COORDINATOR
Coordinator
Prof. Luís António Malheiro Menezes do Vale | lvale@fd.uc.pt
Coordinator of the Erasmus Departament
Prof. João António Pinto Monteiro | joaopm@fd.uc.pt
Prof. Luís Menezes do Vale
The (scientific) Master's Degree in Law Programme favours research in specialised legal areas, promoting the development of the ability for original theoretical construction, as well as the conception of new solutions and the interpretation of complex problems in multidisciplinary realities.
Assuming and intending to solidify a consist ent dogmatic training in the different areas of juridicity, the Programme purports to cultivate the problematisation of Law and legal thought, with a reflectively critical-reconstructive intention, through which students are trained to be autonomously responsive to the theoretical and practical challenges of the future, while at the same time trusting to contribute, through it, to the deepening of legal understanding and training and the improvement of the service to society and man expected of it.
Subject to numerus clausus and with a duration of 4 semesters, corresponding to 120 ECTS, it comprises a specialisation Programme in one of a choice of 7 subject areas (in some cases subdivided into even more specific terms) and the preparation of a dissertation, under the supervision of a faculty member holding a PhD.
The former is made up of two obligatory courses, to which must be added, alternatively, two annual courses, one annual and two half-yearly or four half-yearly, freely selected by the student from the list of obligatory subjects in the other areas of study, as well as from a wide range of elective courses made available by each of the sections responsible. As such, it offers a wide range of combinatorial possibilities, translated into unique training paths, through which the growing and increasingly intricate legal intersections are explored, favouring interdisciplinary learning, as shown by the novelty and diversity of objects, perspectives, methods, foundations and proposals visible in the studies and theses developed.
Thanks to a prestigious national and international teaching body, which includes the most important academic, scientific and professional networks and institutions in the respective fields of knowledge and practice, the teaching part takes place in a restricted seminar regime, with a maximum of 25 students per class, involving, in very diverse ways, a lively didactic dialogue with the students, culminating in the preparation, oral presentation and discussion of small monographic essays (reports). The research experience developed during this first phase is then extended, during the second phase, into the research leading to the master's thesis, carried out with the fundamental support of the chosen supervisor.
They both rely on the unique and constantly updated collection of our Library and the numerous supplementary training initiatives it facilitates, benefiting further from the scientific ecosystem formed by the Legal Institute—the largest legal research center in the country—and all the other private research centers whose activities are carried out within the Faculty's close orbit. All this, in turn, is integrated into the unique environment of a true university city, where ideas and people converge, inspire, excite, dialogue, and mutually enrich each other, within the intimate and harmonious conjunction of the various Faculties.
PROGRAMME OBJECTIVES
The scientific master's degree programme is centred on 7 areas of specialisation, lasts 4 semesters, has 120 ECTS, with numeri clausi, and is made up of an annual specialisation course and an annual dissertation. The specialisation course is mostly made up of annual curricular units, where seminars and assessment through working papers are favoured. The annualisation of the dissertation is aimed at achieving excellent levels of research.
The Master's degree in Law is awarded in the following areas of specialisation:
- Civil Law;
- Criminal Law;
- Law and Economics;
- Commercial Law;
- Philosophy of Law;
- History of Law;
- Law and Politics.
The area of Civil Law includes the following branches:
- Mention in Civil Law;
- Mention in Civil Procedure.
The area of Commercial Law includes the following branches:
- Mention in Commercial Law;
- Mention in Labour Law.
The area of Law and Politics includes the following branches:
- Mention in Administrative Law;
- Mention in Constitutional Law;
- Mention in Urban Planning, and Environmental Law;
- Mention in Tax Law;
- Mention in Public and EU International Law.
DURATION
4 Semestres and 120 ECTS
PROGRAMMES
Law and Politics Master's Programme
Section Coordinator: Prof. Jónatas Machado
The Law and Politics section offers a wide range of areas of specialisation in the Master's in Law: Master's in Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, Tax Law, Public and EU International Law, and Urban Planning & Environmental Law.
In addition to the relevance of the programmes, the flexibility of the syllabus, which is well suited to a research master's degree, should be highlighted. In fact, candidates have ample freedom in designing their course of study, and can take core curricular units from other disciplines, even if they belong to another research area. For example, someone wishing to take the Master's in Administrative Law could also complement their training with Constitutional Law and European Union Law, or with any other curricular unit, making each Master's unique and adapted to the expectations of those wishing to access this level of specialisation.
Master's Degree in Administrative Law
- Administrative Law I
Themes of the Administrative State and Regulation
Lecturer: Prof. Pedro Costa Gonçalves
- Administrative Law II
Special Administrative Litigation
Lecturer: Prof. Jorge Alves Correia
Masters in Constitutional Law
- Constitutional Law I
Constitutional Review: political- and comparative-law perspective in the Portuguese-speaking world
Lecturer: Prof. António Malheiro de Magalhães
- Constitutional Law II
Constitutional Justice
Lecturer: Prof. Ana Raquel Moniz
Master in Tax Law
- Tax Law I
Corporate and International Tax Law
Lecturer: Prof. Marta Costa Santos
- Tax Law II
Tax Procedure and Litigation
Lecturer: Professor João Pedro Rodrigues
Master's in Public and EU International Law
- Public International Law
Humanisation of Public International Law
Lecturer: Prof. Francisco Ferreira de Almeida
- EU Law
Lecturer: Prof. Miguel Gorjão-Henriques
Master's in Urban Planning and Environmental Law
- Planning and Urban Law
Lecturer: Prof. Fernanda Paula Oliveira
- Environmental Law
Lecturer: Prof. Alexandra Aragão
Master's in Civil Law
Section Coordinator: Prof. Paulo Mota Pinto
The Civil Law Section offers Master's programmes: the Master's in Civil Law and the Master's in Civil Procedure. In addition to the mandatory courses, there is also a wide range of electives covering areas of great relevance in civil law and civil procedure, ensuring a unique specialisation tailored to the wishes and expectations of our students.
Master's in Civil Law
- Civil Law I
Personality Rights
Lecturer: Prof.Paulo Mota Pinto
- Civil Law II
Person, Autonomy and Civil Liability
Lecturer: Prof. Mafalda Miranda Barbosa
Master's Degree in Civil Procedure
- Civil Procedure I
Theory of the Principles of Civil Procedure (in the light of doctrine and case law)
Lecturer: Prof. Luís Miguel Mesquita
- Civil Procedure Law II
Parties and Third Parties in Civil Procedure
Lecturer: Prof. Maria José Capelo
Master's in Commercial Law
Section Coordinator: Prof. João Leal Amado
The Commercial Law Section offers two main areas of specialisation.
In the Master's in Corporate Law, the Company Law course develops and deepens the knowledge acquired in the 1st cycle, while the Contract Law curricular unit makes it possible to study the regime applicable to various contractual figures relevant to the structuring of relations between economic agents.
The master's in Labour Law takes up and expands on two key themes: the Individual Employment Relationship, a course in which particular emphasis is placed on the challenges of digitalisation and anti-discriminatory law in the employment context, and the Collective Employment Relationship, an area which develops and deepens figures and institutes such as trade union freedom, collective bargaining and collective labour conflict.
Master's in Business Law
- Company Law
Lecturer: Prof. Jorge Manuel Coutinho de Abreu
- Contract Law
International Commercial Contracts
Lecturer: Prof. Alexandre de Soveral Martins
Master's Degree in Labour Law
- Individual Labour Relations
Lecturer: Prof. Joana Nunes Vicente
- Collective Labour Relations
Lecturer: Prof. João Reis
Mestrado em Ciências Jurídico-Criminais
Section Coordinator: Prof. Maria João Antunes
Website
In the Master's Degree in Law, in the area of specialisation in Criminal Law, the two mandatory courses are aimed at acquiring knowledge at a level that develops, deepens and extends that obtained in the 1st cycle. In Criminal Law, dealing with the so-called "special part", duly framed in the phenomenon of the expansion of criminal law; in Criminal Procedure, focussing on procedural subjects or means of proof, in the close relationship between one and the other with the Constitution.
For its part, the elective course on International and EU Criminal Law aims to provide knowledge of criminal law "beyond" the State, in the international, EU and judicial co-operation fields.
- Criminal Law
Special Criminal Law
Lecturers: Prof. Pedro Caeiro (1st Class)
Prof. Sónia Fidalgo (2nd Class)
- Criminal Procedure
Criminal Procedure and the Constitution
Issues in the Light of the Constitution
Lecturers: Prof. Sónia Fidalgo (1st Class)
Prof. Miguel Ângelo Lemos (2nd Class)
Master's in History of Law
The Master's programme in History of Law has Roman Law and the History of Law as its core subjects.
For a full-fledged jurist, it is not possible to be a civilist of choice if you are not at least a reasonable Romanist. That's why particular emphasis is placed on Roman Private Law.
The History of Law is given an illuminating role in modern Portuguese law, as a kind of golden hook that seeks to explain the inevitable legal historicity. Special emphasis is given to the genetic ties of EU law and the legal conformation of Portuguese law in the 20th century and its transition to the 21st century. A field that is also given top attention is the History of Brazilian Law.
Given its breadth, students on the Master's programme in the History of Law have the opportunity to study any topic in either private or public law. A study that could well serve as the basis for a history of Law-related chapter for their Master's thesis.
- History of Portuguese Law
Lecturer: Prof. Rui de Figueiredo Marcos
- Roman Law
Lecturer: Prof. António Vieira Cura
Master's in Law and Economics
Section Coordinator: Prof. Luís Pedro Cunha
The Master's Degree in Law and Economics has a reasonably diverse range of courses, with four curricular units: Political Economy (Regulation of the Global Economy), Public Finance (Public Activity in the Digitalisation Age), Currency and Monetary Policy and, finally, Credit and Financial Markets. In all cases, these are subjects that require an interdisciplinary approach, with the intersection of legal and economic perspectives. It is therefore a distinctive feature of this Master's programme that, in addition to the study of the branches of law covered in the four subjects as a whole, it also uses, where necessary, the relevant economic frameworks and theory to understand the economic realities underlying each of them. In the case of the Political Economy - Regulation of the Global Economy course, the law of the World Trade Organisation and Preferential Trade Agreements will be studied and the respective legal disciplines will be compared with the teachings of international economy. In the case of Public Finance - Public Activity in the Digitalisation Age, the study focuses on public economic activity in the current context, with a special focus on the implications that the digital transition and the ecological transition have for the financial sustainability of states. Within the scope of Money and Monetary Policy, money and its creation and control mechanisms will be studied, namely the monetary policies of central banks and their relevance to macroeconomic stabilisation. Finally, with regard to the Credit and Financial Markets course, the programme will focus on the architecture of the financial system, its recent evolution and the main issues relating to the regulation of the banking system and financial markets in the context of systemic crises.
- Political Economy
Regulation of the Global Economy
Lecturer: Prof. Luís Pedro Cunha
- Public Finance
Public Activity in the Digitalisation Age
Lecturer: Prof. Matilde Lavouras
Master's in Philosophy of Law
Section Coordinator: Prof. J. M. Aroso Linhares
Although they are identified by the most generic and expectable disciplinary names (Philosophy of Law and Legal Methodology), the two courses that make up the hard core (mandatory attendance) of the Master's Degree in Philosphy of Law are offered as authentic open seminars which, each year, are dominated by a guiding theme (in the next academic year the themes will be "The problem of the autonomy of law" and "Application, decision, judgement..." respectively): alternative paradigms for the realisation of law"), they significantly resist a closed systematic treatment, relying instead on a plural and diverse basic script, whose balances are permanently reconstructed in their relationship with the audience (and with the reflexive preferences that the latter justifiably expresses).
The theme of the autonomy of Law proposed in the Philosophy seminar reinforces this openness (in a border zone with the Theory of Law), allowing a real dive into the pragmatics of plurality that characterises meta-dogmatic legal thinking today: its purpose is actually to "deconstruct" two frequent misconceptions - the one that associates the pretence of legal autonomy vis-à-vis normativism and other formalisms, and the one that associates positivism with a separation between juridicity and morality. This "deconstruction" requires a dialogue with other very significant ways of expressing the claim to autonomy (ranging from systemic functionalism to jurisprudentialism), but also an analytically detailed treatment of Hart's legacy and the exclusionary/inclusive positivism/incorporationism debate, as well as the possibilities of non-positivisms. Regardless of the theme eventually chosen, it is accepted that the "location" of its reflective treatment will always be this: it is really a question of taking on the unmistakable lesson of Castanheira Neves, certainly to discover the answers that his proposal allows us to construct, but also and very especially to submit these answers to the critical reflection that only diving into the aforementioned pragmatics of plurality (and the spectrum of questions to which it exposes us) makes possible in the end.
Assuming the aforementioned philosophical and theoretical framework, the Methodology of Law seminar focuses essentially on the problem of the judicial realisation of the Law, specifically through the presentation and discussion of various proposals for the rational construction of the judicial decision - exposing and discussing the models of application, decision and judgement, as alternative paradigms for the realisation of the Law. Starting with a historical reference to the role of the judge and the rationality of his adjudicatory task, and assuming as fundamental interlocutors, in a critical dialogue about overcoming them, Normativisms - starting with their dominant expressions in the 19th century (from the School of Exegesis, the Historical School and the Jurisprudence of Concepts) and in the 20th century (especially in Kelsen) - Functionalisms - Material and Formal - and Jurisprudentialisms, starting from the grid of analysis proposed by Castanheira Neves. The aim is to explore and discuss the philosophical and theoretical assumptions, the rational structures and the practical consequences (legal and non-legal) of the most relevant proposals for the construction of judicial decision-making today.
- Philosophy of Law
Lecturer: Prof. Aroso Linhares
- Methodology of Law
Lecturer: Prof. Ana Gaudêncio
Electives
ANNUAL
Criminal Law
- International and EU Criminal Law
Lecturer: Prof. Miguel João Costa
Philosophy of Law
- Philosophy of Human Rights
Lecturer: Prof. Luís Menezes do Vale
- Law & Literature
Lecturers: Prof. Aroso Linhares - Prof. Ana Gaudêncio - Prof. Luís Menezes do Vale - Dr Brisa Paim
Politics and Law
- Urban Rehabilitation Law
Lecturer: Prof. Fernanda Paula Oliveira
1ST SEMESTER
Corporate Law
- Competition Law
Lecturer: Prof. Alexandre Dias Pereira
Civil Law
- International Civil Procedure
Lecturer: Prof. Rui Dias
- Copyright
Lecturer: Prof. Alexandre Dias Pereira
- Registry and Property Law
Lecturer: Prof. Mónica Jardim
- Family Law and Family Procedure
Lecturer: Prof. Rafael Vale e Reis
Law and Economics
- Currency and Monetary Policy
Lecturer: Prof. Teresa Almeida
Law and Politics
- Health Law and Policy
Lecturer: Prof. Luís Menezes do Vale
2ND SEMESTER
Law and Politics
- Social Security Law
Lecturer: Prof. Paulo Linhares Dias
Civil Law
- Industrial Property Law
Lecturer: Prof. Remédio Marques
- Private International Law
Lecturer: Prof. Dulce Lopes
- Family Law and Family Procedure II
Lecturer: Prof. Rosa Martins
Law and Economics
- Credit and Financial Markets
Lecturer: Prof. Teresa Almeida
JOB OPPORTUNITIES
- The Legal Profession
- Judiciary and Public Prosecution
- Diplomacy
- Local, National and EU Public Service
- Registry Offices
- Notaries
- Justice of the Peace
- Criminal Police
- Portuguese Agency for Minorities, Migration and Asylum
- International Organisations
- University Education
- Research
- Secondary Education
- Private Institutions
- Litigation
- Media
ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS
1. Candidates willing to apply to the cycle of studies leading to the Master's in Law must hold:
a) Holders of a law degree or legal equivalent;
b) Holders of a foreign higher education degree based on a 1st cycle of studies in Law, organised in accordance with the principles of the Bologna Process by a State adhering to this Process;
c) Holders of a foreign higher academic degree in Law that is recognised as satisfying the objectives of the degree of "Licenciado" by the Scientific Board of the Faculty of Law;
d) In duly justified cases, candidates who present an academic, scientific and/or professional curriculum relevant to attending this cycle of studies and which is recognised as such by the Scientific Board of the Faculty of Law may access the master's cycle of studies.
2. The recognition referred to in paragraphs b) to d) of no. 1 only has the effect of granting access to the cycle of studies leading to the master's degree and does not confer on its holder the equivalence to the bachelor's degree or the recognition of that degree.
- Candidates for the cycle of studies leading to a master's degree must have the minimum final classification set by the Scientific Council bianually by 31 October.
The information provided does not dispense you from consulting the Opening Notice.
SCHOOL AWARDS - SCHOLARSHIPS
There are three UC/FL foundations which award scholarships to needy students and school prizes to the best students each year.