We are saddened to note that Professor Zoran Pokrovac, a long-standing member of the Croatian section of the IVR and its president from 2011 to 2015, passed away on 24 September 2025. Professor Ivan Padjen has written an In memoriam, which is available here.

Three members of the Zagreb Legal Theory Group participated in the 17th CEE Forum for Young Legal, Political, and Social Theorists, held at the Law Faculty of the University of Split on 25th and 26th of September 2025.

Paula Sviben delivered a presentation titled “The CJEU’s Conceptual Approach to the Rule of Law and Judicial Independence.”

Svan Relac delivered a presentation titled “Is Lex Posterior Necessary in Legal Systems?”

Marianela Delgado delivered a presentation titled “Why Conceptual Analysis Matters in Evidentiary Debates: Lessons from Gender-Motivated Crimes.”

The 3rd edition of the Handbook for Legal Theory (authors: L. Burazin, M. Krešić, I. Tucak) has been published by Naklada Breza.
The Handbook presents basic concepts suitable for describing and analyzing law using examples from Croatian legislation and case law. It illustrates, through concrete examples, various types of legal norms, subjective rights, constitutional court techniques (such as constitutional overinterpretation, conforming statutory interpretation, and balancing of principles), normative hierarchies, methods for resolving antinomies (lex posterior, lex superior, lex specialis), interpretation techniques, legal arguments (such as the ordinary meaning of words, legislative intent, a contrario, analogy, dissociation), legal construction techniques, and schemas for analyzing judicial reasoning.

The Handbook relies on analytical tools from R. Guastini’s book The Syntax of Law, Naklada Breza, 2025 (5th ed.).

The Handbook can be purchased via the publisher’s website (https://naklada-breza.hr/pravo/prirucnik-za-teoriju-prava-3-izdanje/).

The 3rd legal theory student conference organized by the Croatian IVR section will be held in Zagreb on 9 May 2025, 8:50 am – 5:45 pm, Trg Republike Hrvatske 3, room 3. Online attendance is possible at: https://meet.google.com/xdv-fkru-wsx
For more information please see the conference programme.

The Second Legal Reasoning conference, organized by the Croatian Association for Legal and Social Philosophy and Theory of Law and State (CALSP) and Zagreb Faculty of Law, will be held in Zagreb on April 4th 2025, 2:30pm-6:30pm, Zagreb Faculty of Law, Trg Republike Hrvatske 3, Room 3. For more information please see the attached conference programme.

K. E. Himma (Legal Theory Department, Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb) published The Practical Otiosity of Exclusionary Reasons in the Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence 37(2) 2024, pp. 457 – 473

Abstract

One of Joseph Raz’s most influential contributions to legal philosophy is the Exclusionary Thesis, according to which any prescription that counts as mandatory is identical with an exclusionary reason that bars acting on certain reasons favoring noncompliance. This essay argues that exclusionary reasons are otiose in the sense there is no deliberative work they are ever needed to do under objective norms of practical reasoning.

The book is based on presentations and discussions at the special workshop “The Concept of Legal Consciousness” held in Bucharest, Romania, on 7 July 2022, as part of the 30th Biennial World Congress of the International Association for the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (IVR). The workshop focused on the importance of this concept for legal theory, legal sociology and legal psychology (“psychology and law”). The book consists of fourteen contributions, divided into four thematic parts, dealing with the following topics: the concept of law, the methodology of legal science, the role of legal consciousness in legal theory and legal sociology, adjudication, constitutionalisation, modification of the legal system and deliberate normative change.