The Faculty of Law

The Faculty of Law at the University of Basel boasts a history spanning over five hundred years, making it the oldest Faculty of Law in Switzerland. Throughout its long history, it has consistently focused on future legal developments in both research and teaching.

In the fall semester of 2008, 1,279 students were enrolled in the faculty, more than in any previous year. Recently, there has been a disproportionate increase in the demands on professors. Although the number of faculty members has also been expanded in recent years, keeping pace with the administrative workload created since the Bologna reform has been challenging.

Increase in student enrollment
Between 1990 and 1995, the number of students increased by nearly 50 percent. As of 2010, there were fifteen full professorships available for teaching, ten of which are full-time positions. Additionally, there were four assistant professorships and some sixty teaching staff overall, including senior adjunct professors. The involvement of teaching assistants in education has only gradually become established over the past decade and has now become indispensable for group instruction and introductory seminars. Due to these quantitative developments, as well as the introduction of the Bologna system and the associated increase in the number of examinations, the demands on professors have significantly increased recently. Although the teaching staff has grown in the last few years, this growth in student numbers has led to a corresponding deterioration in the student-to-teacher ratio.

Broader study options
The transition to the Bologna process brought not only more exams but also new options within the structure of the degree programs. The curriculum continues to be divided into the areas of private law, public law, and criminal law. After the bachelor’s degree, where foundational legal knowledge and methods are acquired, the master’s program allows for individual focus areas in commercial law, administrative law, or international law. Since 2006, the Faculty of Law in Basel has offered a bilingual master’s program in collaboration with the University of Geneva. Additionally, the EUCOR master’s program offers multilingual and cross-border study opportunities, provided by the University of Basel in conjunction with the Albert-Ludwigs-University in Freiburg im Breisgau and the Université Robert Schuman in Strasbourg.

Materials

Bibliography

  • Ronald Kunz, Geschichte der Basler Juristischen Fakultät 1835–2010, ed. Felix Hafner, Kurt Seelmann, and Thomas Sutter-Somm, Basel 2011.
  • Das Rechtsstudium in Basel 1460–1798, in Jubiläumsschrift für J. G. Bluntschli, Zurich 1879, 11ff.
  • Erwin Ruck und Fritz Goetzinger, Die Juristische Fakultät und der Beruf des Juristen, Basel 1940 
  • Georg Boner, Die Universität Basel in den Jahren 1914–1939, Basel 1943 
  • Hans Hinderling, Ernstes und Heiteres aus Gerichtspraxis und Fakultätsbetrieb, in Basler Juristische Mitteilungen, Basel 1984, 1ff. 
  • Max Imboden, Probleme der schweizerischen juristischen Fakultäten, in Schweizer Monatshefte, Zurich 1960, 336ff.
  • J. G. Fuchs, Die Juristische Fakultät der Universität Basel, in Basler Stadtbuch, Basel 1969, 17ff. 
  • Das Rechtswissenschaftliche Studium in der Schweiz (Red. C. Flück), Zurich 1968 (and subsequent editions). 
  • Evelyn Braun, Jurisprudenz, in Basels gescheitestes Haus, Sonderdruck Basler Zeitung, Basel 1988, 93ff. 
  • Franz Hasenböhler, Die Juristische Fakultät, in Zehn Jahre Maiengasse, Liestal 1993, 3ff.