Aims

The course on fundamental and public liberty rights aims to help the student understand the measurement within which the jurisprudence carries out interaction between the international, European, constitutional and legal rules relating to the rights and liberties due in Belgium.

Main themes

The objective of this course is the systematic study of fundamental rights and public liberties within the different branches of Belgian law (the right to life and physical integrity, association rights, learning rights, the right to a healthy environment etc.). The course will examine the extent of the guarantees concretely assured for an individual, bearing in mind the state of the legislation and the interpretation procured for those rights through the different jurisdictions (arbritation court, Belgian juridical and administrative or the European Court on Human Rights).

Content and teaching methods

The objective of this course is the analysis of constitutional, juridical, administrative and European jurisprudence relating to the rights and liberties, by emphasizing the constitutional and international foundations, as well as the reasoning methods of the judge.

The course continues the courses of constitutional law and public law. It claims to be interdisciplinary, opening to a transverse approach of law.

The course will be primarily based on court decisions and doctrinal commentaries. A particular methodological teaching will be applied to the training of reading and to the critical approach of the jurisprudence.

Each student will compose a personal file on a jurisprudence of his choice, of which he/she will make a critical analysis. This file will to some extent be part of the evaluation.