E-mail contact: jela@lawevidence.eu
Editor in Chief: Mgr. Alexandra Molitorisová
In 2020, a group of young legal scholars, fascinated by the work of Prof. William Twinning and Prof. Mirjan Damaška, belonging to universities in Germany, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands, founded JELA – the Journal of Evidence, Law & Art. JELA’s first volume will be published in 2020. One volume of JELA will normally contain two issues, published in Spring and Winter of the year. It is also envisaged to create a forum for the informal discussion of questions pertaining to the law of evidence, proof and fact-finding in the legal domain or the public sphere.
The vision is that JELA will be a recognised periodical and that JELA’s readership will grow gradually over the years. JELA will be not available via traditional venues such as big publishing houses. Rather, JELA will be published in a small boutique way and will be available in print in bookshops that combine a unique craft of curatorship, a sense for extraordinary bookshop architecture and family-like coziness. This will contribute to immersive reading of JELA because the place where we buy literature and where we go to get our readings can make us bump into unexpected encounters, make fresh acquaintances and friendships, read and laugh together. We don’t want you to miss those things. And one must not forget that one also contributes to the local business. JELA does not aim primarily at large university libraries or major international law firms. JELA is more like a collectible. You can live without it but something urges you to search for another one. Yet, if governments, law firms, universities, research or international organisations would like to give a treat to their employees that can circulate in the office by subscribing to JELA, JELA would be happy to provide for that option.
JELA attempts to expand publication to different corners of the world. For that reason, a fairly priced online edition for individuals and individuals only will be available. But JELA should be treated as a collectible – with its front page, paper grammage, hilarious editorials, puzzles for lawyers and fact-finding riddles. JELA is also not a single-theme journal. The area of evidence, proof and fact-finding will allow editors to experiment with theme issues. It will also include topical issues – such as pandemics, 5G, pesticides, space race, satellite constellations, novel foods, MeToo and all sorts of pressing and controversial issues that the world has to offer. Over time, we would like to stabilise the themes tackled by JELA and return to the selected themes on a periodic basis.
JELA will particularly support non-affiliated individual researchers and researchers from countries with poor and underfunded library resources, whose curiosity drive them to read state-of-the-art legal research while having fun and enjoying playing games.