Partner of “YUST” told the students of MGIMO why Greece will never repay its debts

On November 30, the ceremony of awards of the winners of the Second All-Russian Competition of Research Papers by young scientists on comparative jurisprudence was held in MGIMO. Representatives of the largest law firms handed the awards to the finalists and told how comparative jurisprudence helps them in everyday work.

Alexey Malinovsky, Professor of the International Law Faculty of MGIMO, delivered the opening speech. He said that he knew each paper “almost as well as the author”, since he had read them all. According to the Professor, the level of fulfilling the task by young scientists was high. Only those papers as had no indications of any foreign source or lacked author’s analytics were not admitted to the finals. A.Malinovsky also told of the most interesting research done by the participants of the competition and of its practical importance. For example, the paper on liability for insulting the feelings of the believers was among them.

Evgeny Zhilin, Associate Partner of the Law Firm "YUST", graduate of MGIMO of 2002, told the participants that it is the second consecutive time, when the Law Firm "YUST" becomes a partner of the Competition. He highly appraised the variety of subjects and the number of educational institutions, students and graduates of which had sent their papers.

E.Zhilin called the attention of those present to the fact that comparative jurisprudence is an extremely topical discipline, as a practicing lawyer is required to orientate himself in various jurisdictions, because the institutions of foreign law are being gradually incorporated into Russian legislation (for more details see the expert’s article Amendments to the Civil Code: will the corporate agreement ”Russian Style” survive?).

Also, E.Zhilin is of the opinion that comparative jurisprudence is needed in order to understand and foretell the behavior of the foreign partner, to know his mentality and legal culture. He told of a conversation with an acclaimed Greek lawyer on the issue of the external debt of Greece, during which the famous foreign expert joked: “Our country is Orthodox Christian, and Orthodox Christians should forgive their debts”.

E.Zhilin summed up by noting that comparative jurisprudence is also interesting in the historical context. As modern practice shows, it does not lose its topicality and helps to compare the current civil legislation with the Roman Law institutions. At the closing of the event, E.Zhilin congratulated the winners of the Competition and handed them the awards. Two participants of the Competition were given the possibility of a two-month training course in the Law Firm "YUST", during which they would be able to receive the novice lawyer’s skills and to take part in international projects as well.

It is notable that a winner of the First All-Russian Competition of Research Papers by young scientists on comparative jurisprudence (2011), undergraduate of MGIMO Maxim Mezentsev was awarded a training course at the Firm. This resulted in that he became an assistant lawyer at YUST. In 2012, his paper “The constitutional legal status of the Federal President: from the Constitution of the German Empire to the Constitutional Charter of the Federative Republic of Germany” was acknowledged by the jury of experts as the best paper in the nomination “Comparative historical research”.

Full version of the Competition’s results is available at the MGIMO web-site.