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Description
Based on the applicant''s two-year involvement with the Legal Network for the protection of democracy we have found that there is a critical lack of legal awareness among Slovenian citizens, including youth. Reluctance and preconceptions about law partly stem from law being considered as a complex system of abstract norms, as well as from the lack of familiarity with various institutions and legal professions. It is therefore even more preoccupying that basic legal contents are missing from the formal education system. Legal content is not included in primary nor in secondary/high- schools curricula. Consequently, there is a high level of lack of legal knowledge, which makes it difficult for people to access and exercise their rights.
We believe the problem of not knowing law and its perceived inaccessibility should be addressed directly through our education system, which includes the vast majority of the youth population. We see the recent inclusion of the Active Citizenship module in high-school curricula as an excellent opportunity for including legal contents, which are still lacking. While there is a teacher''s handbook Aktivno državljanstvo, it doesn''t include any legal knowledge that would support active citizenship. Since the module is quite flexible, it allows for more autonomous approaches so teachers can for example take their students to excursions, roundtables, etc., and it is precisely here that we see an opportunity for our innovative, practical and professional contribution, which we would like to test with this pilot project.
It is for this purpose that we have designed our project Legal tours for active and informed high-school students, the aim of which is to bring law closer to them in the form of 5 different legal walking tours. The walking tours are designed as excursions with legal professionals, introducing different legal institutions.
Summary of project results
Legal strolls fill a critical gap in the lack of knowledge about legal content, distrust in the institutions of the rule of law, and interest in legal professions. The lack of legal knowledge, often attributable to the absence of legal content in formal education, makes it difficult for citizens to assert their rights, make informed assessments of legal options, and participate in democratic processes.
For high school students in Slovenia, we brought legal content closer through visits to legal institutions and strolls to legally significant points in regional centers. These activities were designed in collaboration with various legal experts and legal institutions.
In Ljubljana and Maribor, we developed and pilot-tested 15 legal strolls across five different legal areas: From murder to prison – Criminal Law Stroll, From expression to protest – Constitutional Law Stroll, From cradle to grave – Family and Inheritance Law Stroll, From pocket money to champagne – Consumer and Business Law Stroll, From student to worker – Labor Law Stroll.