The Role of Courts in Contemporary Legal Orders Conference | Sofia | March 2019

On the 29th and 30th of March 2018, the University of Sofia “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Faculty of Law is holding the Sofia “Erasmus” Legal Science Week for the third year in a row.  The topic of this conferenceis The Role of Courts in Contemporary Legal Orders.

This international scientific conference is dedicated to a specific topic which aims to invite researchers from our “Erasmus” partner universities to make a presentation and to publish a paper in the conference proceedings. The conference is however also open for researchers from all universities and academic institutions.

The presentations and the papers should concern an issue falling into the scope of the following scientific fields: constitutional law, comparative constitutional law, European law, administrative law, international law, criminal law, general theory of law, philosophy of law, sociology of law, history of law administrative, criminal or civil procedure. Furthermore presentations and papers of civil law scientists as well as political science and political philosophy researchers will also be approved, if they match the framework and the topic of the conference and directly discuss the role of courts in contemporary legal orders.

The preferred issues to be presented and discussed are:

• Courts, democracy and rule of law
• Courts and separation of powers
• Political role of courts in contemporary legal orders – reason, logic, critics and achievements
• Judicialization of politics
• Tendencies regarding the constitutional status and the functions of courts in contemporary legal orders
• Democratic legitimacy of courts
• Judicial dialogue
• Role of courts in the EU and in supranational and global constitutionalism
• Role of courts in international law
• Issues related to prominent international and supranational courts (International Criminal Court, Appellate Body of the WTO, Court of Justice of the EU, European Court of Human Rights etc.)
• Status, functions and legitimacy of the Court of Justice of the EU. Tendencies, trends and issues in its functioning and jurisprudence
• Status, functions and legitimacy of the European Court of Human Rights. Tendencies, trends and issues in its functioning and jurisprudence
• Courts and human rights
• Status, functions and legitimacy of the constitutional courts
• Status, functions and legitimacy of the supreme courts
• Specialized courts – models, trends, achievements and critical developments
• Judicial precedent and its role in international and supranational law
• Judicial precedent in civil law (continental European) jurisdictions and the rise of legal realism in Europe
• Constitutional status of the magistrates in the context of “democratic backsliding” and erosion of rule of law. Courts and “illiberal democracies”
• Issues of administrative law justice and administrative law courts
• Issues of criminal law justice and criminal law courts
• Issues of civil law justice and civil law courts

Theoretical research containing provocative and innovative theses proven by solid scientific arguments. Papers with comparative and interdisciplinary approach are highly welcomed. The aim is to have contributions which will provoke discussion and will be considered as contributions in the contemporary scholarly debate in Europe. However, well-elaborated case-studies and research with practical importance will also be accepted.

Members of the universities and the academia are welcomed to make presentation on a topic chosen by them and approved by the organizers and to publish it in the conference proceedings subject to approval after double blind peer review. The editor of the conference volume will be Associate Prof. Dr. Martin Belov, who is also the main organizer of the conference. The conference volume will be published in 2019 by“Eleven” publishing, The Hague, Netherlands.

The conference language is English. The papers should also be written in English. Further requirements for the papers will be delivered to the approved participants of the Sofia “Erasmus” Legal Science Week with the call for papers to follow.

There is no conference fee. All travelling and accommodation expenses should be borne by the participants themselves. The participants from our “Erasmus” partner universities may use the “Erasmus” teaching grant for financing their participation.

Application form: here.

Send application form to: Professor Dr. Martin Belov – martinbelov@yahoo.com

Deadline for the application submission: 15 December 2018

The first “Erasmus” Legal Science Week was held from 4 to 7 April 2017 at the premises of the University of Sofia “St. Kliment Ohridski” in Sofia, Bulgaria.

It was dedicated to global constitutionalism. It allowed professors from University of Vienna, Kings College (London), University of Antwerp, Scuolla Superiore Sant’Anna (Pisa), Eotvos Lorand University (Budapest), Hungarian Academy of Sciences, University of Sibiu (Romania) and the host University of Sofia to exchange their views, to present their research and to engage in scientific communication and networking.

This first “Erasmus” Legal Science Week was organized in cooperation with the European Academy of Legal Theory (Brussels/Frankfurt am Main).

The volume Belov, M. (ed.) “Global Constitutionalism and Its Challenges to Westphalian Constitutional Law”, containing selected papers of the participants in the conference, has been published with Hart publishing, Oxford. It is available here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/global-constitutionalism-and-its-challenges-to-westphalian-constitutional-law-9781509914883/

The second Sofia “Erasmus” Legal Science Week was held on 23 and 24 March 2018 at the premises of the University of Sofia “St. Kliment Ohridski” in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Its topic was “Rule of Law at the Beginning of the XXI Century”. There were 30 participants from 10 countries (Bulgaria, Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, Poland, Norway, Serbia, Croatia and Romania) coming from prominent European universities.

The volume Belov, M. (ed.) “Rule of Law at the Beginning of the XXI Century”, containing selected papers of the participants in the conference, has been published with Eleven publishing, The Hague, Netherlands. It is available here: https://www.elevenpub.com/law/catalogus/rule-of-law-at-the-beginning-of-the-twenty-first-century-1