
The very inception of law studies in Osijek date back to 1961, when the University of Zagreb's Faculty of Law organised its short-lived study of law here. This was followed by the introduction of
continuous education of lawyers as part of the Study of Law at the Faculty of Economics in Osijek in 1973. Two years later, lack of qualified lawyers in the regions of Slavonia and Baranja and
efforts to raise and improve the educational profile of the local populace were the core reasons that the Study of Law was expanded into a fully-fledged Faculty of Law.
In its first years of activity, the teaching staff was mostly comprised of teachers from the Faculty of Economics in Osijek and renowned
visiting professors of the University of Zagreb's Faculty of Law. In the mid-1980s, thanks to selfless efforts of the staff and the first Dean, Professor Dragutin Rilke, the Faculty managed to
appoint its own teachers for all courses. The Faculty of Law in Osijek is organised into 10 Chairs, each comprising mutually related subjects, with the other organizational units being the
Library, Secretariat, Law and Economics Clinic, Green Law Clinic, Law Clinic OSIJEK PRO BON and the Lifelong Learning and Foreign Languages Section.
"Things can always be better! We need to keep pace with the times and new circumstances, circumstances that bring challenges, but circumstances which first and foremost bring possibilities and opportunities – possibilities and opportunities our employees and students can successfully take advantage of."
Tunjica Petrasevic, PhD, Associate Professor
For more then four decades of the Faculty's existence, several dozens of international and national scientific research projects have been implemented. Its EU-funded projects, such as Jean Monnet chairs and modules, as well as those financed by the Croatian Science foundation, deserve special mention.
80 scientific and expert projects
3 Jean Monnet Chairs and 2 Jean Monnet Modules
3 scientific journals
Since its foundation in 1975, the following deans served at the Faculty:
Their work was marked by various social and political circumstances, Faculty's needs and development strategies. In the early years, efforts were focused on strengthening and building the internal educational and scientific capacities and positioning the Faculty within the newly-formed academic community of the 1970s and 1980s. The end of the Communist period marked a shift towards establishing stronger connections with economic operators in the region, and the war and post-war 1990s required significant efforts in securing the normal functioning of the academic life and research activity. In recent years, the Faculty has been facing the challenges of harmonisation with and functioning within the frame of the Bologna Process, as well as of providing a vertical higher education structure at the undergraduate, graduate, postgraduate doctoral and professional levels and lifelong learning programmes. Spatial issues related to the number of students and significant influx of young research and teaching staff have in recent years resulted in the need to secure a permanent location for the Faculty of Law in Osijek, consistent with the requirements of universities in the 21st century.
The quality of teaching and scientific research can be fostered and improved only through continuous efforts to create links between the practice and theory of law, active involvement of students in law as a living matter that significantly affects human fates, cooperation with state attorneys, legal practitioners, courts, economic operators and civil society organisations. The Faculty's mission is to prepare students for valuable and independent work within the frame of legal profession and give them the necessary basics for further professional and academic profiling pro futuro. Permanent investment into human resources, equipment, research materials and into securing adequate working conditions for students and the staff is therefore conditio sine qua non in terms of the subsistence and prosperity of the Faculty as one of the oldest constituents of the Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek and the only higher education institution in the field of law in eastern Croatia.