Constitutional Law, Constitutional Court Procedure

Profession

Lawyers-constitutionalists currently operate in various fields: in state and municipal authorities, commercial structures, advocacy, etc. They are experts in the issues of the constitutional organisation of public authority, legal status of an individual, rule-making activities, constitutional litigation, protection of rights and freedoms, and constitutional foundations of various branches of law. A broad approach to understanding the phenomena of social life allows the constitutionalist to successfully solve problems that arise in various legal areas, address non-standard and multi-level legal situations. At the same time, training orientation of lawyers-to-be in this specialisation contributes to a strategic complex legal thinking, which allows such lawyers to choose virtually any area of professional activity from work in legislative bodies of state power to representation in civil cases.

Educational Process

The Master’s programme Constitutional Law and Constitutional Court Proceeding is practice-oriented. Since 2020, the applied aspect of the programme has been significantly strengthened by means of developing a new module of the programme – Practical Constitutional Law. The key issue of the programme is the combination of a high-quality master’s programme legal theory with fundamental training and the elaboration of really significant competencies. However, the programme should not result in bare abstract theorizing or training to perform common technical and legal tasks unequal to the supposed level of education.
The training is based on the following principles:
— developing of competencies necessary for a modern lawyer: analytics, drafting legal documents, comprehensive legal expertise, management of legal projects, etc.;
— a broad comprehensive legal view of problems with access to intersectoral solutions;
— involvement in the authentic legal context: not working with abstract material, but with a topical agenda and real cases;
— deep immersion in judicial and law enforcement practice, practical issues of legislation and law enforcement;
— support of the individual vector of the master’s student, taking into account the scientific and practical interests of the student while forming educational content, determining the specific content of the programme and practice bases;
— implementation of departmental projects in which the students are not only responsible for the performance of individual tasks, but also have the opportunity to lead small teams;
— participation of master’s students in the development and implementation of innovative training formats. The programme is implemented using a comparative legal approach, which provides a deep immersion into the essence of legal phenomena and allows you to develop the most effective solutions to legal issues.
Disciplines:
— Current Issues of Constitutional Law;
— Legal Analytics;
— Constitutional Regulation in the Field of Public Law Relations;
— Constitutional Regulation in the Field of Private Law Relations;
— Constitutional Regulation in the Field of Taxation;
— Constitutional Justice;
— GR and Lobbying.

Practice

Master’s degree students have the opportunity to do internship in the legislative bodies (Federation Council, State Duma, regional legislative assemblies), executive (various ministries and departments), judiciary bodies (Supreme Court of the Russian Federation and other courts) and bodies with a special status (Central Bank of the Russian Federation, Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation, etc.), Bar associations, Consulting companies, etc., as well as at the Department of Constitutional Law and Constitutional Proceedings. The guideline in choosing the internship is the individual vector of the Master’s degree students on his scientific and professional interests.

Career

The knowledge gained during the training allows the graduates of the department to be sought-after specialists holding various positions in government agencies, including the Ministry of Economic Development, the Bank of Russia, the Federation Council, etc., to work in the largest foreign consulting companies: PwC, Deloitte, Debevoise & Plimpton and others, to build a successful career in Russian corporate business entities and specialized legal practices, backbone infrastructure and construction companies, and to hold leading positions in major non-profit organizations.