This year, three students from the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences attended to the “Academy of European Public Law” summer intensive academic training program offered by the European Public Law Organization (EPLO). The academic and financial support provided to the students by the International Regional Studies Institute of the Faculty with the grant given by the Hungarian Ministry of Justice. Due to the Covid-19 measures, this year’s program was also offered online-only in between the 23rd of August 2021 and the 10th of September 2021.
The Doctoral School of Law students, Yasin Tokat, Ferdous Rahman, and Pavlo Burdiak, enjoyed listening esteemed lecturers from top universities of Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain. Additionally, a guest lecturer from the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Office of the UNODC enriched the content of this year’s program. The lectures were broken down into the theoretical lectures which were accomplished with the students’ essays in a related chosen topic.
This year’s Academy brought two topics taught within two intensive modules of 30 teaching modules each. Professor Martin Belov, Associate Professor in Constitutional and Comparative Constitutional Law at the University of Sofia “St. Kliment Ohridski” who was also a speaker at one of the earlier conferences organized by the International and Regional Studies Institute in cooperation with the EPLO gave a lecture on the comparative constitutionalism, focusing on convergence and divergence among various constitution and constitutionalism. During his lecture, the students received distinctive information on distinctive topics such as history of modern constitutionalism, contemporary constitutionalism, typology of constitutionalism, constitutional identity in legal discourses, constitutionalism in the EU, digital constitutionalism, and many more. The second module focused on the challenges and prospects on the EU’s economic and monetary union, mainly, topics such as monetary policy, public finances, debts and budget deficit, national economic performance policies, banking unit, and EU budget.
Our students overall evaluated the Program as open for brainstorming thoughts and discussion which lead them to learn more about skills than mere informative knowledge. Activities held during the sessions made the students more engaged and collaborative, as they reported. Ms. Rahman stated that she would strongly suggest her other colleagues to pursue this program in next years. Another participant, Mr. Burdiak noted that the comparative constitutionalism topic fits in his current PhD research from the aspect that the issues related to the establishment of the normative order of the Internet and the protection of human rights online. Finally, Mr. Tokat reported that he would keep his contact with the EPLO for future events and occasions.
This year, it was Mr. Tokat and Ms.Rahman’s second participation to the Academy, who also both wrote a thesis in order to receive the Intensive International Master of Laws (IILLM) degree in European Public Law, a degree issued by the EPLO and accredited in the countries where EPLO collaboration is available. Both of the students accomplished the necessary steps to go further with their thesis defense and after a successful thesis defense, they received the IILLM degree in European Public Law. Congratulations to our students for reaching to such an achievement!
