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23 January 2024

LECTURE SERIES: Helsinki Legal History Series (Spring 2024) [ONLINE]

(Image source: University of Helsinki)

How have collective identities shaped law, and how has law been used to affect, change or protect common identities? Does law recognize marginalized identities or is the history of law a narrative of exclusion?


The themes of the first meetings will be: 

  • Mathilda Tarandi, 30.1.2024: Who was criminalised? Analysing the crime of abortion in Sweden, early 20th century.

Tarandi's research is on the crime and the decriminalisation of abortion in Sweden. The analysis starts in early 19th century and ends in 1975, when the formal decriminalisation entered into force. She is looking at what, or rather who, was criminalised. Studying material from the parliament as well as court archives, She explores how norms on female identity came into play in the legal discourse and how concepts such as guilt were used in the argumentation for decriminalisation. In this presentation, she will analyse the criminalised area in early 20th century. Borrowing from the humanities, she will reflect on the argumentation and criminalised area in relation to female archetypes.

  • Moritz Vormbaum, 27.2.2024: ‘A Legal Instrument of the Political Power of the Working Class’ - The Criminal Law of the German Democratic Republic

 Today, more than 30 years after the German unification, not much is known about the criminal law of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). This is surprising, for the fact alone that, in 1968, the GDR enacted a new overall codification of criminal law – something that from 1871 until today no other German government has managed to do. In addition, a study of GDR criminal law gives us insights of the criminal law in an authoritarian regime based on socialist ideology. The presentation will give an overview of the development of substantive criminal law in East Germany from 1945 to 1990. Moreover, it will analyse the role of the judiciary and the Ministry for State Security in practice. Finally, it sketches a pattern of interpretation of GDR criminal law.


More information can be found here.



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