Students can explain basic concepts ofpublic lawin English, on the basis of prior knowledge obtained during their studies.

Students can express themselves sufficiently clearly in English (but there is no expectation of flawless command of the English language).

Students can engage in respectful debate with fellow students and the teaching team concerning optimal solutions to legal problems.

Students can conduct legal research on an independent basis; in particular, students can identify and process relevant primary (law and case law) and secondary (literature) sources on a chosen topic of public law.

Law and Power is a course in comparative public law that aims to provide students with advanced knowledge of and critical insight into the substance and methodology of comparative public law. The course name reflects the multiple interactions between public law and power. On the one hand, public law aims to manage or control the exercise of state power. Throughout the course, students thus gain insight into the abilities and limitations of public law in responding to, in particular, arbitrary use of state power (eg. constitutional review; proportionality analysis; parliamentary and presidential systems of government). On the other hand, in this course public law is also viewed as itself being a source of power that can be used (or abused) by the state to influence or even radically alter society (eg. secession; constitutional identity; democratic erosion).

In Law and Power, a variety of topical issues and central concepts or mechanisms of public law are studied; for instance, secession, constitutional referenda, climate change, constitutional review, presidential and parliamentary systems of government, proportionality, and democratic erosion (the precise topics can vary per academic year, depending on recent developments in public law). All topics are examined from a comparative public law perspective, with a focus on foreign jurisdictions (that is, countries other than Belgium). Where relevant, in light of the multilayered nature of public law, elements of international and supranational law are introduced as well.

Throughout Law and Power, students learn how to:

• Correctly interpret foreign legal sources, in particular case law and academic literature.
• Conduct descriptive functional comparisons by identifying relevant similarities and differences between countries in their approach to similar problems in public law.
• Identify contextual elements that may explain differences between countries.
• Critically discuss the benefits and drawbacks of diverging approaches to a central problem in public law, as adopted in different countries.
• Adopt a personal position on open-ended legal problems and defend that position with cogent legal arguments during class debates.

By focusing on these learning outcomes, Law and Power aims to contribute to the (continuing) development of students’ legal skills, including their analytical, debating, research, presentation and argumentation skills.

During the course, each student undertakes an individual research project in comparative public law. Under the guidance of the teaching team and through a system of peer feedback, each student writes an individual paper in which she/they/he compares the approach adopted in at least two countries to a central problem in public law. Students are free, within certain limits set by the teaching team, to choose the topic and countries they wish to study. Students write a paper of 3,000-5,000 words and present the findings of their research to each other and to the teaching team during the final tutorial.

There is no syllabus for this course. Instead, the reading materials for each lecture or tutorial are uploaded to Blackboard one week in advance. Students are expected to prepare in advance, for both lectures and tutorials, by processing the assigned materials and answering the questions that are provided by the teaching team in advance to assist students in processing the materials.