CYIL vol. 9 (2018)

CYIL 9 ȍ2018Ȏ MIGRATION AND REFUGEE LAW AT THE LAW FACULTY plan to specify the expected educational outcome. Students usually do not shadow employees as they do not only observe, but they, to a certain extent (depending on the type of activity), participate in solving legal problems in the respective area. They may draft documents, e.g. appeals to courts, they may analyse legal problems and conduct research concerning specific legal and factual questions. They receive feedback with respect to their work; there is always a supervisor in the stakeholder’s office, who comments on their work. We are now trying to establish mechanisms to standardize the quality of the feedback. Recently, our focus has been on providing a faculty supervisor who could meet with students regularly to give academic feedback, which we find necessary. Students can be involved in the work of non-governmental organizations in the form of a legal clinic. The clinic is organized by the Faculty, but the practical experience is obtained only on the premises of the NGO as it is not an in-house faculty clinic. There students work directly with refugees: they have a chance to speak with them, give them legal advice, and answer their questions. At the clinic they apply classroom knowledge to a real-life situation. Their work is under the strong control of a supervisor; they are not able to decide cases alone, and each piece of advice must be authorized by the respective supervisor. During regular meetings students receive feedback from both – NGO supervisors and faculty supervisors who are teachers as well as practicing attorneys. The refugee law clinic is a place where students ask a lot of ethical questions. They often think about their values in the legal profession, about the role of pro bono work, and about their responsibilities towards society. Therefore, regular meetings with a faculty supervisor who is not only trained to deal with these issues but knows how to teach about them are essential for the course to be successful. …to learn while playing (life simulations) Migration and refugee law can be found in simulations which we have very good experiences with. This type of courses may attract the attention of students in their first years of study, and either bring them closer to specialised courses in the Faculty’s migration programme or help them understand the basic principles of this branch of law. The Faculty organizes, or participates in, a moot court on refugee law each year. Several teachers of refugee law from different Czech law faculties work together on the preparation of the moot court which is held on the premises of one of the faculties. The moot court is held in Czech and Slovak languages so it is open to students who might otherwise be fearful to participate if the language was English. Students work in teams; each team prepares a written memorandum and then competes in an oral round. The case they work on is fictional, but we try to use the current refugee situations as much as possible and keep subsidiary protection in mind, so that the students do not only focus on the inclusive and exclusive part of the refugee definition. Students learn to analyse a case, search case law, argue before a court, and cooperate in a team. The judges of the moot court are always professionals, usually academics and judges from the Supreme Administrative Court, and sometimes from the Constitutional Court, who give feedback to students. The Faculty is one of the co-organizers of a simulated military base in the territory of a state in which an internal armed conflict occurs. This simulation is unique because it takes place in cooperation with the Czech Armed Forces. Every student participating in the military base simulation is given the role of a refugee, internally displaced persons, 3.

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