German-speaking IRZ alumni from four countries in Belgrade

Participants of the alumni workshop in Belgrade.
Participants of the alumni workshop in Belgrade.
Serbia

After a three-year break, the annual workshop of German-speaking IRZ alumni took place in Belgrade from 8 to 10 December 2023 with a focus on "News from German law". This year the event was funded by the publishing house C.H. Beck, Munich.

The workshop offered former participants of various IRZ activities organised in German (e.g. work shadowing for various legal professions, courses in German legal language, summer school in German law, (former) accompanying studies in German law at the Faculty of Law in Sarajevo) an occasion to learn about current developments in the legal system in Germany and in the participating countries and to exchange ideas with each other in German. The participating lawyers from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Serbia also had the opportunity to expand their own regional networks.

This year's event focused however on presentations in German, which were given by the alumni themselves and by German-speaking researchers (Professor Dr Alexander Spasov, Skopje, Professor Dr Marko Knežević, Novi Sad, Professor Dr Slavko Djordjević, Kragujevac and – via video link – Professor Dr Meliha Povlakić, Sarajevo).Of particular interest to the practising lawyers was the presentation by Dr Veronika Denninger, Managing Director for International Affairs at the German Federal Bar, on the topic of "Current developments in the German legal profession – digitalization of the judiciary, legal tech, demographics".

The participants also received selected German-language legal literature.

They judged the workshop to be a complete success.