During the seminar
During the seminar
Serbia

From 16 to 18 July 2021, IRZ organised a block seminar on German legal terminology with the Faculty of Law in Novi Sad, Serbia. The online event, which was attended by around twenty people, was aimed at German-speaking students and alumni of the faculty, as well as at other German-speaking lawyers from the region.

The objective of the seminar was to encourage potential opinion formers in terms of German legal terminology, since this occupies a special position in the continental European legal sphere. Due to the distinctive systems and terminology, knowledge in this regard opens up important additional sources of information for the participants' work. The lecturer Dr. Marko Knežević illustrated this with the statement that civil proceedings law in Serbia cannot be understood without German technical and language knowledge, as this is strongly oriented towards German and Austrian law in Serbia.

The event was opened by:

  • Prof. Dr. Bojan Tubić, Vice Dean for International Relations at the University of Novi Sad and Deputy Minister for Higher Education at the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia, and
  • Lawyer Dr. Stefan Pürner, head of the “South Eastern Europe I” section at IRZ.
  • As a representative of the German Embassy in Belgrade, Daniel Mohseni particularly emphasised in his welcoming address that the German Foreign Office has been sponsoring a legal terminology course at the Faculty of Law in Belgrade for many years and that its positive results had prompted the faculty in Novi Sad to ask IRZ for cooperation in this field.
  • Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Detlev W. Belling from the Faculty of Law in Potsdam welcomed the participants. His faculty offers a German-language LL.M. programme together with the University of Novi Sad and the University of Szeged in Hungary.

The participants showed a great deal of interest and special competence in the German language. This made the seminar highly interactive and practical. As head of the legal terminology course at the Faculty of Law in Belgrade and author of the only textbook of German legal terminology in Serbia, Danka Stojaković gave a practical insight into the challenges and subtleties of German legal language. The conclusion of their practical exercises was: “English is a must, German is a plus.”

With their testimonials, several alumni of the legal terminology course in Belgrade and a former trainee lawyer illustrated the various possibilities for using the German language in the legal field. In the meantime, the alumni are completing a Master's or doctoral programme on German law.

In order to create a pleasant and relaxed working atmosphere despite the online format, an informal online dinner was included in the programme, which was very positively received by the participants and provided an opportunity for personal exchange. A legal quiz provided variety and humorous technical discussions.