Department of Agrarian and Environmental Law

The predecessor in title of the department was the Department of Trade and Exchange Law (1921-1950). In 1950, the department was renamed the Department of Economics Law, but it existed only for a year. In the academic year of 1951/52, in accordance with the needs of the emergence of the changing branches of law, it was renamed again, separating the elements of economics law. These new branches of law, namely the labour, the land and the agricultural cooperative law – this latter then was replaced with the unified cooperative law – were taught and studied by the Department of Agricultural and Labour Law until the academic year of 1991/92. There were changes other than the curriculum, too. In 1982 the range of studies widened with the introduction of courses on environmental law, and in the academic year of 1989/90 – with Prof. Dr Klaus Sojka’s moral, financial and excellent tutorial support – with the course “ Environmental protection and environmental law”, which offered an international overview to students. In the academic year of 1991/92, the name of the department changed again, as beside labour and modern cooperative law, we started teaching agrarian law; hence the name: Department of Agrarian and Labour Law. In the academic year of 1995/96, labour law, extended with social law, was transferred to another department; the present Department of Agrarian and Environmental Law is responsible for three principal subjects: agrarian, environmental and cooperative law, the related elective courses, the research essential for tuition, and also for maintaining relations with professional administrative bodies and pressure groups.

In 2005 we were the first department outside the capital to set off a postgraduate environmental law program, where candidates can get an “Environmental lawyer” degree or engineers and economists can specialize in environmental law. In accordance with present needs, the department is organizing the setup of a “Conveyance lawyer” postgraduate program. (The heads of the successor department are: Perbíró József, Nagy László, Veres József, Tóth Lajos, Bobvos Pál).