BIOGRAPHY

Marek Safjan prof. UW

Marek Safjan is a Polish

lawyer, judge, and academic.

He was born on August 28, 1949, in Warsaw. He graduated from the A.F. Modrzewski High School in Warsaw in 1967 and began his studies at the Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Warsaw. In 1971, he obtained a master’s degree in law and then started his judicial apprenticeship, completing it in 1973 with a judicial exam. Since 1972, he has been working as a research fellow in the Department of Civil Law at the University of Warsaw.

In 1976, Safjan pursued legal-comparative studies at the Faculte Internationale de Droit Compare in Strasbourg. In 1980, he earned a doctoral degree in legal sciences for his dissertation on the institution of substitute families, supervised by Professor Tomasz Dybowski. He then took a position as an assistant professor in the Department of Civil Law at UW. In 1983, he went on a scholarly internship at the University of Montreal, Canada, as a visiting professor.

Due to the reactivation of the Faculty of Secular and Canonical Law at the University of Lublin, Safjan collaborated with this institution from 1985 to 1995 while continuing his academic work at UW. In 1989, he completed an internship at the Legal Department of the Council of Europe. In 1990, he obtained a habilitation degree based on his work on the limits of intervention in human procreation, which was honored with the State and Law Award in 1991 for the best habilitation thesis.

Safjan was invited to collaborate as an expert with the Canadian Committee for Law Reform in 1990. From 1991 to 1998, he held the position of associate professor and later full professor at the University of Warsaw. In 1991, he received a professorial grant at the University of Leuven in Belgium and collaborated with the Center for Bioethics and Medical Law at that university.

From 1993 to 1995, Safjan served as the director of the Institute of Civil Law at UW, and from 1995 to 1997, he held the position of vice-rector at the University of Warsaw. Additionally, from 1996 to 1998, he was appointed as the secretary-general of the Polish section of the Association Internationale des Amis de la Culture Juridique Francaise.

Between 1990 and 1994, Safjan represented Poland in the Committee for Data Protection of the Council of Europe, and from 1991 to 1997, he represented Poland and was a member of the Presidium of the Bioethics Committee of the Council of Europe, working on the draft of the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine.

From 1991 to 1997, he led research in the field of civil law and European law at the Institute of Justice, during which a series of publications on European legal standards based on Council of Europe conventions and recommendations, as well as the first publications on community company law, were published under his editorship.

From 1998 to 2012, Safjan served as the chairman of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Justice. In 1994, he was appointed a member of the first Board of the Banking Guarantee Fund and held this position until 1997.

From 1995 to 2018, Safjan was a member of the Ethics Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences. In 1997, he was elected by the Sejm (Polish Parliament) as a judge of the Constitutional Tribunal, and in 1998, he assumed the position of President of the Constitutional Tribunal, holding this role until 2006.
In 2007-2008, he was a fellow at the European University Institute in Florence as part of the Fernand Braudel Senior Fellowship. In 2010, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from this institution.

In 2009, Safjan was appointed a judge of the Court of Justice of the European Union. During his term, he served as the president of the chamber on three occasions. Since 2002, he has been a member of the Polish Academy of Learning (since 2022, an active member).

From 2010 to 2018, Safjan served as the Vice-President of the International Academy of Comparative Law (IACL) based in Paris.

In addition to his academic and research activities, after 1980, Marek Safjan participated in the faculty and university structures of the „Solidarnosc” movement, including co-founding the first „Solidarnosc” circle at the Faculty of Law at the University of Warsaw. During the martial law period, he was a member of the underground organization „Polish Conservative-Liberal Party 'Independence'” and a co-publisher of the underground magazine „Independence.” From 1988 to 1989, he was a member of the Social Legislative Council and participated in the preparation of the first draft of the law on the National Council of the Judiciary. From 1985 to 1988, within the underground structures of „Solidarnosc,” he lectured at the so-called Independent People’s University in Lubochnia. After 1990, he became a member of the Helsinki Committee in Poland, and from 2007 to 2009, he chaired the reactivated „Experience and Future” colloquium. He is the honorary chairman of the Chapter of the Higher Education Ranking of the Perspektywy magazine.