Department of Civil Law

The Department of Civil Law offers a wide and varied contribution to the formation of law students, reflecting the fundamental importance of this vast subject to legal study and practice. It provides law students with a thorough grounding in the key areas of Civil law, particularly Family, Property, Contract, Tort, Lease, Sale, Succession, the law of Guarantees and Civil Procedure. Departmental staff also teach introductory and theory-orientated courses on Philosophy of Law, Roman Law and Legal Anthropology. Specialised units dealing with Notarial law and Trusts are among the other subjects taught by Department staff. Recently the Department has also developed a range of specialised courses focusing on Human Rights, Gender, Family and Refugee law.

Departmental staff are also currently pioneering the introduction of more skills orientated law teaching with the newly introduced courses on Professional Ethics and Advocacy Skills, the latter serving as an embryonic legal clinic within the framework of the Department. Apart from its contribution to law teaching, the Department also promotes research on aspects of Maltese Civil law such as Family, Contract, Trusts and Tort from the perspective of comparative private law and also research which investigates socio-legal issues connected with civil litigation and the practice of advocacy in Malta. Members of the Department are also involved in research on Migration and Asylum issues.