Seminar Programme – Interdisciplinary dialogues on Justice (Dijus)
Judicial architecture: space serving justice?

April 6th, 2009, 18:00, CES Seminar Room

Guest Speakers
Gonçalo Canto Moniz – Architect (25 minutes)
Daniel Andrade – Lawyer (15 minutes)
Vaz das Neves – Judge at the High Court (15 minutes)

Moderator –  João Pedroso (CES)

Commentary – Patrícia Branco (CES) (15 minutes)

 
Free Entrance


Abstract
The issue we set forth from is (apparently) simple: may court space (architectural, symbolic, organizational), that is to say, the so-called “sacred” space of law and justice, contribute to court effectiveness? From this initial question other issues spread: how are courts conceived and thought? What conditions/conditioned the architectural programme? In the cases where existent buildings have suffered adaption, in what manner is that adaption thought? Which are the values intended to be inscribed?
The assumption is that, through theoretical reflection, scientific research and the actual experience of professionals, it is possible to ponder how judicial architecture may, or may not, influence justice administration and access to law and justice.

 
Guest Speakers Curricula
Gonçalo Canto Moniz: Researcher, Architecture and Urbanism Research Group, Centre for Social Studies. Presently, he is preparing his doctoral thesis on “Teaching Architecture in Portugal”.

Daniel Andrade: Chair of the District Council, Coimbra Bar Association

Vaz das Neves: Appointed Secretary-General of the Ministry of Justice in 1994, position held until 2000, within which he was responsible for tenders and projects concerning construction, remodelation, beneficiation and conservation of infrastructures of the Ministry of Justice. Presently, he is President of the Lisbon Court of Appeals.

 
Project Dijus – Presentation
This seminar programme deals with relations of (in)comprehension between the juridical discourse and the discourse(s) of other sciences. Through the recording of these dialogues we seek, by the end of the Project, through content analysis, to analyse the convergences and divergences of knowledges, discourses and the manner in which they are “translated” and used in the concealment/disclosure of facts and in the construction of a truth apprehended and recognized by the judicial system.

This Research Project/Seminar Programme will be carried out, in a first phase, through twelve seminars, to be held until the end of 2009, with the participation of professionals and researchers with different expertise and proceeding from disciplines related with the administration of justice, from medicine to management sciences, and from psychiatry and psychology to social work.

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