Poprzez prawo rzymskie ponad komparatystykę

The title of the paper is a paraphrase of Jhering’s sentence “Through the Roman law but above the Roman law”. Putting this statement into the context of Savigny’s and Windscheid’s opinions on the future role of the Roman law the author has explained the Jhering’s dictum as an expression of the realistic approach to the workability of the Roman law for the jurisprudence. Essential for bringing about the aforementioned workability is – according to the author – the link between Roman law and legal methods. In this perspective the author discussed waning authority of Roman law at the faculties of law and little success of recent proposals to bring Roman law and comparative law closer. The main message of the paper is that Roman law can be useful for modern jurisprudence if we revive the tie between Roman law and legal methods, a connection which, as it is submitted it may be reasonably argued, may be revived due to significant potential of comparative reasoning for judicial practice in the time of globalization. The crux of any formative steps to that end shall be forging changes in legal education, which predominant focus should be rested upon legal problems. Inasmuch as systematic digitalization of these problems, subject to initial detection and centuries-long discussion within the civil law tradition, and assimilation of modern judgments from different jurisdictions can be put together in a uniform database, these developments are capable of bringing this legal experience closer to the practical legal debates.