A lecture on the theme “Legal training in Germany” took place on 6 November 2023 at the Kragujevac Faculty of Law in Serbia, which the IRZ used to bolster the Faculty’s existing orientation towards the German training model.
The lecture was given in the Serbian language by the responsible IRZ Project Area Manager, Dr. Stefan Pürner. Approx. 50 professionals attended the event who are already working with the German case method in some events, and were particularly interested in the predominantly written nature of the legal exams, the anonymous assessment of such, the legal grading system and the range of training phases during the internship. Speakers and participants also discussed the influence of artificial intelligence on the content of legal training.
The fact that German law is the subject of such intensive discussions in Kragujevac today is all the more remarkable, as the city was the scene of a mass shooting by the German Wehrmacht during the Second World War, in which entire school classes were also executed. The IRZ has supported the university's Faculty of Law for many years, e.g. through donations of expert legal literature, and was honoured for its commitment during the celebrations for the Faculty's 50th anniversary.
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.
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.
