ŠVOČ CONFERENCE
21 June 2024, Faculty of Law, Comenius University
On Friday, June 21, 2024, a conference culminating the XVth year of the renewed project of the Student Scientific Professional Activity took place at our faculty.
This half-round year brought several superlatives: the highest number of submissions in recent years, and thanks to this, the possibility of presenting them in three sections. However, we are pleased above all with the high quality level, but also with the fact that the evaluation committees included a number of esteemed and respected practitioners.
In the section of theory of law, constitutional law and European law, the committee was chaired by JUDr. Rastislav Kaššák, PhD., judge of the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic, judge and the committee members from an external environment, were JUDr. Miroslava Bálintová (representative of the Slovak Republic before the ECtHR), JUDr. Ján Ondruš (partner of the law firm G. Lehnert, s. r. o., partner), JUDr. Zuzana Žitná, PhD., JUDr. Marek Brenčič (Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic), supplemented by our teacher, Mgr. Olexij M. Meteňkanyč, PhD.
In this section the first place went to Adam Briešt'anský with his thesis on Human Rights Aspects of Punishing Extremist Symbolism (his consultant was Professor Tomáš Ľalík), the second place went to Mgr. Lýdia Jakubjaková, whose thesis, prepared under the supervision of Dr. Sara Kiššová, was devoted to the issue of the expansion of the powers of the Court of Justice of the EU in matters of the Common Foreign and Security Policy on the example of the Rosneft judgment, and the shared third place was taken by bc. Emma Humeňanská (thesis entitled "On the concept of violence. Philosophical and Legal Aspects" was prepared under the supervision of Dr. Renáta Kišoňová) and Karolína Ozimyová (the topic of her thesis was "World Cup, Qatar 2022: the visibility of Qatar in the football world or well-planned sportswashing?", and her consultant was once again Professor Ľalík, who supervised two successful ŠVOČ participants this year).
In the section of criminal law and administrative punishment the committee was chaired by prof. JUDr. Juraj Vačok, PhD. (well known to students as a professor at the Department of Administrative and Environmental Law, but this time he was at the conference as a nominee of the Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic) and the committee members were JUDr. Linda Wáclavová, PhD. (prosecutor of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Slovak Republic), doc. JUDr. Andrej Beleš, PhD. (Institute of European Law of our Faculty), JUDr. Eva Sihelníková, PhD. (attorney at law at the law firm SIHELNIK & Partners s. r. o.) and JUDr. Ľuboš Kuník (head of the Asset Management Department of the Office for the Administration of Seized Assets).
In this section, the first place went to bc. Daniel Richter, who prepared a ŠVOČ thesis on the topic "Effectiveness of the ultima ratio principle in relation to the principle of proportionality" under the supervision of Professor Eduard Burda. The shared second place was taken by bc. Dominika Krištofičová with her thesis on "Open source evidence and investigation", supervised by Dr. Lukáš Mareček, and bc. Michael Kunst with the thesis written under the supervision of an external consultant, attorney-at-law Dr. David Vöröš, which dealt with the topic of punishment of concurrent offences with special regard to the transport sector. Finally, the third place went to bc. Barbora Bodíková (the thesis topic: Appropriateness of the age limit of liability for administrative offences and criminal liability, consultant: Dr. Mária Havelková).
The third of the sections was called "Section of other areas of law". The committee was chaired by doc. Mgr. Martin Daňko, PhD. (Institute of Information Technology Law and Intellectual Property Law) and the committee members were also doc. JUDr. Yana Daudrikh, PhD. (Department of Financial Law), Mgr. Jakub Homoľa (whose workplace is the Office of the Public Defender of Rights) and Mgr. Sandra Meňhartová, PhD. (Department of Civil Law).
The following students succeeded in this section: Bc. Dávid Školník, who was supervised by Dr. Ľudovít Máčaj, took first place with his thesis on the topic "The issue of unknown and unidentified land owners". The second place was taken by bc. Vivienn Üvegesová, who took part with the thesis on the topic "Legal deadlines for the court decision in the proceedings for the return of a minor to a foreign country and their impact on the efficiency of the proceedings" under the supervision of Professor Romana Smyčková. Finally, the third place was taken by Maria Krakovská, who dealt with the issue of the informed consent of the minor in the process of transition and her consultant was Dr. Karin Raková.
We are pleased that this year's awardees include students of Bachelor's and Master's studies, including the Law and Economics study programme, and that among them there are several student auxiliaries, as well as students who wrote their ŠVOČ thesis outside the project of student scientific forces.
The committees also appreciated the "newcomers" in the competition, but also colleagues who have already been veterans in relation to ŠVOČ, and have already completed the Czech-Slovak round of ŠVOČ. It shows that everyone has a chance to get involved and succeed, but also that there is no need to give up and sometimes it is perhaps the previous experience with the ŠVOČ competition that will help a student to succeed in future years.
Congratulations again to the successful students! They will represent our faculty on 19 September at the Czech-Slovak round of the ŠVOČ, which will be organized by the Faculty of Law of Masaryk University in Brno.
We thank and express our appreciation to the other involved students for their work at ŠVOČ and their presentation at the ŠVOČ conference. We also thank all the consultants and opponents.