Problem of Modern Legal Education

The Plenary Session, which brought the programme of the International Youth Legal Forum to a close, featured speeches by leading national lawyers.

Moderator Sergey Belov, Dean of the Faculty of Law, St. Petersburg State University, mentioned how “this year’s Youth Legal Forum is not a separate, satellite event, as in previous years, but part of the larger St. Petersburg International Legal Forum, and a great many students, postgraduate students, and young colleagues are taking part in it. One of the main and most relevant problems on the mind of everyone gathered at this Forum today is the problem of modern legal education”.

Olga Alexandrova, Rector, The All-Russian State University of Justice, spoke on this topic. She stressed that it was the high efficiency of the education system that largely determined the strength and wealth of a country in the modern world. “For quite some time now, we have been feeling an urge to internationalize higher education, which in itself isn’t a bad thing at all. The introduction of the Bologna Process was controversial and did not enjoy the unconditional support of the higher education community. And in the context of the recent tectonic changes taking place, states are beginning to rethink the role and importance of integration processes in education,” the rector said.

On the one hand, she continued, the vast majority of law schools have managed in recent decades to adapt to the two-tier system of higher legal education and have developed master’s programmes that are in great demand. At the same time, significant disparities in the legal regulation of two-tier higher education also exist.

“A truly strange and paradoxical situation has developed: In-depth study of special theoretical (research) and practical (practice-oriented) courses have turned into an attempt to convey rather complex matters to those lacking the basics, which leads to a decrease in the quality of education,” the speaker said.

The second most important problem in improving legal education in the country, according to the rector, is a question of personnel: “What is needed today is the mandatory involvement of practitioners, so-called top-level lawyers with unique competencies in specific areas of the law”.

Olga Aleksandrova also spoke about a third factor: enthusiasm for the so-called digital education space. In her view, this could lead to a degradation of professional knowledge, with “students deprived of all or a large part of direct interaction with a teacher”. “Students of this kind possess significantly inferior communication skills as future lawyers and are unable to fully grasp the ethics of law, the principles that are laid down in direct communication between a student and teacher. Consequently, distance and online technologies should only be employed as a supplement to traditional forms of higher legal education, provided that such forms themselves do not become frozen in time but continue to be enriched and improved,” the rector said.

The plenary session was addressed by Alexander Bastrykin, Chairman, Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. He continued the theme of higher legal education by calling for a decisive return to domestic education and the Russian tradition, for which “science and education were fundamental”.

The second thing the chairman of the Investigative Committee touched on was the Special Military Operation in Ukraine. He stressed that “the actions of the Ukrainian military have been qualified as genocide, and under Article 12 of the Russian Criminal Code, we have the right to protect citizens abroad holding Russian and Ukrainian passports”. The speaker stressed that a large team of investigators consisting of some 300 individuals had been established, “to investigate genocide and war crimes”. He also said that Ukraine was preparing an attack on the DPR and Russia in March: “We have information that states that the Ukrainians intended to launch a special operation on the territory of Donetsk with access to the Russian border on 8 March”.

Continuing the topic of the special operation, the speaker said: “According to our data, 2,500 children have been killed in Donbas. 15,000 civilians have been killed and wounded since 2014. And everyone who is ashamed to be Russian today held their silence”.

On 20 June, the Russian Investigative Committee forwarded 10 criminal cases of crimes committed by the Kiev regime against civilians to prosecutor’s offices in the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics.

Taking part in the discussion was Konstantin Chuychenko, Minister of Justice of the Russian Federation. He suggested the creation of a ranking of law schools because, in his opinion, “in the 1990s, there were too many law schools with graduates who couldn’t find work. In this regard, we propose establishing and organizing a ranking of law schools”. And he added that the Association of Lawyers should be the most active participant in this work: “We need to make sure that the ranking has some implications for both faculty and students”.

Vladislav Arkhipov, Head of the Department of Theory and History of State and Law, St. Petersburg State University, wrapped up the discussion by saying: “Our domestic legal tradition is one of the world’s best, so we have no need of import substitution in this case. The combination of the traditions of domestic education and innovation is something we can be rightfully proud of, and it serves as the foundation for our future”.

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