The 16th
Annual Conference on Church and State at the Law School of Masaryk University
in Brno, 2010
Each year since
1995 at the beginning of September
the Law School
in Brno has hosted a full-day
scientific conference entitled “Church and State”; it is
attended by experts from throughout the Czech Republic who focus on legal matters of churches
and their status in the state.
The 16th annual conference took place on 7 September 2010. Similar to last year, the conference
again had a central unifying theme; this year it
was “Marriage, Children and Family Life in a Religious Plurality State”.
The conference was organized by the Department of Constitutional Law and Political Science of the Law School
of Masaryk University in cooperation
with the Church Law Society. There were nine
lecturers who presented papers and almost 50 participants, which was a record
participation in the history of the
conference.
In addition to experts from schools
of law, theology,
philosophy and other schools there were
several representatives from legal practice
and some students.
The conference was opened by JUDr. Kateřina
Šimáčková, Ph.D., justice of the
Supreme Administrative Court, who also
teaches at the Department of Constitutional Law and Political Science and is the head professor
of the fields
of church law that are taught
at the Law
School of Masaryk
University. The participants
at the conference
were greeted by Professor JUDr. Jan Filip, CSc., the
head of the
Department of Constitutional
Law and Political Science
in Brno, and Professor JUDr. Jiří Rajmund Tretera, the chairman
of the Church
Law Society.
The conference was chaired by JUDr. Pavel Molek, Ph.D., from the Department of Constitutional Law and Political Science.
The first panel on “Marriage” was opened
by JUDr. Záboj Horák, Ph.D., from the
Legal History Department of the Law
School of Charles
University in Prague; he presented a historical overview of the forms
of marriage in the Czech lands. Mgr. Petr Jäger from the
Department of Constitutional
Law and Political Science of the Law
School of Masaryk
University in Brno discussed the
perspectives of the new Civil Code
on church marriages. Mgr.
Jakub Kříž from the
Department of Churches of the Ministry of Culture spoke
about covenant marriage in the legal system
of the United States. JUDr. Miloš Holub, Ph.D., an
attorney from Prague, presented “Several Considerations on Divorce”
.
The second panel on “Parents
and Children” was opened by Professor JUDr. Jiří R.
Tretera from the Law School
of Charles University in Prague; he discussed the religious
freedom of children and its safeguarding in the legal system of
the Czech Republic. Mgr. Kamila Bubelová,
Ph.D., the head of the Department of Legal Theory
and Legal History at the Law
School of Palacký
University in Olomouc, talked about
the confl ict between the
right of a parent to raise a child and the right
of the child
to freedom of religion from both the
secular and religious perspectives.
The third panel on “Canon Law” began with
Mgr. Monika Menke, Th.D., from the Church
Law Department of the Sts Cyril and Methodius Faculty of Theology of
Palacký University in Olomouc speaking about the form
of marriage in the Catholic Church
in the Czech Republic. Docent Damián Němec, Dr., presented his paper on the changes in the Code of
Canon Law in 2006 and 2010 concerning
marriage of “faithless Catholics”. JUDr. Ing.
Marie Kolářová, Th.D., the Chancellor of the
Prague Archdiocese, explained
the treatment of the validity of a civil marriage in canon law. Each
panel was followed by a discussion.
The participants at the conference
included among many others the following
guests: JUDr. Pavel Vošalík, the
ambassador of the Czech Republic at the Holy See,
PhDr. Jiřina Štouračová, the chairperson
of the Moravian-Silesian
Christian Academy, Mons.
Jiří Mikulášek, the General Vicar
of the Roman Catholic Diocese in Brno, ICDr. JUDr. Stanislav Přibyl, Ph.D., from
the Theological School of the
South Bohemian University in České Budějovice and a judge of the
Metropolitan Church Court
in Prague, JUDr. Jiří Palla, Justice of the Supreme Administrative
Court, JUDr. Metoděj Dudák, a lawyer
from the Brno Diocese, JUDr. Michael Kučera of the Hussite Theological
School of Charles
University in Prague, JUDr. Michal Lamparter, Ph.D.,
a longtime organizer of the Conference
on Church and State in
Brno, Mgr. Štěpán Šťastník, a clerk
to a Justice of the Constitutional Court and a
permanent attorney to the Diocesan Church Court in Brno, Docent JUDr. Zdeňka Králíčková, Ph.D., from the Law
School of Masaryk
University, Mgr. Ladislav Vyhnánek, from the Law School
of Masaryk University, Mgr. Stanislav Hykyš, legal advisor
to the Czech Bishops’ Conference, and Mgr. Petr Šimůnek, from
the Office of the President of Charles
University.
Záboj Horák