No. 5

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The constitution in letters

  • Küllike Maurer

    Chief Specialist of the Parliamentary Information Centre, Estonian National Library

The article gives a short overview of law volumes on the constitution. Under examination are monographs and articles from law periodicals (primarily Juridica).

In 1997, then Estonian Supreme Court chief justice Rait Maruste (currently justice on the European Human Rights Court) was forced to state that “the culture of law on a national level, which became fairly solid during the first independence period, was effectively demolished in the Soviet period. […] Today Estonia cannot be proud of the volume of writings on law or its number of specialists. […] There is very little theoretical or doctrinal constitutional theory (Maruste 1997).

In 1992, or the constitution’s 10th anniversary, the picture has thankfully improved, with many significant works added to the canon. About 50 articles have been published in the journal Juridica. There are also writings in other publications – Parliamentary Papers, yearbooks of the Estonian Academic Law Society, conference collections, and even foreign periodicals.

Full article in Estonian

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