Roman Law and the Faculty of Law in Brno

The article is inspired by the effort of the Faculty of Law in Brno to extend Roman studies in accordance with the needs of the current legal science and practice and the tradition of this subject, dating back to the time of the First Republic. We tried to emphasize several scientific views that might improve both the contents and the methods of legal education. A scientific explanation of the timeless character of Roman Law requires any explanation to be done in a broader context including the function of the state and law as means of securing the individual and social life, or as means of organizing the social order in which every individual, the primary entity and social unit, exists. The explanation of timelessness in all connections enables us to understand the temporal basis of all events, norms and institutions and at the same time not to forget the autonomy of intellectual values and their timeless validity. The propedeutical effects of Roman Law and its influence on legal culture can not be substituted by anything else even though the scope, character and forms of such effects may be subject to discussion. The Faculty of Law in Brno tries to continue the world of the excellent romanista who were its members in the past decades, in particular the world of Professor Jan Vážný, and the article is aimed at the description of the postwar history of our efforts in this field.