“Evolution instead of revolution” – conference on continental European law

Participants at the conference on continental European law held in Belgrade on 2 December 2022.
Participants at the conference on continental European law held in Belgrade on 2 December 2022.
Serbia

The work of IRZ aims to further develop the legal systems in its partner countries in a way that is user-friendly.

“Hybrid” laws with regulations that exploit a range of legal traditions, e.g. the common law and continental European law, are overwhelming the legal practitioners. This is one of the main problems of legal transformation.

IRZ highlights this fact every year with a conference on continental European law organised jointly with the Faculty of Law in Belgrade, which was held on 2 December 2022 as a face-to-face event for the first time since a break of three years.

The event focused on presentations by constitutional judges Prof Dr Milan Škulic and Prof Dr Milos Živković, which were also published in the magazine “Kontinentalno pravo: časopis za održiv i skladan razvoj prava (KoPra)” / “Continental Law: Journal for Sustainable and Appropriate Legal Development”.

In his lecture, Professor Škulić presented the attitude of various legal systems in continental European law and common law to polygraphs (“lie detectors”) in a comparative legal manner. He explained that these devices only detect physical reactions, which are often exhibited by people who are lying. However, these devices cannot recognise the truth content in a statement. The results of such examinations cannot be used as a free judicial assessment of evidence in legal systems that have no legal stipulation on the use of polygraphs in criminal proceedings, as “irrational methods of any kind” are also excluded here in the context of gathering evidence.

Professor Živković’s lecture dealt with the proof of property rights in rem. He highlighted the differences between continental European law and common law and explored the rules of the different systems. He emphasised that these systems work most effectively within the legal tradition that produced them There are limits to what can be “transplanted”. Overall, he assessed the continental European land register as the safest and most functional system, but the introduction of such entailed the highest costs. He also pointed out the implementation deficits in the relevant reforms in Serbia.

The participants included constitutional judges, presidents of courts, scientists and students, who all listened to the presentations with great interest. There was lively discussion and commentary, with calls for more attention to be paid to the traditions of their own countries in the legal transformation.

The model is the German Criminal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure

Prof Dr Stanko Bejatović during his presentation
Prof Dr Stanko Bejatović during his presentation
Serbia

The traditional conference of the Serbian Association of Criminal Law Theory and Practice took place in Zlatibor (Serbia) on 22-24 September 2022. IRZ organised the event with the Ministry of Justice, the Academy of Justice and the Institute for Criminological and Sociological Research.

Approx. 300 participants attended the event, including ministry officials, academics, judges, lawyers and students. The organisers provided the translations of the German StGB (German Penal Code) and the StPO (German Code of Civil Procedure) published by IRZ this year with a technical introduction.

The German-speaking criminal law experts, constitutional judge Prof Dr Milan Škulić and Prof Dr Stanko Bejatović all praised the publications and the quality of the translations. They stressed that these texts should be used as a guide for future legislative reform projects to counteract the trend towards hybrid laws in criminal law and criminal procedure law, which has been regularly observed in recent years and which arose from the influence of the United States.

Lawyer Dr Stefan Pürner, the responsible Head of Section of the IRZ, speaks fluent Serbian, and referred to the extensive experience of the IRZ. The IRZ expertise is helpful to avoid legislative wrong turns, including the adoption of legal institutions that are alien to the system.

The translations have received a very positive response in the region as a whole. Both the Association of Permanent Court Translators and Interpreters of Serbia and the Association of Translators and Interpreters in neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina recommend the volumes to their members on the LinkedIn website.

Students learn more about international legal advice

Announcement of the event on the Facebook page of ELSA Regensburg.
Announcement of the event on the Facebook page of ELSA Regensburg.
Serbia

The virtual talk on “International legal advice from Germany for transition states” for students at the Heidelberg and Regensburg faculty groups of the European Law Students’ Association (ELSA) was held on 25 June 2022.

Numbering 50,000 members in total, ELSA is the world’s largest association of law students. It aims to promote and encourage mutual understanding and collaboration and organises gatherings of future and early career lawyers from different countries and legal systems.

With this in mind, the participants were keen to hear more about the structure and methodologies of IRZ and about technical questions such as competing legal systems in transition states. There was a particular interest in the opportunity of completing internships with IRZ and of pursuing a career in the area of legal transformation.

The talk was held by the lawyer Dr Stefan Pürner, Head of Section at IRZ for project area 7 (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia), who was among the co-initiators of the Regensburg faculty group of ELSA in 1989. 

Contact between the project area and the faculty groups was established as part of the programme initiated by IRZ to encourage language tandems  between law students from South Eastern Europe and Germany.