János Jany - Biography#

Jany János was born in Budapest (1969) who entered the best law school of his country at Eötvös Loránd University (1987) where he graduated with summa cum laude in 1992. During his studies he realised that every day legal practice is not the way he wishes to follow but legal science is. It was legal history that he found particularly interesting but legal anthropology and legal philosophy was also among his favourite subjects. This is why after graduating, Jany continued his studies at the Faculty of Humanities of the same university where he studied oriental (Iranian) studies because his interest focused rather on the legal history of non-European societies and was convinced that such research would be baseless without proper training in languages, history and literature. After graduating in Iranian studies with summa cum laude (1996) he submitted his first PhD dissertation about Zoroastrian law which was honoured summa cum laude (2000) by a committee of experts among whom Prof. János Harmatta, a world-known expert is particularly worth mentioning. After spending some years at Eötvös Loránd University he joined the newly founded Pázmány University to teach and research legal history and oriental studies both at the faculties of Law and Humanities. With the collaboration of his colleagues at both faculties he founded the academic program of International Studies BA-MA. This is why he was elected to head the new Department of International Studies. Next, he enlarged the study centre with Political Science (BA-MA) and also Chinese and Far Eastern Studies (BA-MA). As a result, a huge institute came into being which he headed as its creator for a decade (2008-2018). In the meantime, Jany accomplished his second PhD dissertation, this time in the field of legal sociology, with a comparison of Jewish, Islamic and Zoroastrian legal thinking. The resulting book was published by Ashgate in 2012 and praised by Prof. Bernard S. Jackson, a well-known expert in legal philosophy and Jewish law.

Having found his own way, methods and academic view, Jany became a strong supporter of interdisciplinary reseach combining legal studies with various fields of humanities such as civilisation theories and literature. This unique voice is the reason why his publications are welcome at international journals all over the world. Most recently, he was invited to Princeton to speak about some theoretic issues of Zoroastrian law and to Victoria University (Canada) to teach Zoroastrian law there. His last contribution is a monograph about the system of global law, combining jurisprudence with civilisation theories. The book was published in Hungarian and now he is working now on its English translation.