Participation of the students of the FIR in Central and Eastern European Moot Court Competition in Sofia

Team of students of the Faculty of International Relations composed of Ivana Krečová, Berenika Nečasová, Anna Nedvědová and Veronika Nožičková under the leadership of coach Pavlína Hubková took part in the international round of the Central European Competition Moot Court Competition (CEEMC) which was taking place during last week of April in Sofia, Bulgaria.

CEEMC is a well-established moot court, a Simulated Jurisdiction within the framework of which the Central European and East European teams meet each year. Students have an invaluable chance to try out the flow of judicial proceedings before the Court of Justice of the European Union – from analyzing a case and extensive related materials, through writing submissions to reviewing opposite arguments in court. This event also brought together European academics and prominent personalities from European law practice, such as Eleanor Sharpston, Advocate General for the United Kingdom, or Michal Bobek, Advocate General for the Czech Republic.

The competition is organized by the British Legal Center, part of the Juris Angliae Scientia Ltd. The court case is a fictitious one, which is nevertheless always focused on the current issues and based on real European law. For 2017, this was asylum, an association agreement between the EU and a third country and the right to a fair trial. The students’ team first responds in writing to the so-called Preliminary Questions posed by a fictitious national court. Successful teams of the first round will then meet in a selected European city where they present their arguments orally during the so-called pleading. Students must be ready to formulate their arguments clearly and respond quickly and convincingly to the complex questions of judges.

The greatest success for the FIR students was the evaluation of their written submissions, it was placed at 6th – 8th place – and they obtained the same number of points as the CU Law Faculty. In the oral round, they had intended to go among the future lawyers mainly to gain valuable experience, but managed to gain a very good placement in a challenging competition.

Although most of the weekend is filled with pleadings before judges, but the major objective of the competition is to enable international contacts among students. For example, participants have an opportunity to dinner with other teams and judges, during which they can get to know each other and discuss international issues.

The winner of this year’s team was the home one of St. Louis University. Kliment Ohridski in Sofia. Besides the University of Economics Prague, Czech Republic was also represented by Charles University, whose team got to the finest finals. Congratulations!