Jiří Přibáň will become the new judge of the Constitutional Court

Lawyer and sociologist Jiří Přibáň, a foreign fellow of the Learned Society, will become the new judge of the Constitutional Court. On Wednesday 19 June, the Senate approved his nomination by President Petr Pavel (along with Tomáš Langášek).

Jiří Přibáň is currently a professor of law at Cardiff University in Wales, where he heads the Centre for Law and Society. In the past, he has been a visiting professor or research fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, the Prague branch of New York University, and the University of California, Berkeley. He has also lectured at Stanford University and universities in San Francisco, Pretoria, Sydney, and Leuven.

Jiří Přibáň graduated from Charles University in Prague (1989) where he was appointed professor of legal theory, philosophy and sociology in 2002. He was also a visiting professor or scholar at the European University Institute in Florence, New York University (Prague Office), the University of California in Berkeley, the University of San Francisco, the University of Pretoria, The Flemish Academy in Brussels and the University of New South Wales, Sydney.

He has published extensively in the areas of social theory and sociology of law, legal philosophy, constitutional and European comparative law, and theory of human rights. His monograph Sovereignty in Post-Sovereign Society (Routledge) was awarded the SLSA Socio-Legal Theory and History Book Prize. His article Reconstituting paradise lost: temporality, civility and ethnicity in post-communist constitution-making, published in Law&Society Review, won the SLSA Hart Socio-Legal Article Prize. He regularly contributes to the Czech and international media.

He could have become a constitutional judge in 2013, but he declined the nomination by then-President Miloš Zeman.