Deficyt obywatelskości. Demokracja, edukacja prawnicza i kryzys władzy sędziowskiej (Citizenship Deficit. Democracy, Legal Education and the Crisis of Judicial Power)

Abstract

In the article, I address the issue of legal education as a factor in the social legitimization of the judicial power in a democratic society. The education of judges, by necessity, has to pursue two conflicting goals: (1) building an autonomous personality, independent of the expectations and pressures of the community, (2) which will at the same time be able to assume the perspective of that community’s members and communicate effectively with them. The way in which judges are educated enables them to understand their non-professional fellow citizens or limits their ability to do so. And then such fellow citizens can, through election decisions, decide about the shape of this power. Thus, the less civic perspective there is in the education of judges, the greater the possibility of populist-democratic opposition to the judicial power. Failure to consider the perspective of other, non-professional members of the political community is not only a delegitimizing factor, but it also limits the opportunities of moral development for lawyers and the law. In the final paragraphs, I reflect on the conditions for a more democratic and civic legal education.

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