of truth in civil procedure.
Enforcement of civil judgments and other enforceable
documents in regional, European and global context.
Recent trends in civil litigation. Actiones populares (class
actions, associational actions – Verbandklagen).
Harmonization of European and global civil procedure. Impact
of European law and European civil procedure on approximation of laws
and practices. The case of payment orders and small claims. Storme
proposal and Rules of Transnational Civil Procedure.
Trends towards dejudicialization. Use of alternative dispute
resolution. Outsourcing judicial tasks? Landscape of legal professionals
in Europe and the world.
The students will acquire knowledge about the radically different ways in which
legal traditions conceive litigation in civil cases. They will learn to think about the
difficulties of model presentation and question the accuracy of the accustomed
schemes, e.g. the common and civil law divide. The students are going to enhance
their understanding of the particular structural elements that are combined
together in order to form a specific procedural flavour. They will learn to
understand the historical and ideological sources and underpinnings of different
procedural schemes, e.g. the schemes of jury trial or the public concentrated trial.
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this course
Methods and structure of
the course, evaluation of
students
They will also get information about the recent developments and acquire skills
necessary to continually update their knowledge.
The course will offer an in-depth presentation of issues in which conventional
lecturing will be accompanied by workshops and class discussions. In the course,
depending on the availability and the topics, guest professors, as well as other
lecturers from and outside the law school will be invited to exchange views with
the lecturer and the students. The students will be invited on the voluntary basis to
submit their individual or collective contributions in the form of presentations,
summaries or prepared discussions. The course materials are to be published on
the web-site of the course. Advance reading and regular preparation are
necessary prerequisite for the successful participation in the course. Individual
and group consultations will be held where needed to help improve learning and
prepare for individual and collective tasks.
Evaluation of students follows through continuing active monitoring of students’
participation in the discussions and the collective tasks related to moot
negotiations, arbitration or mediation which will be a part of the course. Final
exam consists of a written essay on a selected topic (which can be substituted by
the class presentation).
Reading materials for the course will be prepared and regularly updated each
year, taking into account the current developments and the most relevant new
material for the teaching units.
Course materials and
literature
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Current sample of
relevant reading
materials (mandatory
and supplementary
reading)
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Damaška, M., Faces of Justice and State Authority, New Haven: Yale,
(relevant parts)
John Henry Merryman, The civil law tradition: an introduction to the legal
systems of Western Europe and Latin America, Stanford, 1985.
Uzelac, A., Survival of the third legal tradition? in: IAPL 2009 Conference
Materials: Future of Categories - Categories of the Future, Toronto: IAPL,
2009, p. (1-13)
Van Rhee, C.H. (ed.), European Traditions in Civil Procedure, Ius Commune
Europaeum 54, Antwerp-Oxford: Intersentia, 2005
Rhee, C.H. van, The Development of Civil Procedural Law in TwentiethCentury Europe: From party Autonomy to Judicial Case Management and
Efficiency, in: C.H. van Rhee (ed.), Judicial Case Management and
Efficiency in Civil Litigation, Antwerpen, 2008, p. 11-25
Uzelac A. & Rhee C.H. van (eds.), Public and Private Justice: Dispute
resolution in modern societies, Antwerpen-Oxford, 2007.
Caenegem R.C. van, Judges, Legislators and Professors, Cambridge, 1983.
Uzelac, A., Role and Status of Judges in Croatia, u: Oberhammer (ur.),
Richterbild und Rechtsreform in Mitteleuropa, Wien, 2000, pp. 23-66.
Uzelac, A., Turning Civil Procedure Upside Down: From Judges' Law to
Users' Law, in: Tweehonderd jaar/Bicentenaire Code de Procédure civile,
Kluwer uitgevers, 2008, pp. 297-309
Uzelac, A., Reforming Mediterranean Civil Procedure: Is There a Need for
Shock Therapy?, in: C.H. Van Rhee & A. Uzelac (eds.), Civil Justice between
Efficiency and Quality: From Ius Commune to the CEPEJ,
Antwerp/Oxford/Portland (Ius Commune Series), 2008, pp. 71-99
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Bioethics and Human Rights
Lecturers
Prof. dr. sc. Ksenija Turković (head-lecturer)
Status of the subject
Facultative – 5th year of graduate studies
Sunčana Roksandić Vidlička
Winter semestre
ECTS
4
Hours per semestre
30
Summer semestre
Justification
The course Bioethics and Human Rights (UNESCO Bioethics Core Curriculum) sets out to introduce the bioethical
principles of the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights to university students. This UNESCO Bioethics
Core Curriculum can provide an incentive to start introducing such teaching. Its contents are based on the principles adopted
in UNESCO. It therefore does not impose a particular model or specific view of bioethics, but articulates ethical principles
that are shared by scientific experts, policy-makers and health professionals from various countries with different cultural,
historical and religious backgrounds.
The UNESCO Bioethics Core Curriculum furthermore presents a core: it defines what should be regarded as the minimum
(in terms of teaching hours and contents) for appropriate bioethics teaching. It allows flexible application. It also invites
teachers and students to expand its contents and approaches in diverse directions.
Subject goals
The core curriculum should not be treated as a comprehensive curriculum in bioethics. UNESCO has taken measures to
ensure that the curriculum is sensitive to various social, cultural and economic contexts, Therefore the core curriculum is to
be a source of ideas and suggestions on how to approach bioethics teaching and learn most important bioethics principles.
core curriculum is meant to provide a way of getting students to reflect upon the ethical dimensions and human rights
considerations of medicine, health care and science, and that the Declaration approaches bioethics by going beyond the
usual individualistic perspective of ethics, widening the scope to include social and community issues.
Subject content (30 hours)
What is ethics?
What is bioethics?
Human dignity and human rights (Article 3 of Declaration)
Benefit and harm (Article 4 of Declaration)
Autonomy and individual responsibility (Article 5 of Declaration)
Consent (Article 6 of Declaration)
Persons without the capacity to consent (Article 7 of Declaration)
Respect for human vulnerability and personal integrity (Article 8 of Declaration)
Privacy and confidentiality (Article 9 of Declaration)
Equality, justice and equity (Article 10 of Declaration)
Non-discrimination and non-stigmatization (Article 11 of Declaration)
Respect for cultural diversity and pluralism (Article 12 of Declaration)
Solidarity and cooperation (Article 13 of Declaration)
Social responsibility and health (Article 14 of Declaration)
Sharing of benefits (Article 15 of Declaration)
Protecting future generations (Article 16 of Declaration)
Protection of the environment, the biosphere and biodiversity (Article 17 of Declaration)
Student obligations
Students should be able to reflect upon the ethical dimensions and human rights considerations of medicine, health care and
science, and that the Declaration approaches bioethics. Student knowledge will be checked through esseys and oral exam.
Literature
UNESCO Bioethics core curriculum - Section 1: Syllabus, Ethics Education Programme
UNESCO Bioethics core curriculum - Section 2: Study materials, Ethics Education Programme
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