Czy i jak uczyć historii prawa na studiach prawniczych? Kilka refleksji o stanie i perspektywach przedmiotów historycznoprawnych w polskiej edukacji prawniczej

Political, social, and economic changes and the progressing evolution of legal systems challenge legal historians to repeatedly read the role of their discipline in legal education. Frequently, the fruitful discussion is replaced by repeating general statements formulated to justify the thesis accepted in advance that preserving the legal history position in the legal study schedule is necessary. Existing justifications for teaching legal history to students of law faculties were created on various approaches, especially legal positivism and the idea of the contextual and interdisciplinary approach to legal studies. Current legal history is divided between supporters of two concepts – antiquarianism and presentism. The dynamic development of other contextual subjects is not without an influence on legal history position, especially legal sociology. The problem is enlarged by the financial and personal situation of legal history institutes on Polish legal faculties. All the above-mentioned dilemmas force legal historians to discuss a shared vision, if, to what extent, with what assumptions, and how (in what ways and methods) to teach legal history to law students. First, the author tries to analyze the situation of legal history in the present curriculum of Polish legal studies. He tries to argue that legal students in their first year of education cannot learn contextual legal history. Those grand ambitions need to be abandoned; we need to focus on being a propaedeutic subject, supplementing introduction to legal studies. The author also attempts to present the perspectives and possibilities of teaching legal history if even good curriculum reform in legal faculties is enforced.