English
Welcome to the Department of Public Law. The Department is dedicated to high-level academic research and teaching in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law and social law (labour and social security law). Our research has a particular focus on the European dimension of national law and on comparative law.
As of March 2010, the Board of the Department of Public Law consists of Prof. Chris Backes (department chair), Prof. Saskia Klosse, Prof. Luc Verhey and Ellen Hardy.
The department secretariat can be reached at telephone +31-(0)43-3883377 or by email at secr-cluster2@maastrichtuniversity.nl.
The Department’s research focuses on three areas of legal research: constitutional law, administrative law and social law. Research is carried out within three co-operating sections.
Constitutional law
Constitutional law is the foundation of every legal system. It creates and regulates the powers, institutions and structures of government, the relations between the branches of government and the relations between the state and the individual.
The department’s constitutional law section is specialized in two main areas of constitutional research. A significant part of the section’s research deals with institutional questions regarding the relation between parliaments and the executive, which includes major themes such as representative democracy, legislation, political accountability and parliamentary control. The Maastricht constitutional law section has developed a distinctly comparative and European approach to constitutional research. Many of the section’s research activities in this area are conducted within the Maastricht branch of the Montesquieu Institute for European and comparative parliamentary studies, of which the Department of Public Law is one of the founding partners.
The other area of specialized research within the constitutional law section has traditionally been the study of fundamental rights. Major themes of current research are the mechanisms of fundamental rights protection at the European level and the development of positive obligations under the European Convention of Human Rights.
Many research projects are carried out in cooperation with other constitutional researchers within the inter-university Ius Commune Research School.
The constitutional law section is directed by Professor Luc Verhey.
Administrative law
Administrative law has a major impact on society in a variety of ways, for example with regard to the environment, spatial planning, education and public order. Administrative law offers the instruments for government to organize and facilitate these areas, but also provides protections for private individuals or companies against administrative actions. Against this background, the administrative law section at the Department of Public Law is focusing particularly on research regarding (judicial) review and the enforcement of administrative actions. The administrative law section cooperates with research groups at the University of Amsterdam and Utrecht University within the Ius Commune Research School. The joint programme “Rechtsbescherming en Rechtshandhaving: wisselwerking tussen de nationale en Europese Dimensie” (Judicial protection and enforcement: interaction of the European and national dimension”) is available on the site of the Ius Commune School (in Dutch only).
The general focus of the programme concerns the following questions: are there, with regard to judicial protection and enforcement, common European instruments and principles developing? How much room is left for purely national arrangements? As a consequence, the influence of the European law on national administrative law, especially on Dutch administrative law the development of transnational administrative law and comparative law are the constitutive elements of administrative law research at the Maastricht faculty.
In addition, the administrative law section conducts specialized research in the area of environmental law and nature conservation law, more particularly with regard to climate change. Several external research projects are conducted by Professor Marjan Peeters and others in cooperation with the faculty’s research institute METRO.
The administrative law section is directed by Professor Chris Backes.
Social Law
The question of how the current drive for flexibility in the labour market can be combined with adequate levels of income and employment security for all (potential) workers is a key topic of the European Employment and Flexicurity Strategy. A significant part of the research activities of the social law section of the Department of Public Law deals with the legal implications of this topic, thereby seeking the interaction between labour law, company law and social security law. The section’s research activities in this field focus, inter alia, on reviewing legal reforms which aim to strike a balance between the economic objective of increasing labour supply in ways that promote competitiveness and economic growth and the social objective of ensuring that vulnerable groups are offered effective support to enter and progress in the labour market. The research activities include questions with regard to labour migration issues, thereby paying particular attention to the legal position of migrant workers, for example, in the case of collective redundancy or the transfer of undertakings and with regard to their social security rights. In addition, the social law section performs research in the area of collective labour law. In this context, the section’s activities concentrate, inter alia, on the question of whether the legal framework for collective labour law agreements is in need of a revision in view of the growing interest of employers to define the terms of employment at the company level and the decreasing interest of workers to join with the trade unions.
The research activities of the social law section of the Department of Public Law are conducted within the Ius Commune Research School under the joint research programmes ‘Contract Law’, ‘Corporate entities in Europe’ and ‘Liability and Insurance’. Within these programmes the members of the social law section cooperate with researchers specialised in private and company law and with members of the faculty’s research institute METRO.
The social law section is directed by Professor Saskia Klosse.
