Associated Professor at "Dimitrie Cantemir" University of Targu-Mures, Romania PhD in Legal Philosophy (2009) - PhD thesis "Interpretation Act in Civil Trials from the Perspective of Situational Logic" M.A. in Philosophy (2006), M.A. in Private Law (2002) Lawyer & Mediator (private practice) President of the Academic Ethics Committee within “Dimitrie Cantemir” University of Targu-Mures (since 2010) Member of the Senate of “D. Cantemir” University of Tg.Mureş (since 2007) Vice-President of “Mures Mediation Center” Association (since 2006)
Abstract: In the last twenty years, Romania has made a long quest from the Communist centralized learning system to the world ideal of academic self-determination and responsibility. Yet nowadays law graduates do not consider themselves ready for a juridical life. Even if they know the law very well, they are not able to operate with it, at the beginning of their career. The purposes of our study are to identify the causes of this situation and to recommend some solutions.
Abstract: Our initial assumption in this research is that there are three levels of responsibility in order to obtain a solid, competitive EU legal education in Romania: the governmental educational policy level, the academic management discretion level and the responsibility of each and every law teacher. In addition, the non-academic education and the quality of the documentation sources are prime aspects of any educational research project, including EU legal education in a particular country. These three levels of responsibility and two additional components set the framework of our research.
Romanian legal education at bachelorâs level has three specializations: âLawâ, âCommunity Lawâ and âPublic Order and Safetyâ. For the first two of them, the Romanian Government adopted a provision (no. 1175 / 2006) called âSpecific standards in legal educationâ. According to this regulation, it is compulsory for a Law student to take the European Community Law and European Competition Law courses. The Community Law students must follow twelve more specific courses, such as European Relations and Organizations, Community Environmental Law or Community Politics.
Although the Treaty of Lisbon gives EU legal personality (Article 48) and the European Communities are no longer public law subjects (Article 1 par. 3), the Romanian legislator has not yet adjusted its language and continues to speak about âcommunity lawâ instead of âEU lawâ, at least in the regulations concerning legal education.
Despite a two decade interest in European legal education, Romania is still confronting itself with conceptual issues and unsystematic approach of EU Law courses. Part of these problems is to be solved by the legislator, by clarifying its position and bringing an up-to-date settlement of EU legal studies.
However, the responsibility for an advanced EU legal education in Romania falls not only on the Governmentâs shoulders. After 50 years of Communism and another 20 years of searching our ways, the scientific boards of Romanian universities have now more management discretion. It is up to them to make some curricular choices. Moreover, law teachers are fully entitled to design the syllabus for each and every course subsumed by the âEU lawâ concept.
On the other hand, most of the law graduates continue their study not only by following master and sometimes doctoral courses, but also a form of non-academic professional school, like the Superior Institute for Judges or the National Institute for Lawyersâ Training.
Finally, the proper understanding and efficiency of the EU law in Romania depends on the accuracy and the quality of the documentation sources used by lawyers and legal scholars.
The objectives of our study are:
⢠To explain the EU legal studies ascent and development in Romania, since 1990 to present days;
⢠To detect the key issues in EU Law curricular choices of Romanian main Academic Law Schools;
⢠To find out if and how non-academic professional education in Romania plays a role in the EU legal training;
⢠To reveal which are the most influential documentation sources for Romanian lawyers and legal scholars, regarding EU Law;
⢠To draw some conclusions and to make some recommendations about reforming the EU legal education in Romania.
To achieve these goals, we intend to conduct a comparative analysis of law curricula in several main Romanian Universities and to extract the most frequent issues from the EU Law syllabus of those law faculties. We will also conduct an interview with law students, lawyers and legal scholars, asking them specific questions about their non-academic EU legal studies and their sources of documentation on this matter.
Notes: Book published in Romanian. Original title of the book: "Studii de teoria categoriilor". Original title of the chapter: "Concepte deontologice fundamentale"
