Sofia University Faculty of Law students won second place in the prestigious pleading competition on the European Human Rights Convention. The Sofia University team won the prize for the best written statement on behalf of the defendant government as a response to a complaint lodged with the European Court of Human Rights.
The University team, including Nikolina Mihaylova,, Kristian Kalchev and Radoslava Makshoutova, succeeded in eliminating their rivals from Romania, Spain and Russia, and reached the semi-final winning victory against the Cambridge University team. The overall winner at the competition was the team of Kiev University, which won 5:4 votes.
The Bulgarian team got a free-of-charge preparation by the Bulgarian Lawyers for Human Rights Foundation, and their mentors were Sofia Razboynikova and Daniela Ekimova.
As Sofia Razboynikova made it clear, the event was highly competitive but the three Sofia University students displayed brilliant argumentative skills and excellent analysis presentation which come as proofs of their future success as men of law.
In the final stage of this year’s competition 20 university teams from 15 countries (Germany, Bulgaria, Croatia, Spain, France, Greece, Italy, Holland, the UK, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Ukraine) took part. All teams passed the written stage wherein they presented statements on behalf of the government and the complainant.
The competition renders the procedure of reviewing a complaint lodged with the European Court of Human Rights based on an ostensible case related to the proportionality between individual rights and the protection of national security. The prize is a term of internship at the Strasbourg Court; the competition is organized by the European Law Students Association (ELSA) with the support of the European Court of Human Rights.