Public lecture of Prof Robert Alexy on constitutional rights

Professor emeritus of public law and legal philosophy at Kiel University, renowned German legal philosopher and constitutionalist Robert Alexy will deliver a lecture on the topic of Constitutional Rights, Proportionality and Argumentation in the Assembly Hall of the University of Tartu from 12:15 to 14:00 on 10 December.

Robert Alexy studied law at the University of Göttingen. He achieved his habilitation with the Academy of Sciences and Humanities at the University of Göttingen in 1984 and he has been working at Kiel University since 1986. He was President of the German Section of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy from 1994-1998. In 2002 he was appointed to the Academy of Sciences and Humanities at the University of Göttingen. He has been awarded honorary doctorate degrees by numerous Latin-American (Brazil, Peru, Argentina) and European universities (incl. the Charles University of Prague, Coimbra, Antwerp and Alicante).

It often happens that two or more fundamental rights collide and demand or permit different things. In order to solve these cases, researchers of constitutional law and legal theory have come up with the principle theory of fundamental rights. One of the most important components of assessing the principle theory and fundamental rights is the idea of proportionality, also considered to be the essence of the principle theory. Originally developed to solve collisions of fundamental rights, the theory and the accompanying proportionality test have become an important part of the judicial supervision system of constitutional law in general. A fully developed theory of arguing for fundamental rights comprises three parts: the principle theory, the general theory of rational legal discourse and the theory of judicial supervision of constitutional law. Robert Alexy is one of the most important thinkers in this tradition and a founder of the complex approach motivated by legal theory.

Professor Alexy´s lecture will be held as a part of the German-Estonian Academia week, funded by the North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) state´s employers´ association. Academia, initiated in 1997 in order to further cooperation between the research communities in Germany and Estonia, is a series of lectures as of this year. Professor Alexy´s lecture is the second in the series.

The lecture is in English. Everyone is welcome to attend!

P.S. Professor Robert Alexy´s lecture is also accessible via UTTV.

Futher information: Lauri Randveer, UT Senior Specialist for International Cooperation, 737 5510, 512 9996, lauri.randveer@ut.ee