Prof. dr hab. Jerzy Zajadło
Minima Iuridica - reflections on some legal (non-)obviousnesses
Supported by the "Social Responsibility of Science" programme of the Ministry of Education and Science
SCIENCE CAFÉS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GDANSK
We would like to invite you to an open meeting in the form of a science café introducing the scientific activities of the University's staff.
Tuesday 11 May 2021, 6.00 pm
The lecture entitled 'Minima Iuridica - refleksje o pewnych (nie)oczywistościach prawniczych' will be presented by Professor Jerzy Zajadło, PhD, from the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Gdańsk, member-correspondent of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, professor of legal sciences and philosopher, specialist in the theory and philosophy of law, winner of the prestigious Professor Tadeusz Kotarbiński Prize for 'Minima Iuridica - refleksje o pewnych (nie)oczywistościach prawniczych' for the best humanist book of 2020.
Abstract: In the consciousness of contemporary lawyers, the Latin language has survived mainly through short sentences, phrases, expressions, terms or concepts. Thanks to a certain peculiar rhythmicity of the Latin language, they easily fall into our ears and captivate us with their conciseness and syntheticity, while at the same time they often speak through the extraordinary philosophical-legal wisdom accumulated over centuries in the law and in the science of law. We may not be familiar in detail with the content of Cicero's works, letters, political and procedural speeches or the excerpts from the Digest with the opinions of Gaius, Paulus or Ulpian, but nevertheless, in modern legal language, we often quote them - for their message seems in some cases to be timeless and universal.
It is worth looking at some of them if only to understand their meaning, both the one in which they were originally used and the one in which we use them today.
They will not always be the same, because each of these phrases or sentences was formulated in a specific historical, political, legal and social context, but at the same time they have long since broken away from these contexts and begun to live their own lives.
In some cases, the contemporary meaning even differs significantly from the original. The fact that they are nevertheless present in contemporary legal transactions is best demonstrated by the frequency with which they appear, for example, in the activities of the Ombudsman General and the Court of Justice of the European Union.
But there is an even better and closer example.
Eighty-six Latin inscriptions have been placed on the columns surrounding the building of the Supreme Court of Warsaw - the vast majority of them come from the Digests of Justinian, so their authors were Roman jurists, mainly from the classical period; some of these sentences were also taken from other sources. However, they are not there in vain and by chance, because they (and many more) all embody a certain legal wisdom accumulated over the centuries, and are therefore certain minima iuridica in the sense I have adopted.
When we as lawyers cross the threshold of a Polish court, not just the Supreme Court, they should enter there with us. And that is essentially what this lecture is about.
The meeting will be moderated by Dr Magdalena Markiewicz, Deputy Dean for Development and Cooperation with the Social and Economic Environment of the Faculty of Economics of the UG
Those who wish to ask a question can do so during or before the lecture, until Monday 10 May 2021 at: oblicza.nauki@ug.edu.pl
The project 'Science Clubs - known and unknown faces of science' is run by the UG Department of Chemistry and the UG Department of Economics.
For more information about the project's events:
https://chemia.ug.edu.pl/wspolpraca/popularyzacja_nauki/science_clubs_w_ug