Jean-Gérard-Joseph Ernst
During the University's first five years, the Faculty of Law had just three professors. Jean-Gérard-Joseph Ernst taught modern civil law , natural law and public law. He became the University's third Rector in the 1819-1820 academic year. He held this position twice more, in 1827-1828 and 1834-1835.
Jean-Gérard-Joseph Ernst (1782-1842), a native of Aubel and the elder brother of two other eminent jurists, Antoine Nicolas-Joseph and Lambert, acquired his first rudiments of law in the field, from the Liège lawyer Jean-Hubert Vincent, before enrolling at the Brussels Law School, founded in 1806, from which he graduated as first doctor in 1810. There, he was incharge of commenting on the Napoleonic Code until his appointment as full professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Liège (1817), where he taught modern civil law, natural law and public law (in the tradition of the French Merlin school), while also serving as rector three times (1819-1820, 1827-1828 and 1834-1835).
The institution was particularly grateful for his diplomacy in managing the violent conflict between students and the academic body over a regulation on course attendance (1826-1827). Called upon to serve as an expert on various government commissions tasked with reorganizing education, he preferred his professorial career to the position of secretary-inspector of the University that was offered to him. When the Organic Law of 1835 was promulgated, Ernst left Liège for Louvain, where he was appointed Professor of National Law and Advanced Civil Law.
All verse : Bernard-Ignace Denzinger
Illustration: Jean-Gérard-Joseph Ernst, photograph of a graphic composition, s.d., Musée Wittert ULiège,inv. 22285
