The 22nd October Legal Days officially began today in Banja Vrućica near Teslić, organized by the Association of Lawyers of Republika Srpska and the Faculty of Law of the University of Banja Luka.
President of the Association, Professor Vitomir Popović, said that this year’s event will once again feature a plenary session and a general assembly, officially opening the conference.
“We also have a number of guests from countries in the region — from the territories of the former Yugoslavia and several other states. After the opening, we will hold a ceremony to present awards to our co-organizers, those who have supported us over the years to keep these gatherings alive and growing,” Popović said in an interview for RTRS Morning Program.
He explained that the conference will then continue through specialized legal panels, each featuring around ten research papers from various branches of law.
Popović stressed that the legal system is currently in a state of disarray, particularly when it comes to the application of legal science.
“We are witnessing a certain chaos in how law is applied as a science, along with the neglect of legal norms that form the pillars of any legal order and system,” he said.
He pointed out that this issue is most visible in the criminal law field, which will be one of the main topics at the conference.
“The discussions will address questions related to the temporal validity of laws. Unfortunately, we recently saw this problem in the case of the president of Republika Srpska, where an entire set of international and national standards — both regarding the adoption and the entry into force of laws — was disregarded, including the prohibition of retroactive application,” Popović emphasized.
According to him, such examples clearly show that the principle of legality and the consistency of the legal system are being undermined — one of the greatest challenges currently facing legal scholars and practitioners in the region.
Source: RTRS
