Prof. Dr. Nikolas Eisentraut

The article presents the initiative for open jurisprudence “OpenRewi”. The original goal of the initiative is to create a supporting infrastructure and platform for legal scholars who want to publish textbooks and other teaching materials, as well as anthologies, monographs and commentaries openly, i.e. open access. So far, no infrastructure or platform has been established for Open Access book publications that adequately reflects the specific needs of legal publishing. OpenRewi takes up exactly this need and at the same time be an impetus for a reform of legal publication culture.

In the past legislative period, the federal state of Berlin dared to undertake several progressive legislative projects and reforms: In addition to the »Berlin rent cap« that failed before the BVerfG, the reform of police and public order law and the enactment of an independent Berlin Freedom of Assembly Act, the Berlin Higher Education Act was also modified in key aspects. Both in terms of higher education policy and law, the new provision of Section 110 (6) sentence 2 of the Berlin Higher Education Act (BerlHG) has caused a stir and attracted nationwide attention. For the first time, the norm provides for the mandatory deferral of postdoctoral positions for Berlin universities.

In the area of public sector self-management, there is no call for tenders, and public procurement law does not apply. This „principle of the freedom from tender for self-management“ appears directly accessible at first glance. However, the principle is difficult to apply in legal practice. How far it exempts entities within the public sector from competitive tendering is the subject of constant dispute. This is made more difficult by the fact that the principle has not yet had a solid foundation in primary and constitutional law that could guide the discussion about its scope. The article explores the origin of the principle and substantiates it in terms of primary and constitutional law.

Law as Open Science promises better access to more diverse scholarly literature and teaching or learning materials, transparent writing and citation styles, and more diverse authors, editors and readers. These potentials must be measured against the real existing book market in jurisprudence. So far, the orientation towards the printed monograph and the associated "Open Access fees" and established logics of reputation prevent many possibilities. In this context, an open science transformation would offer the chance to realise the promises of digitisation more extensively than before.