Serbia

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

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Published: February 27, 2023
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

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Published: August 15, 2022
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.

Publication of translations of the German StGB (German Criminal Code) into Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian

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Published: March 29, 2022
South Eastern Europe

A new translation of the German Criminal Code into Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian has been published by the IRZ, with an introduction written by the Research Director at the Institute for Eastern Law in Regensburg, Prof. Dr Dres. h.c. Friedrich-Christian Schroeder.

The book is part of a series of publications with translations of German laws into the languages of the partner states in South Eastern Europe, which are intended to strengthen the role of German law as an orientation law in legal transformation. The Minister of Justice of Northern Macedonia, Prof. Dr. Nikola Tupancheski, himself a professor of criminal law and a member of the local expert commission for the reform of the criminal code until he took office, recently confirmed the important role of the publication.

The translations are not only used to inform groups of experts working on draft reform laws, but are also used by scholars researching on comparative law, practitioners working across borders and students. They are also a popular tool for learning German legal terminology.