Department of Legal Informatics

Research staff:

Assoc. Prof. Grzegorz Wierczyński, D.Sc. (Head of the Department) [email]

Wojciech R. Wiewiórowski, D.Sc. [email]

Maciej Ferenc, Ph.D. [email]

Patryk Ciurak, M.A. [email] 

Department secretary:

Magdalena Drzycimska, M.A.

e-mail: sekretariat01@prawo.ug.edu.pl

Scientific development and research of the Department
on the 50th Anniversary of the Faculty of Law and Administration (1970-2020)

In the 1990s, many Faculty members participated in the creation of the largest and best known Polish legal information system – LEX Legal Information System. Therefore, six years prior to the introduction of the subject "Information Technology" in administrative and legal studies programmes, when in 2001, Administration full-time studies were reactivated, legal computer science entered the curriculum in this field.Computer science is a very young field of study. With the creation of computerised legal information systems, the ability to collect, systematise, process and search legal information has reached an unprecedented scale. Therefore, the importance of the scientific analysis of these processes and their impact on law-making and application processes has increased. The results of these studies formed an awareness of the need for teaching classes to provide students with structured information on these subjects. Legal computer science research emerged in the second half of the 20th century, and institutionalised research and teaching units began to be established at law faculties in Poland only in recent years. The Laboratory of Legal Informatics at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Gdańsk was one of the first among such units.

The main task of the Department is to create the basis for the development of scientific and teaching activities in the field of legal informatics, understood as the specialised study of information technologies used by lawyers and administration, including, in particular, information and search systems in the field of law (legal information systems), the processes of collecting, processing and searching for legal information and the impact of the legal information flow on the processes of law creation and application. This research is naturally complemented by studies in the fields of law promulgation, legislative technology, and administrative legislation. In the following years, the Department's curriculum expanded and now includes classes in personal data protection and cybersecurity.

For the purpose of teaching, W. Wiewiórowski and G. Wierczyński have developed a textbook entitled Informatyka prawnicza. Technologia informacyjna dla prawników i administracji publicznej (Kraków 2006). It is the first textbook of legal informatics in Poland and has been published in Warsaw in 2008, 2012 and 2016.