Law and Administration Panel at EGPA
Within this research theme, the Center has a strong cooperation with the Law and Public Administration study group at EGPA, where Dacian Dragos is one of the co-directors.
The Law and Public Administration panel is a permanent Study group of the European Group of Public Administration (EGPA). It aims at fostering the study of practice and theory of law in public administration and policies. It encourages the use of “open” methods like law in context, empirical approaches and interdisciplinary research. The group thus aims at being a meeting place for scholars and practitioners from different fields: lawyers, sociologists, political scientists and economists. It welcomes studies on Law and PA at all the executive levels: local, regional, national, European and international.
The Law and Public Administration study group is a unique place in European scientifically environment where law and public administration specialists from very different backgrounds (professional, academic or geographic) can meet, discuss and share their work. The group met in the last years in Rotterdam (2008), Malta (2009), Toulouse (2010), Bucharest (2011), Bergen (2012), Edinburgh (2013) and will meet again in Speyer (2014). Scholars or practitioners from over 12 countries are regularly attending the panel.
Beyond the presentation and the discussion on members’ papers, the group is also a platform for research on law and public administration. Up to now, several participants’ presented research projects (among other on the topics of ombudsmen, on the effectiveness of proceedings in administrative courts and on systems of allocation of limited rights) and looked for the involvement of other interested group members. These projects lead to joint activities and, eventually, joint publications. Besides, study group members do apply regularly for research grants or visiting scholarships within the study group’s network.
In 2011, the Group “Law and Public Administration” organized in Vienna, between 9-13 February, the 4th Trans European Dialogue (TED) involving the two key professional organizations of public administration in Europe – EGPA and NISPAcee. The dialogue tackled a topic neglected for a long time: Law vs. Public Management Revisited, bringing together managers and lawyers to discuss issues of common interest. The Organizers of the conference were Philip Langbroek (Utrecht University), Dacian C. Dragos, (Babes Bolyai University), Polona Kovac (Ljubljana University) and Marton Gellen (Budapest University). The conference featured well-known speakers from among public managemement and public law fields, including Prof. Jean Bernard Auby (Sciences Po, Paris), Alex Brenninkmeijer (The Dutch National Ombudsman), Geert Bouckaert (Leuven Catholic University), Roberto Caranta (Turin University).
At annual EGPA events, proposed, accepted and presented papers are available on the conferences’ website. As a next step in fostering the cooperation among members and opening up to other contributors, we are interested in an active policy towards publication of the papers. This will enhance the group visibility and the impact of each paper. Thus, in 2011 a selection of papers from the 2010 conference (Toulouse) was published in a special issue of the Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences.
The initiative continued with the publication of papers presented at the conference in Bucharest: Proceedings of the Study Group Law and Public Administration, Editors: Dacian C. Dragos, François Lafarge, Paulien Willemsen. They cover a large span of Law and PA subjects written by lawyers, PA specialists, and political scientists: administrative appeals (Inger-Marie Conradsen), Ombudsman institutions (Gavin Drewry), administrative silence (Polona Kovac), administrative cooperation (François Lafarge), actions for annulment (Agne Limante), informal pro-active approach model (A.-T. Marseille and K. J. de Graaf), standing requirements (Jan Robbe and Paulien A. Willemsen) and legitimate expectations (Soňa Skulová, Faisal Husseini, Marta Vrbová, Klára Prokopová). Papers benefited from comments and discussions during the group meeting as well as blind peer review before accepted for publication.
Judicial Studies and Administration of Justice
JUSTMEN – “A Menu for Justice” is an international project financed by the European Union under the Lifelong Learning Programme
Menu for Justice is an ambitious academic network, financed by the EU under the LLP program, which creates a broad partnership among 50 institutions, in 30 European Countries. The aim of this academic network is to develop proposals for curricula in legal studies, in the field of courts and judges and justice administration. (Duration: 2009-2012)
Menu for Justice is the first European project that takes seriously the issue of how young generations should be trained in law and legal matters and how the prospective experts of law and courts should be provided of new skills and competences to effectively face the challenges of a common judicial space. By devoting three years of common work among fifty partners in Europe, the project aims at assessing principal shortcomings of legal education, developing an innovative curriculum studiorum in judicial studies, and offering the EU and the public basic guidelines to monitor the way legal and judicial training are changing in the EU, all over the cycles of education (from undergraduate to graduate, PhD programs and vocational learning).
MFJ wants to offer an overview of the regulative barriers European countries are confronting with as it comes to the reform of legal and judicial training programs. The project wants to work out a critical review of the contents of training. Legal scholars and judicial actors will be particularly affected by choices concerning what to learn and how to teach them. We intends to put forth a proposal of a building block curriculum studiorum, to be used to complete programs of legal and judicial training that already exist.
Dacian C. Dragos, Cristina Haruța, Raluca Veliscu and Bogdana Neamtu are involved in the project, contributing with reports on the state of the art in the field of judicial studies in Romania and prospective opportunities for development of master programs in this field.
Dacian C. Dragos is also member if the Editorial Board of the International Journal for Court Administration