Focus Area VI: State - Economy - Local Affairs
A. Basics of the Focus Area
The Law Faculty of the University of Potsdam offers an important addition to the general study program for interested students with the newly designed focus area State - Economy - Municipal. This focus area opens up the possibility of acquiring in-depth knowledge in the central areas of public law. Last but not least, important foundations can be laid in this context for later professional success in public administration, as an administrative judge or as a specialist lawyer for administrative law. This focus area is aimed at all students who are aiming for the first legal examination.
Priority area VI is divided into the following topics:
1. General Administrative Law (Specialization) 2 WSH
2. Local Financial Constitution and Budget Law 2 WSH
3. Public Service Law 2 WSH
4. Public Commercial Law for Lawyers 2 WSH
5. Environmental Law for Lawyers 2 WSH
6. European Law (Specialization) 2 WSH
7. Tax Law I 2 WSH
8. Administration Sciences 2 WSH
9. Exercise or Seminar 2 WSH
B. Course Content of the Focus Area
1. General Administrative Law (Specialization)
The lecture specialization in general administrative law ties in with the compulsory lectures in general administrative law. The knowledge acquired there is expanded and consolidated here. In addition to the administrative act, other forms of administrative action such as the administrative contract, ordinances and statutes are dealt with. Public property law and the law of state compensation are also the subject of the lecture.
2. Local Financial Constitution and Budget Law
This lecture builds on the compulsory subject lecture on local law. Municipal finance, budget and business law are dealt with, including their constitutional basis and supervisory aspects. Municipal financial law deals with municipal income in the form of taxes, contributions and fees, funds from municipal financial equalization and other income. In municipal budget law, special attention is paid to the switch from cameralistic to double budget management. Other instruments for modernizing local government such as target agreements are dealt with. The municipal commercial law deals with the economic activity of the municipalities including their competition, antitrust and procurement law issues. Parallels to state finance, budget and business law, especially to federal and state funding, are regularly drawn
3. Public Service Law
The lecture Law of the Public Service offers an overview of the structures and central problems of public service law, especially civil service law. The constitutional basis and basic terms of civil service law, the duties and rights of civil servants and the legal structure of civil servant relationships are dealt with. Current developments in public service law since the federalism are given special consideration.
4. Public Commercial Law for Lawyers
In the lecture Public Commercial Law for Lawyers, the economic constitution of the Basic Law, the fundamental rights protection of economic activity through occupational freedom, property guarantee and freedom of association as well as the constitutional principles with economic relevance are discussed. From the commercial law, the legal influence of the administrative authorities on commercial enterprises is presented. In addition, new forms of economic regulation as well as state aid and public procurement law are discussed.
5. Environmental Law for Lawyers
The lecture on environmental law deals with the general part of environmental law, environmental impact assessment, nature conservation and landscape management law, soil and water protection law, pollution and waste / recycling law as well as hazardous substances law.
6. European Law (Specialization)
This lecture follows on from the lecture European Law I and deepens the fundamental freedoms. In addition, individual policy areas of the European Union, European domestic and judicial policy, external relations of the EU, legal protection before the ECJ, including the procedural requirements of the various actions, and the main features of official liability under European law are presented.
7. Tax Law I
In the lecture Tax Law I, legal sources and general principles of tax law including the constitutional and European law basics are discussed first. Then the tax procedural law according to the tax code as well as the judicial procedure according to the tax court code are dealt with. Specifically, this concerns the law of debt obligations, the tax administrative act, the correction provisions for tax administrative acts, the assessment and determination procedure, the objection and complaint procedure.
8. Administration Sciences
Die Vorlesung Verwaltungswissenschaften vermittelt die interdisziplinären Beziehungen im Zusammenwirken von Verwaltung und Politik unter Einbeziehung anderer Wissenschaftszweige.
9. Exercise or Seminar
The lecture Administrative Sciences conveys the interdisciplinary relationships in the interaction between administration and politics, including other branches of science.
C. Teaching Professors
Of the full-time professors in the faculty, mainly Univ.-Prof. Dr. Thorsten Ingo Schmidt, Prof. Dr. Christian Bickenbach and Prof. Dr. Alexander Windoffer teach in the focus area VI. They hold the majority of the lectures mentioned and organize the exercises and seminars. The examinations in the university first legal examination in the focus area are predominantly held by the three professors named. The courses in tax law are usually held by Univ.-Prof. Dr. Andreas Musil while the European law lectures are held by Univ.-Prof. Dr. Andreas Zimmermann. In addition, lecturers convey important practical relevance.
D. Further Information
Further information on the focus area “State-Economy-Administration” can be obtained from Univ.-Prof. Dr. Schmidt, Prof. Dr. Christian Bickenbach and Prof. Dr. Alexander Windoffer and their staff. Please address inquiries to the secretariat of the chair for public law, in particular constitutional law, administrative and local law:
Maria Rathnow
Raum 03.06.3.31
0331 / 977 - 3519
Organisational Matters (Registration for exams, etc.) will be gladly answered by the study office of the Faculty of Law:
Heike Koernig
Raum 03.06.0.07
0331 / 977 - 3439