Conducted in terms: 2022/23L, 2023/24L, 2024/25L, 2025/26L

Erasmus code: 10.1

ISCED code: 0421

ECTS credits: 6

Language: English

Organized by: Faculty of Law and Administration

European Legal Culture 1300-EL-KPP

A notion of legal culture is quite new. It is a scientific construct which serves purposes of proper and thorough analyses of how the law functions in a social reality.
Obviously, a legal culture has something in common with the law, i.e. a set of norms that has been in force. Yet, it comprises far more then that. Among components of legal culture there should be reckoned various phenomena of social reality which are connected with the law in peculiar ways. Those are - for example - attitudes of groups and individuals towards legal norms as well as sophisticated concepts on the law's essence and functions. Since that a phenomenon of legal culture "encroaches" on the territory of various and differentiated segments of social life: politics, religion, ethics. Its merit and form changes over time and should be understood as a product of socio-cultural accumulation. Consequently, a notion of legal culture is capacious, ample, and comprehensive. Thus, a proper presentation of the issues requires several less complicated matters to be explained one by one.
A socio-cultural perspective allows us to make a significant remark that the law is actually an element of human reality formed and shaped by us: by our desires and fears. Playing such a role is undoubtedly of instrumental and ancillary character in relation to a society and its goals. The law's transcendence is not absolute: it simply provides proper efficacy. That fact does not diminish the law's importance as on of the factors providing a survival of our kind.
We must assume that "the law in books" abandons its secure domain of legal texts, commentaries, and handbooks. It ceases to be a pure abstraction. Admittedly, it maintains its ruling and regulatory character. Nonetheless, it reveals far more of its numerous facets. It retains its normative status. But simultaneously it loses its privileged position as a unique authority of last resort. It must coexist with other sources of rights and obligations. Moreover, our reality is far less regular, subtle and predictable then the law. In the real world, where absoluteness and perfection are not available, the law "tries" to find its place and ways of functioning. And as such it may be perceived as "the law in action".

List of issues presented during the lecture

- introduction to the subject: goals and methods

- a human being, his nature, properties, and inclinations

- a society, social institutions, and social facts

- a culture, its merit, layers and functions

- values, axiology, and attitudes

- norms and their relation to values, various normative systems, relations and implications

- a language, meanings, and symbols

- a social reality and socialization

- a super-culture

- a legal culture: definition and layers

- the European legal culture

- the law (1: philosophy): concepts, definitions, sources, modes of discovering or creation, validity, binding force

- the law (2: science): facets, layers, features

- a modern legal system: its components, representation and features

- a legality and the rule of law

- the law's relation to values and other normative systems: a problem of "the higher law"

- the European values: sources, their list, a problem of hierarchy

- values at stages of creation and application of the law

- the law in a social reality: creation, operation, effectiveness, and functions

- a social reception of the law and a problem of its neutrality

- a phenomenon of the European legalism, a notion of legal order

- the European integration process, the law, and a legal culture

Total student workload

150 hours of work, including: - 20 hours of lecture - 0,8 ECTS, - 60 hours of student's individual work relating to the merit of lectures (reading, making notes, repeating of issues presented ) - 2,4 ECTS, - 70 hours of preparing to the examination - 2,8 ECTS.

Learning outcomes - knowledge

W1: Student possesses a profound knowledge on a phenomenon of legal culture: its merit, form, complexity (layers and dimensions), origin and evolution; its relevance for proper understanding of legal phenomena and their practical functioning; possesses a broad terminology from the scope of legal science and associated disciplines (sociology, cultural anthropology, philosophy) W2: Student possesses a profound knowledge on the notion of legal culture in Europe and on its role as a shaping factor of European legal phenomena W3: Student possesses a profound knowledge on ways and forms in which socio-cultural factors shape various social relations at different levels (national, supranational and international) and determine their specificity W4: Student possesses a profound knowledge on a human as a subject (creator, user) as well as an object (receiver, subordinate) of legal culture W5: Student possesses a profound knowledge on theories that describe, define, and explain the notion of legal culture as well as on their historical evolution

Learning outcomes - skills

U1: Student is able to explain a fenomenon of the European legal culture in order to show its crucial impact upon contemporary legal institutions (their forming, modification and differentiation) U2: Student is able to make a use of theoretical knowledge on legal culture for purposes of practical critical analysis of exact legal phenomena that take place at national and European level

Learning outcomes - social competencies

K1: Student properly perceives contemporary legal phenomena as products of the European legal culture; is aware of the level of her/his knowledge and fully understands the need for continuous training K2: Student properly identifies moral problems and ethical conundrums and takes decisions in order to solve them in accordance with values and principles of the European legal culture

Teaching methods

Expository teaching methods: - conventional lecture, - participatory lecture, - problem-based lecture. Exploratory teaching methods: - seminar, - case study.

Expository teaching methods

- problem-based lecture
- informative (conventional) lecture
- participatory lecture

Exploratory teaching methods

- case study
- seminar

Type of course

elective course

Prerequisites

A participant must be able to communicate in English.

Course coordinators

Andrzej Madeja

Assessment criteria

Method of assessment:
Written examination: single choice test including 11 questions, no negative points for incorrect answers.

Learning effects evaluation – W1, W2, W3, W4, W5, W6, U1, U2;

Tresholds of marks:
5,0: 10-11 pts.
4,5: 9 pts.
4,0: 8 pts.
3,5: 7 pts.
3,0: 6 pts.

- student's active participation during the classes is a subsidiary premiss of assessment and allows to raise the sum of points; condition: at least 6 pts gained in the test – K1, K2.

In pandemic situation every student may apply for an oral exam (via MS Teams) or get a credit by submitting an essay on an ordered topic (by e-mail by January 31, 2021).

Practical placement

N/A

Additional information

Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system:

Description of 1300-EL-KPP in USOSweb