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Roman law in modern legal curricula – necessity and a never-ending struggle

The aim of the following contribution is to highlight the relevance of Roman law in Croatian legal education, identify and analyse the challenges of legal curricula in transition, as well as ponder some preliminary solutions on how to ensure a vital role of a subject which serves as a backbone of legal education. Through reforms of the legal system, after declaring its independence in 1991, Croatia started the process of returning to the civil law roots and European identity, it once was a part of. A particular significance in that process goes to legal education, especially Roman law which raised the cultural level of legal education and facilitated in the process of reintegration in the western European legal culture. Although the reform of legal studies through adoption of Bologna-process in 2005 showed many benefits in legal education, the focus on practical legal skills and active competences of students deemphasized the role of Roman law courses and legal history in general. This was, of course, not an isolated case in Croatia but a problem that has been recognized well ahead by distinguished scientists in the whole region (Petrak, Kranjc, Avramović). Confronted with a constant marginalization of Roman law, instead of fighting directly “against the hurricane of positivist and pragmatic challenges” (Avramović), a more active and practical approach in the process of reforming the legal education is considered. Since the Croatian Qualifications Framework Act (2013) in Article 3 explicitly stated “preserving positive heritage of the Croatian educational tradition” as one of its main principles and objectives, the Faculty of Law in Osijek has launched a project ‘Iurisprudentia - Quality Improvement of Higher Legal Education at the Law Faculties in Osijek, Rijeka and Split’ as a lead beneficiary, financed by the European social fund - Operational Programme “Human resources development”. The survey that is, inter alia, carried out within this project will serve to determine the learning outcomes of Roman law that can provide the necessary key competences for a modern lawyer. The research results of this project, as well as results of a special survey conducted amongst alumni that will be presented in this paper, are aimed to build and maintain a bridge between the need of providing the students with an historical approach and insight into the broader dimensions and principles of law and the present labour market requirements of narrow specialisation.

Roman law, curricula, project, learning outcomes

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