Graduated from the Faculty of Law in Split in 1974. Received a master’s degree in 1980 from the Faculty of Law in Belgrade (topic: The Right to Freedom of the Press, Its Significance and Development in Yugoslavia), and a doctorate from the same faculty in 1988 (topic: The Principles of the Division and Unity of Power in Yugoslavia). Worked at the Faculty of Law, University of Split from 1974 to 2024. Regularly promoted from the title of assistant to the title of full professor, to which he was first elected in 1997. From 2003 until his retirement, full professor of Constitutional Law in a permanent position. Previously head of the Department of Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law in Split and founder of the Seminar for Legal, Political and Economic Research of the European Union (SPEEU). Principal investigator of several successful scientific research projects from 1990 to the present.

He improved his comparative law knowledge through multiple study stays and research work abroad: University of Amsterdam – University of Leyden (Amsterdam-Leyden, 1975); East Anglia University School of Law (Norwich, 1982); London School of Economics and Political Science, (London, 1983); Notre Dame University (Notre Dame School of Law, South Band, USA (1988), Central European University (Department of Law and Political Science) Budapest (1996), University of Oxford, Ruskin College (1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000).

As a member of the Constitutional Commission of the Parliament of the Republic of Croatia from among the experts during the 1990s, he participated in the drafting of the first Constitution of the Republic of Croatia (1990). Member of the Expert Group of the President of the Republic of Croatia, which worked on the preparation of the expert basis for the proposal of the President of the Republic to amend the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia in 2000. As a member of the expert group of the Government of the Republic of Croatia, he worked on the preparation of the amendment of the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia and the constitutionalization of the European clause (2010).

Full member of the Croatian Law Academy, the Croatian Association for Comparative Law, the Croatian Law Center. Associate member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts since 2008. Full member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts since 2018. Founder and first president of the Croatian Association for Constitutional Law (since 2002). Member of the Executive Committee of the International Association of Constitutional Law (2003-2008). Member of the Standing Committee for Social Sciences of the European Science Foundation (2008-2012); Member of the ESF Review Group (reviewer for legal sciences of the ESF) (2012). Editor of the Miroslav Krleža Legal Lexicon in the field of constitutional (public) law (2010). Editor-in-Chief of the Proceedings of the Faculty of Law in Split (2004 > 2020).

Author of books and other monographic publications and more than a hundred scientific articles and other contributions in reputable scientific and professional magazines and publications of a legal and political nature. Among the most important books are: Constitutional Law and Political Institutions, Republic of Croatia and the Challenges of Constitutionalism, Lexicon of the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, Legislature and Parliamentarism, Parliamentary law and comparative law, Croatian parliamentary procedures, Constitutional democracy and courts, Politics and law in the struggle for the court. Translated the classic study by F. v. Hayek The Political Ideal of the Rule of Law.

Since the end of 2025, President of the Scientific Council for Public Administration, Judiciary and the Rule of Law of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and head of the Adriatic Institute of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts from the beginning of 2026.