Matija Milos visited Budapest between 22 and 26 April 2024 as part of the Ludovika Scholars Program of the Ludovika University of Public Service (LUPS), his professional programme was jointly organised by the Eötvös József Research Centre and the Department of Constitutional and Comparative Public Law at the Faculty of the Public Governance and International Studies. The professional programme was based on the themes identified in the guest researcher's application, according to the detailed online discussions held prior to his arrival.
The guest researcher gave an opening lecture entitled Symbolic and communicative legislation in the field of national minority protection - old an new minorities in Croatia on 23 April at a workshop with researchers from several institutes of the Eötvös József Research Centre and lecturers from the Department of Constitutional and Comparative Public Law. During the workshop, there was an intense exchange of views on two topics. On the one hand, the Croatian example of the public law process of nationality recognition provided an excellent opportunity to discuss the substantive differences from Hungarian constitutional law and to evaluate the theoretical characteristics and practical experiences of the different models.On the other hand, through the Croatian case study, there was a lively exchange of views on the political aspects of minority representation in parliament, such as the use of nationality issue as a political tool.
The next day, the visiting researcher gave a public lecture, attended mostly by international students of comparative constitutional law. The theme of the interactive presentation was Protecting symbolic speech in the age of the internet. The speaker, who gave many interesting concrete and controversial examples, managed to engage the audience in his presentation and in the discussion. The presentation was followed by an intense exchange of views and questions from the audience.
After the lecture, the guest researcher discussed further professional cooperation with Iván Halász, Head of the Department of Constitutional and Comparative Public Law. Among other things, they discussed the plans of the international academic conference The beautiful digital new age?, planned by the Department of Constitutional and Comparative Public Law for the autumn of 2024, to which the organizers would like to invite Croatian colleagues. This conference will focus on the impact of new technologies and artificial intelligence on constitutional law. The idea attracted the interest of the speaker, so new possibilities for scientific cooperation between LUPS and UNIRI experts have been outlined for the future.
The guest researcher also consulted with Bernat Török, Head of the Institute of the Information Society. A clear common theme that emerged was the examination of the impact of artificial intelligence on fundamental rights, in particular with regard to the methodological issues of the forthcoming fundamental rights impact assessments. Bernát Török invited the guest researcher to the September 2024 conference organised by the Information Society Research Institute in the framework of the Hungarian EU Presidency on this very topic at the LUPS.
Text: EJKK
Photos: Dénes Szilágyi