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Research seminar

Legal epistemic authority in Poland: dynamics and development 1986-2020

Add to calendar 2025-02-13 13:30 2025-02-13 15:00 Europe/Rome Legal epistemic authority in Poland: dynamics and development 1986-2020 Zoom YYYY-MM-DD
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When

13 February 2025

13:30 - 15:00 CET

Where

Zoom

This event, organised by the Expert Knowledge and Authority in Transformative Times interdisciplinary research cluster, features a talk by Professor Adam Czarnota.

The presentation offers key insights into the research project 'Legal Epistemic Authority in Poland. Dynamics and Development 1986-2020' funded by Polish National Science Centre. Political events in Poland since 2015 have been focusing attention of constitutionalists and theoreticians of law from various parts of the world. This situation is determined as "democratic backsliding", "populism" or "crisis of rule of law."

Interestingly, and what differs Poland from other countries undergoing similar processes, it is the legal professions (particularly judges) that has become the main subject of governmental reforms and critique. Public space has become an arena of contestation, defence and analysis of the role of legal professionals in the political life of the country. The project's main hypothesis assumes that epistemic authority in Poland was built since 1986 through establishing institutions without ensuring wider influence of citizens onto their personal composition or contents. This was based on a closed and self-sufficient vision of legal knowledge shared by legal professionals. Institutions designed in this way were thus detached from civic life and without internal criticism from the legal community. In particular, political transformation was not followed by changes in legal education or by wider actions with regard to public civic education. This caused a short-term legitimization of legal knowledge through its separation from social life. Authority built in this manner was, however, exposed to accusations of political power, which perceived legal professionals as competitive political power. The presentation embeds project results in a broader reflection covering ways of building, maintaining and bending legal authority.

Adam Czarnota is a Polish-Australian sociologist of law, who has been professionally affiliated with Macquarie University Law School (1990-2000) and the University of New South Wales in Sydney (2000-2020). He served as the director of the Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law (2013-2016) and as the rector of the Riga Graduate School of Law (2022-2024). He is the author of over 100 scholarly publications. His research focuses on transitional justice, legal education, the rule of law, and constitutionalism. He is the co-founder of the Centre for Legal Education and Social Theory at the University of Wroclaw and a member of numerous academic associations.

Speaker(s):

Adam Czarnota (University of New South Wales)

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