Final Activity Report Summary - COCOA (Comparing Constitutional Adjudication (Co.Co.A.): A Summer School on Comparative Interpretation of European Constitutional Jurisprudence)
The first objective of the project was to explore similarities and dissimilarities within the constitutional law of Member States in the area of protection of fundamental rights, considering the different legal, political and cultural traditions and the existence of important sources of law, binding on the Member States.
The second objective was to provide a suitable environment for the training of a younger generation of lawyers (legal assistants in constitutional courts, PhD candidates or postdoc young researchers). The great importance of such a joint training is both an acknowledgement of the contribution given by constitutional adjudication in shaping a common European constitutional law for the protection of fundamental rights, but also an investment for future and even more intensive interaction between and among different (national, international and supranational) jurisdictions.
Both objectives have been perceived as complementary to one another so that, although scientifically and methodologically well-founded, the investigation has been carried on not as an academic research, but as an activity of professional training and of institutional improving for those courts that decided to participate. In particular, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands and the Constitutional Courts of Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey appointed their legal assistants for each of the four sessions. Others (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Israel and Serbia) did show to appreciate the project, although more sporadically. All of them found it interesting for their own development, although in different perspectives: interest for constitutional adjudication in itself, not practiced in the Netherlands; interest in the common constitutional law of the European Union for new Member States and for a candidate one, such as Turkey.
For this reason, the timetable was scheduled in order to alternate in each week issues of substantive and formal comparative constitutional law, both in a theoretical perspective and with reference to specific judicial decisions and legal reasoning by individual courts.
The role of members of the steering committee, which proved to work efficiently, monitoring the implementation of the programme, suggesting minor improvements and selecting the topics, implied teaching a seminar at each session, finalised to providing a general theoretical framework of each topic, including materials and cases, and also to organising and guiding the discussion following the presentation by each participant. It is to be regretted that due to health problem, Prof. Grad (substituted by Prof. Toniatti) could be present only in 2007.
Relevant is also the contribution given by the tutors, that assisted teachers in collecting materials and participants in managing their presentations and played a role themselves in the discussion.
The format of each seminar proved to be well-manageable and positive due also to the active role of participants before, during and after the seminar itself, by selecting the relevant decisions on the topic concerned, by giving an oral presentation and promoting a highly critical and participated discussion and providing in most cases a final paper. Materials were made accessible to all of them through an intranet website, whereas the final papers are available to everyone on CO.CO.A.'s webpage (please see http://www.jus.unitn.it/cocoa/papers/papers.html(opens in new window) online).
The results of the implementation of the project are mainly four:
- improvement of knowledge and professional ability, including team work, of participants who were expected to play a very active role;
- establishing a professional network between and among participants;
- papers submitted by participants at the end of each edition;
Prof. Arnold is planning to publish a collection of some contributions presented by participants.
The second objective was to provide a suitable environment for the training of a younger generation of lawyers (legal assistants in constitutional courts, PhD candidates or postdoc young researchers). The great importance of such a joint training is both an acknowledgement of the contribution given by constitutional adjudication in shaping a common European constitutional law for the protection of fundamental rights, but also an investment for future and even more intensive interaction between and among different (national, international and supranational) jurisdictions.
Both objectives have been perceived as complementary to one another so that, although scientifically and methodologically well-founded, the investigation has been carried on not as an academic research, but as an activity of professional training and of institutional improving for those courts that decided to participate. In particular, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands and the Constitutional Courts of Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey appointed their legal assistants for each of the four sessions. Others (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Israel and Serbia) did show to appreciate the project, although more sporadically. All of them found it interesting for their own development, although in different perspectives: interest for constitutional adjudication in itself, not practiced in the Netherlands; interest in the common constitutional law of the European Union for new Member States and for a candidate one, such as Turkey.
For this reason, the timetable was scheduled in order to alternate in each week issues of substantive and formal comparative constitutional law, both in a theoretical perspective and with reference to specific judicial decisions and legal reasoning by individual courts.
The role of members of the steering committee, which proved to work efficiently, monitoring the implementation of the programme, suggesting minor improvements and selecting the topics, implied teaching a seminar at each session, finalised to providing a general theoretical framework of each topic, including materials and cases, and also to organising and guiding the discussion following the presentation by each participant. It is to be regretted that due to health problem, Prof. Grad (substituted by Prof. Toniatti) could be present only in 2007.
Relevant is also the contribution given by the tutors, that assisted teachers in collecting materials and participants in managing their presentations and played a role themselves in the discussion.
The format of each seminar proved to be well-manageable and positive due also to the active role of participants before, during and after the seminar itself, by selecting the relevant decisions on the topic concerned, by giving an oral presentation and promoting a highly critical and participated discussion and providing in most cases a final paper. Materials were made accessible to all of them through an intranet website, whereas the final papers are available to everyone on CO.CO.A.'s webpage (please see http://www.jus.unitn.it/cocoa/papers/papers.html(opens in new window) online).
The results of the implementation of the project are mainly four:
- improvement of knowledge and professional ability, including team work, of participants who were expected to play a very active role;
- establishing a professional network between and among participants;
- papers submitted by participants at the end of each edition;
Prof. Arnold is planning to publish a collection of some contributions presented by participants.