Address by the President at the ELFA Annual General Meeting Ljubljana

Ljubljana, 26.2.2010  |  speech

Address by Dr Danilo Türk, President of the Republic of Slovenia, at the ELFA Annual General Meeting Ljubljana
Ljubljana, 26 February 2010


Thank you, Professor Kranjc, Mr. Chairman, for this lovely introduction,
Dean of The Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana,
Ladies and gentelman,

I’m very pleased to be here and, obviously, it's a great honour and great privilege to have the opportunity to address this General Meeting of the European Law Faculties Association. The president of the meeting, Professor Kranjc gave a warning that I spoke at some length some month ago about the importance of law. Let me dispel your fears right away, I’m not going to speak extensively today and it is not my intention to bore you with my views on the importance of law in Slovenia at this time.

But I would like to say a few words about the importance of legal studies at the present moment in Europe because very often law is perceived as a technical discipline, which technicians study, which technician teach, which technicians practise. But law, obviously, is much more than that. Law is not only a mere technical discipline, has never been and it never will be.

What legal studies require is a very subtle and very sophisticated understanding of society, its evolution, its history, its needs of today and its expectations for the future. Law is an expression of everything valuable in a society. Law crystallises the most precious outcomes of social interactions. Therefore law is not a mere system of norms, it’s not a normative discipline only. It’s also sociology because it does reflect the realities of society and gives them permanent shape.

On the other hand law is also philosophy. It expresses a worldview, it expresses a definition of good society. Now, in the beginning of the 21st century we can safely say this because the discipline of human rights has provided us with a platform upon which the lawyers and political actors can create a good society. Therefore we know what a good society is and as lawyers, as legal experts, we have a responsibility to make a contribution.

Law is also a strategy because law provides us with tools to change society, to improve it. Obviously, in doing so it has to be very closely related to its ethical base, which, as we know, has always inspired legal thinking and legal relations.

Let us for a second reflect on the fact that Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics explained that it is unreasonable to expect from human nature to be virtuous without an effort. Laws help human nature to become good, and human person to become virtuous. This was expressed a long time ago but it holds true today the same way it did at the time when those words were written.

So, ethical directions that are provided to law remain important. And all this is relevant for our societies at this stage of our evolution. Obviously, I, as President of Slovenia, cannot speak for all the countries in Europe but I can speak for Slovenia. And I can tell you that in Slovenia there is no more important debate than that about the evolution of our legal system today. Everywhere we look we see the need to either enforce the existing law and make sure that it is applied or that we improve the existing law and make sure that its qualities correspond to the needs of the society at present. All legal disciplines are highly relevant today.

There are certain disciplines in law, which are well established and quite old, including for example the Civil Code, which in our country has about two centuries of tradition. We are very proud to have had the first commentators of the Civil Code as it existed at the time of the Austrian Empire to which Slovenia belonged in the beginning of the 19th century.

But there are other disciplines, which are much more recent and which require a great deal of creativity. For example, the entire area of public law, public procurement, accessibility of information to citizens and similar disciplines, not to speak about environmental law, have created an area where new challenges are critical, not only for the legal system but also for the quality of our social development as a whole.

So law is extremely important. Our responsibility as teachers of law is great. And it is with this realisation in mind that we have to talk about Bologna reform. Bologna reform is a serious matter and has to be considered very seriously. I have understood from your applause, with which you greeted the Dean when he expressed a critical view of the current ways of implementation of Bologna reform that you share his concerns and his critical opinion about the current state of affairs and the current direction in which the Bologna reforms are going. The meeting today provides us with an opportunity to take a critical view, to analyse the situation and to make recommendations for the future. This is necessary.

Bologna is a name, which invites many thoughts. This is the place of the oldest university in Europe, established in the year 1088, more than 900 years ago. And law was one of the early academic disciplines of an European University. We have a responsibility, which results from the very fact that law belongs to the oldest academic disciplines in the university studies.

But we also have to understand that Bologna has been a place of critical thought and critical reflection. That, I think, should inspire us as well. The great critical mind of the 16th century by the name of Ulrich von Hutten, lived in Bologna when he wrote his second book of the famous satire called Letters of Obscure Men, (Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum), in which he criticised the rigidity of universities in Europe at that time, in the 16th century. That century, obviously, was the time of great changes in Europe and university debates were a major part of those changes. In fact they were among the early ones and ones that inspired the rest of the process of change.

It is interesting to look at that text (Letters of Obscure Men) of 1516 and see what the fronts of the battle at that time were. There was on the one hand a group of professors, mainly theologians, who were dogmatic, who resisted change and who were very formalistic. On the other hand there was a group of professors who were called poets and jurists. Interestingly, jurists were among the critics, among the flexible minds, among those who were fighting for real change promising better future. And I think that that fact should inspire jurists of today as well.

Our Dean spoke earlier on about the fact that Bologna reform today has divided studies into two degrees: primary degree and the master degree. And that reminds me of one of The Letters of Obscure Men, in which they discuss on how to call a person who is on his way to become a master. In Latin, obviously, master was "magister" and the title, the specific academic title of the time was "magister noster". A debate among the dogmatic scholars of the time was how to call a person in the year, in which he was becoming a "magister noster" and when he was not yet entitled to use that title. Should he be called "noster magistrandus" or "magister nostrandus"? How to describe the process, was he in process of "becoming our master" or was he "our becoming a master"? A wonderful example of futility of academic debates concentrated on status.

Debates about the names and organisation of academic process are always possible and they can be futile. It is quite possible today to find our own version of "magister nostrandus" versus "noster magistrandus". But that would defeat the purpose of debate. I'm sure that you will have much more productive themes to discuss. Let us not forget, law has been among the critical and forward-looking disciplines in the history of university studies in Europe. Law has been among the studies, which have been critical of the existing system, but also critical of emerging systems if they were not up to the standard.

Finding the right way is never easy and I know that conferences like the one today are needed in order to find that right way for the future. I wish you successful work, I wish you a sophisticated exchange of views, I wish you a good use of the experience gained in the Bologna Process so far.

And let us not forget, the European space, the European intellectual space needs educated people, needs many more educated people that we now have, especially in our part of Europe, in the Southern part of Europe. The future of Europe requires sophisticated legal professionals. Therefore your responsibility is great. The entire political and social class of Europe will be looking to the results of meetings like the one you are starting today.

I wish you good success. I would be very interested in seeing the results of your deliberations. If you produce a report or any other document, I will be happy to read it. And if we have the opportunity to meet again in a year or so from now, I hope that we will be able to talk about the outcomes of the Ljubljana conference.

Thank you very much.