YÖK decision on law departments astounds experts

State Minister and chief EU negotiator Egemen Bağış personally conveyed his staff’s concerns over the decision during a meeting with YÖK President Yusuf Ziya Özcan but was not able to get a clear answer as to whether YÖK might review this decision, Sunday’s Zaman learned from separate reliable sources. Following Bağış’s appointment as chief EU negotiator and state minister in early January, the ABGS has been placed under the auspices of the Prime Ministry.

Destroying a common language

Last month, 21 professors of Roman law from all around Turkey who were led by Erkan Küçükgüngör appealed to the Council of State for an annulment of a part of the YÖK decision that concerns their area of expertise. Some professors of comparative law also appealed to the Council of State for the annulment of the YÖK decision’s relevant part.

“Roman law is actually a common language between all lawyers from Europe as it is taught at faculties in France, Germany and partially in Britain, etc. There is no other legal system that is identical in different countries. That’s why its basic benefit in an EU-candidate country is the fact that it establishes a common language between all European lawyers,” Küçükgüngör, who was until recently the head of the Roman law department at Ankara University’s faculty of law, told Sunday’s Zaman.

When reminded of the news reports suggesting that the decision was made upon a request by a majority of the deans who participated in the meeting, Küçükgüngör said only a small part of the deans had expressed views in favor of no longer having to maintain certain departments of law.

“According to my information, some of them argued that such an implementation would decrease bureaucracy, while others suggested that they were not needed to be kept as obligatory departments. Some say Roman law can be taught under the history of law, but this is not acceptable in our opinion since the two topics cover totally different fields,” Küçükgüngör said, referring to the fact that the history of law is a field about the history of law in these lands, while Roman law is the law of ancient Rome from the time of the founding of the city in B.C. 753 until the fall of the Western Empire in the fifth century A.D.

According to Emre Gönen, director of the European studies program at İstanbul Bilgi University, nobody has been able to understand what YÖK has been trying to accomplish through this decision.

“European law is not a science but is an area of expertise. In almost all European universities, there are separate major departments for European law. In some countries, there are even separate institutes. It is a field that gradually expands and which becomes more sophisticated due to its relations with the EU acquis communautaire,” Gönen told Sunday’s Zaman. Moreover, EU law requires having knowledge in different areas such as competition law and foreign trade, which are completely different from each other, he added.