Constitutional Law III: Public freedoms

Teacher(s)

Hachez Isabelle;

Language

French

Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :

This course forms the third and final part of the Constitutional Law course, which begins in the first year (Constitutional Law I) of the Bachelor’s programme and continues in the second year (Constitutional Law II and this course). Ideally, at the end of the course of Constitutional Law III, students should essentially be able: a) to understand and assimilate the meaning or meanings of the elementary legal concepts studied in class, examples of which are: human rights (or public freedoms or fundamental rights), generations of rights, positive obligations; negative obligations; primacy; direct effect; standstill principle; consistent interpretation; preventive regime; repressive regime; restrictions; exemptions; disqualifications based on freedom-restricting legislation; general observations of the U.N. committees; …. b) to demonstrate rigour and precision in the presentation of these concepts; c) to understand the links that connect these fundamental concepts to each other; d) to understand and assimilate certain rules of Belgian positive law (in particular rules establishing the agencies monitoring fundamental rights and defining the latter’s statutory powers; rules determining the regime of limitations of the fundamental rights; those specifying the field of application and the range of certain fundamental rights, etc.); e) to handle the codes containing the texts of positive law studied in class; f) to read and understand a collection of decisions handed down by the main monitoring agencies with regard to fundamental rights and to be capable of formulating the main lessons learned with regard to the principles related to these decisions; g) to provide elements of critical evaluation of the legal systems studied legal in class; h) to analyse the current events reported in the daily press based on the concepts and rules studied in class.

Content

A summary of the course outline is as follows:

Part I: General theory
Chapter I: Concept of public freedom and its historical context
Chapter II: Sources of public freedoms
Chapter III: Beneficiaries and persons or entities liable of public freedoms
Chapter IV: The regime of public freedoms and the determination of their limits
Chapter V: the sanction of rights and freedoms (in the domestic legal order)

Part II: Examination of particular public freedoms
Chapter I: The principle of equality
Chapter II: The freedom of expression and worship

Teaching methods

- Essentially theoretical lectures.
- Didactic supports proposed to the students: a syllabus and a collection of appendices to be completed by class notes. The syllabus is more detailed on certain points than are the lectures, and it includes bibliographical information, or invitations to the students “to go further into the topics”. Students are expected to procure a compilation of texts that contains all the statutory texts covered during the course. Handbooks of reference are recommended.
- The lecturer will be available to answer any questions.

Evaluation methods

Oral examination. It lasts approximately 15 minutes per student, and students will have an equal amount of time to prepare the two questions they have drawn at random.

The subject matter for the examination is exclusively limited to what was said during the lectures.

During the examination, students are allowed to have the statutory texts discussed during the course and the collection of appendices, both of which may have annotations added by the students within the strict guidelines stated in the first pages of the syllabus.

Other information

Nature of the Course: Lectures.
This course is intended for students of the second year of the Bachelor’s programme (evening classes) in law.

Bibliography

Pas de bibliographie recommandée.

Faculty or entity

DRTB