KritV Kritische Vierteljahresschrift für Gesetzgebung und Rechtswissenschaft

Until well into the present day, the ancient democracy of the Athenians was regarded by historians as an aliud unsuitable as a role model. After the horrors of the French Revolution, discrediting it as mass rule leading to ruin was the programme of...

The article traces the roots of the rule of law in ancient Greece. The people's assembly, the people's court, the creation of law and the administration of justice were transferred into the hands of the citizens. The result was legally created...

The article deals with the conceptual development and current challenges of democratic systems, particularly in the area of tension between citizen participation and professional expertise. Direct democracy, in which citizens made political...

Contrary to a common contemporary perception of direct democracy as an unorganized, mass democracy Athenian democracy was a structured democracy with a deeply cultivated sense of justice. The element of deliberation, that is, of organized discussion...

This paper attempts to give a more qualified measurement of what is known as democratic deficit, through a comparison of democratization criteria in Classical Athens and modern Greece. We first present a short analysis of the Classical Athenian...