88045 - Comparative Legal Systems

Learning outcomes

The objective of the course is to provide students with the following basic knowledge of the comparative method in order to achieve both practical and theoretic purposes; the knowledge of the different systems of sources, of the organization of various forms of State and Government and of the diverse Constitutional Courts. According to the objective of the course, the student will in particular learn the regulation of the institutional structures, with special attention to the sources of law, to the evolution of the forms of State and Government and to the protection provided by the different Constitutional Courts. Furthermore the student will be able to apply the above-mentioned knowledge to European, international and institutional studies.

Course contents

The course is organized in lectures and seminars, as detailed in the following program. Lectures (26 hours in remote via MS TEAMS) aim to introduce students to the core tenets of the discipline. Seminars aim to provide occasions for in-depth discussions of class materials and exercises. The division into lessons and seminars is specified in the program that follows. For the seminar section, students will be divided into 2 groups according to their preferences and according to rules concerning the current pandemic emergency: one group will take the seminar in classroom (12 hours) and one remotely via MS TEAMS (12 hours). Therefore, a total of 38 classroom hours are scheduled for each student. Students are required to carefully read the assigned material before the session and - in the case of seminars - active participation through presentations of existing scholarship and case studies will also be expected. Regardless of the health-related conditions and the specific organization of the course, students will be able to follow the lessons of the entire course remotely on MS TEAMS.

CONTENTS

1) COMPARATIVE METHODOLOGY: methods and their application; foreign law; case studies' selection and models; targets of Comparative Law

2) LEGAL FAMILIES: Islamic Law; Jewish Law; Common Law; Civil Law

3) FORMS OF STATE AND POLITICAL SYSTEMS: Federalism; Regionalism; Parliamentary Systems; Presidentialism; Semipresidentialism; Electoral Systems

4) CONSTITUTIONAL ADJUDICATION: models of constitutional adjudication; functions, composition and structure of Constitutional Courts and their relationship with supranational and internationalcourts

Readings/Bibliography

R. Bifulco, “Federalism”, in The Cambridge Companion to Comparative Constitutional Law, edited Roger Masterman and Robert Schütze, 2019, pp. 312-332

M. Bogdan, Concise Introduction to Comparative Law, 2013 (Chapter 2 “The uses of comparative law”, pp. 15-26; and Chapter 3, “Some problems connected with the study of foreign law”, pp. 29-41)

M. Bussani, U. Mattei (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Comparative Law, Cambridge, CUP, 2012 (“The Jewish legal tradition”, pp. 278-294 and “The Islamic legal tradition”, pp. 295-312)

G.F. Ferrari, Introduction: Judicial Constitutional Comparison and Its Varieties, in Id. (ed.), Judicial Cosmopolitanism The Use of Foreign Law in Contemporary Constitutional Systems, Brill-Nijhoff, 2019, pp. 1-25

G. Frankenberg, “Critical Comparisons: Re-thinking Comparative Law”, in Harvard international law journal, Vol. 26, 1985, p. 411-455

H.P. Glenn, Legal Traditions of the World, 2014 (Chapter 7, “A Common Law Tradition”, pp. 236-283)

E. Grande, “Development of Comparative Law in Italy”, in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law, edited by Mathias Reimann and Reinhard Zimmermann, 22019, nd ed., pp. 88-110

R. Hirschl, Comparative Matters: The Renaissance of Comparative Constitutional Law, 2014 (Chapter 5 “How Universal is Comparative Constitutional Law?”, pp. 192-223)

S. Ragone, “Catalonia’s recent strive for independence: a legal approach”, in Autonomies in Europe: Solutions and Challenges, Budapest, L'Harmattan, 2014, pp. 69–79

 

C. Saunders, Courts with Constitutional Jurisdiction, in The Cambridge Companion to Comparative Constitutional Law, edited by Roger Masterman and Robert Schütze, 2019, pp. 414-440

M. Tushnet, The Constitution of the United States of America. A Contextual Analysis, 2° edn, Hart, 2015, pp. 41-119

 

Additional texts, articles, cases and materials will be provided and/or recommended during the course.

Teaching methods

The course will be based on both traditional lectures and more interactive methods. In addition to the recommended texts, also judgments by different supreme or constitutional courts and legislation or amendments will be used as case studies, as well as academic articles and newspapers, particularly in the seminars.

Students are expected to engage in the discussions, dealing with the developments of comparative constitutional and public law. They are supposed to actively participate in the sessions and are encouraged to pursue independent research activity.

Traditional methods will be often combined with PPT presentations and the consultation of legal texts. Specific readings and topics will be discussed with the students in class.

Assessment methods

FULL-TIME STUDENTS (both in class and via TEAMS): 3 mid-term exams (1 oral, 2 written) during the course; 1 final oral exam on the final part of the syllabus.

For full time students who fail or do not take 1 of the 3 partial exams, the final oral exam will concern both the final part of the syllabus and the one of the failed/not taken one.

For full time students who fail or do not take 2 or 3 partial exams, the final exam is the same as the one for non full time students.

Exclusively full-time students who pass 3 mid-terms can opt for retaking one during the final oral examination.

 

NON FULL-TIME STUDENTS: 1 final written and 1 oral exam on the entire syllabus.

 

Teaching tools

Slides, case law, legal texts, scholarship, newspapers.

Office hours

See the website of Sabrina Ragone