Scientific and practical conference on "Legislative Process, Legal Socialisation and Legal Consciousness (Legal-Sociological and Criminological Aspects)", organised by the Institute for the State and the Law at BAS and the Bulgarian Association of Criminology

On 17 December 2014, the Institute for the State and the Law at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences held a scientific and practical conference organised by the Department of Public Law of the ISL at BAS jointly with the Bulgarian Association of Criminology, on the topic "Legislative Process, Legal Socialisation and Legal Consciousness (Legal-Sociological and Criminological Aspects)".

The conference was part of a series of scientific events of the Institute for the State and the Law at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences dedicated to the 145th anniversary of the founding of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. 
Scholars and doctoral students from the ISL, Sofia University "St Kliment Ohridski", the Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge at BAS, and the Academy of the Ministry of the Interior, as well as practising lawyers, took part in the conference with papers and statements. The keynote paper on the topic was presented by Prof. Stefka Naumova, PhD, Head of the Department of Public Law at the ISL.
The paper gave particular attention to the especially topical problem of the contemporary legislative process in the context of EU law, as well as to the functional characteristics of legal consciousness under the conditions of global economic and political change in modern society. The papers of Prof. Valentina Zlatanova of the Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge at BAS, Assoc. Prof. Petya Shopova, PhD, member of the Bulgarian Association of Criminology, and Assoc. Prof. Nadezhda Yonkova, PhD, of the ISL were devoted to the problems of legal socialisation and its influence on the formation of the legal consciousness of young people. Topical problems of contemporary legislative practice were presented in their papers by Prof. Emilia Drumeva, PhD, and Prof. Ivan Stoyanov, PhD, of the ISL at BAS. In an analytical context, data were presented from empirical legal-sociological studies devoted both to changes in administrative and criminal legislation and to the main strategic measures taken by state authorities to limit social deviance and crime. In most of the papers the emphasis was placed on the need to unite the efforts of legal and sociological science in order to increase the effectiveness of legislation, especially in areas affecting human rights, the participation of civil society in shaping the contours of the contemporary legislative process, and the enhancement of the institutional legal culture of the new citizens of Europe. Doctoral students from the Department of Public Law also contributed papers.

The papers from the conference are to be published in a collection dedicated to the 145th anniversary of the founding of BAS.