Dear all,
if you want, you can try to answer Prof. Skeel's questions on the blog. As he told you, you can also write to him directly: http://www.law.upenn.edu/cf/faculty/dskeel/
1) How does Italian legal eductation and practice differ?
2) What implications for the future of Law and Humanities?
"WHO STOLE THE TARTS?": Alice in Wonderland, Chap. 11
From Arthur Rackham's illustrations (1907) to Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", 1865
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We have talked about the different structure of the trial,but I would have liked to ask the Professor Skeel his opinion about the problem of codification and maybe the presence of too many codes in Italy (or in Civil Law systems in general).
RispondiEliminaI mean, I think that it's difficult for our judges to receive the instances of law ands, in particular if we refer to law and literature. Maybe i'm wrong, but i think that codes, just like a detailed legislation, leave no sufficient space for using literary tools to write a judicial opinion or for empathizing with the concrete case or the parties.
It seems easier to reconnect the law ands perspective to a system founded on the law of case, rather than a system founded on codification. So i think that law ands will never achieve the growth that such movements have known in the USA, unless we also assume, in a certain way, a rethinking of our system (and if i'm not wrong some authors argue that today the centrality of the code has failed,supporting the need to adopt a system more based on case law and leaving to the code the determination of simple guidelines or principles).
Obviously i'm agree with the need to provide the lawyers of new and broader tools of understanding, i just wonder to what extent these new knowledge could be concretely used.
What do you think about it? Maybe it's an abstruse discourse!
Alessia Guaitoli
In my opinion our judiciary system has, as everything, virtues and vices.
RispondiEliminaWe could write for papers and papers about it, but I don't think we'll never be able to change it at all.
I think that it's our duty for the future, learn as much as possible,open our minds, as Professor Skeel said today, to new cultures and intellectual movements,to do better.
If we would ever have the chance, the possibility to create something by ourselves then we'll corrupt our works with all the ideas,the certainties developed during the studies.
Our codes , I think , are too much sterile and exactly careful to consider human feelings, but write a sentence ,if you are a judge,or a law, if you're a member of the Parliament or whoever else...would be more stimulating if you always allows yourself to be influenced by your own knowledges and experiences, obviously within the law.
Anna Leonetti
“ As I see it, Italian way to study is in general less practical than American's one. Usually we do not study through cases to understand the principles, instead we have to learn the codes and to know the rules and many times we think that what is written in the manual is always correct. When I started studying Private Law I thought that what I was reading was true, and I though the same when I studied the Civil and Penal proceedings, but when I first went to assist to a trial I realized that what we study is just the theory, how it could, or better should, be. We are studying so long something we won't fully use...
RispondiEliminaAbout the second question, my opinion is that law cannot be detached from humanities, as law is the mirror of our society as music, poetry and dramas!
For this reason it is important to study both of them to extend our point of views and to improve our knowledge on human behaviours and relationships.”
Flavia Famà
I would like to talk about the connection between law and humanities begginning from the second strand we analysed in the professor Skell’s lesson.
RispondiEliminaWe saw the importance of literature and arts in general for the law or better the importance of the arts for people. Infact the literature can be very important for law practice and it also helps to discover ourselves. I think we all agree that people who are interested in literature or others arts are more open-minded than people who are interested in one arts as law for example.
In my opinion a education to 360 degrees for example in our university can be useful in order to be a fulfills person and to resolve the daily problems we will meet in our future legal profession whatever it will be (lawyer, judge…); but it is important to put together the study of literature and arts with the practice because even the experience and the knowledge of real facts are the best teachers of life.
The worlds of civil law and common law are very different. Common law is more practical than civil law, that is very bound to the littera legis, in fact the judge has to follow the norms, also the use of equity is just an exception and the judge's discretional role is very circumscribed. The students study only on books so they learn just theory.
RispondiEliminaWe have to stay, instead, that in France, the cot of codified law, there is a more practical study than in Italy. In fact they have T.D. courses, that are lessons in which students discuss practical cases and the ways to solve them. Maybe Italy is too linked to a classical way to teach law.
I think that an experience like the french one, would be very charming and more useful for our future, that will be a practical profession. In this way, also, it seems to me that the education of a civil law student and a common law student doesn't differ so much.
About the law and humanities discipline I think it's very difficult to apply this way to see the law in Italy.
I think that the law and humanities idea can take root in a legal system in which the judge purchases a more important discretional role and in which he can interpret the norm, while in Italy he has a bound role.
I believe that this possibility would be very charming and it would succeed in approaching the law to common people. In fact the legal world is commonly considered too technical and therefore indecipherable.
Finally I think that interdisciplinarity is always an enrichment for the area under study and the legal system would gain humanity.
Camilla Bonadies
Questo commento è stato eliminato dall'autore.
RispondiEliminaQuesto commento è stato eliminato dall'autore.
RispondiEliminaI had to post my answers on a blog because of the length limit of the comments:
RispondiEliminahttp://lorenzomarziali.blogspot.com/2010/03/answers-to-2-questions-by-prof-skeel.html
Lorenzo Marziali
It is a fact that there are many differences between Civil Law systems and Case Law ones and that obviously reflects on the way of studying one system better than the other.
RispondiEliminaWe have discussed about some of them, but I would like to point out that in the Trial, e.g., not only the jury is the difference, even if in Italy we sometimes have it, but also the climax between the two lawyers. In Italy it doesn't exist.
I mean, I went to a "Corte Costituzionale's Trial" last year and I noticed that for a person who's not interested in this kind of studies could not understand what the lawyers and the jurors were talking about. Actually I didn't too when they just named the number of specifc articles or Laws they were referring too.
This doesn't happen in America, first of all because American Law doesn't "need" written laws and then because the jury is not represent by an èlite of people who have studied for years. This is, in my opinion, also the reason why lawyers in America have to find personal stories to impress the jury, it is the only way to get to "their" solution.
If we focus on the legal education instead we clearly see the gap between a legal student and a lawyer or similar. I am a student of the third year and I suppose to get graduation in a couple of years, but after graduation I will be anything more than a Doctor in Law, then I will spend other two years behind someone who can teach me the job I would like to do, then I would pass the "Esame di Stato" and then I could work. I mean, I am spending five years in the University to learn to read a Code, the History of Law, the Comparison between different systems and so on, that are surely very important, but I think it is an incomplete Faculty. Nobody will teach me how to prepare an act, how to find a way to impress people. In America Law Faculties do that. A Law Professor, who's often a lawyer, can bring with him/her one of more students in a Trial Hall to learn what to do and also to really help the "first" lawyer, if he/she thinks the student is able to do it. I also know tha the difference between America and Italy is that Law Faculties have different targets. In America you choose a Law faculty to become a lawyer or a judge and that's maybe the reason why this kind of studies are a second, specific choice. In Italy, instead, becoming a Doctor in Law means you can have the choice not to continue studies and to get a job in the P.A. This is another big difference between the two systems.
Referring to the second question, I think there is a futere for Law anf Humanities in Italy for many different reasons:
1. How Professor Skeel showed to us, there are many literary techniques that could be useful for our written acts, e.g., using a clear but simple language to explain the "obscure passages" from the beginnig to the conclusion;
2.It would be useful to read specific novels to learn to use Empathy, even if we have too much objective judges. In a sense that if it is useful to study Law History as History of cold, written Codes and movements to interpretate them, why wouldn't be useful to read the impressions of different, normal people about the History of the Idea of Justice expressed by the colourful, remaining voice of writers during the centuries?
As a student from the UK I am not entirely sure how the Italian legal education system works, however in the UK I have studied two modules called law in practice 1 and 2. In both of these modules we have been to court to follow cases, drafted judgements, worked as a team against a team of fellow students in a case, and held a negotiation at the end; all of which I think will be useful in the future as it gave a wider insight as to what we will be required to do. Also, I am currently writing legal briefs of cases, in International Business Contracts, which I find equally as helpful. Obviously studying the law is very important, but being able to use knowledge and apply it is equally as important.
RispondiEliminaIn relation to the second question, lawyers need to work in a team sometimes not always on their own, and by having a knowledge of other subjects outside of law, it can help us to socialise and bond, making working together easier. Also looking at things from a different perspective can be very important, to help us solve a problem which at first appears not to have a sufficient outcome and also to see things from the view of another person.
Sarah Harmsworth
Thank you Sarah for this window on the UK legal education system!
RispondiEliminaThank you for your comments: you are writing very long ones! I wanted to tell Lorenzo that he has to write a little bit less in order not to exceed the space given for the comments on this blog but I have to admit that I liked what he wrote. Anyway, try to sum up a little bit what you want to say, ok?
RispondiEliminaConsidering that humanity is not only literature we can say that in the Italian law education we have some subjects that are not only legal such as economics and philosophy (even if there is a contradiction because is a lawyer who teaches philosophy).
RispondiEliminaHowever in Italy the link between the law and the humanity is not so visible such as in The States because in Italy law is considered a science and our law books are abstract , while in The States the studying of law and the common law in general is more pragmatic.
The development of law and literature in the USA has happened even because before studying law the lawyers have to study something else in the university such as literature or philosophy.
Even if I personally think that the knowledge of the humanity and of the other subjects that are not only legal is very important to understand the society we live in, and to discover the human beings and the different points of view , in my opinion in a system of civil law is very difficult that the studies of humanity will find a significant place or will influence the production or the interpretation of our laws and rules , also because our judges are very bounded by the laws and the constitution,, so there is no subjectivity or discretion, such as in the states where the role of the judges and of the lawyers are quite different from the Italian ones.
Ivana Pajevic