On Monday, the 27th of January 2020, there was a celebration dedicated to Saint Sava. The ceremony opened with a performance by the “Obilić” academic choir, deftly conducted by Ana Ćosović. Then the Dean of the Faculty of Law, Prof. Dr Zoran Mirković, addressed the graduates and the guests with a speech in which he briefly summed up the history of venerating St. Sava as the patron saint of schools (in general, and at the University of Belgrade in particular), subsequently turning to some of the most important facts from the life of Sava Nemanjić, and the important place he holds in the history of the Serbian church and state, and their law in particular. The celebration was attended by many renowned representatives of the legal profession pertaining to the State Administration and the judiciary; Prof. Dr Vojislav Stanimirović served as the master of ceremonies, eliciting bursts of laughter from the entire audience on more than one occasion with his witty remarks and anecdotes.

The ensuing part of the ceremony was dedicated to awards and certificates of commendation. The first to receive his award was Konstantin Babić, named the top student in class, who graduated last September with highest grades in all the subjects. Bojana Petrović and Jovana Đorđević, graduating with honours as well, though a couple of days after K. Babić, received certificates of commendation.

Jovana Đorđević was also awarded with the prize from the “Dr Dragoljub Atanacković” foundation, for obtaining the best grades in subjects pertaining to the Department of Criminal Law in the class of 2015/16. The prize was handed in by Prof. Dr Đorđe Ignjatović.

After a hiatus of a couple of years, the “Alan Watson” foundation is up and running again, now fully funded by the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law. The subject chosen for this year’s contest was “The Relationship Between the State and the Church and Legal Transplants”. The contest was won by Đorđe Stepić, a third year student, winning with a paper on the Serbian Law on Churches and Religious Groups. He received his award from Prof. Dr Sima Avramović, the president of the foundation.

The prize from the foundation “Radivoj B. Vasović, senior legal advisor and his family”, awarded to a student of lesser means who graduated from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law with excellent grades, was given to Duško Vujović. On behalf of the Faculty, Prof. Dr Marko Đurđević handed in the prize.

For the first time this year, the Faculty awarded prizes from the “Dr Ljubica Škara Vidojević and Dr Obrad Vidojević Trust”. The prizes were given to the best students in the third and fourth year, Sava Vojnović and Mihajlo Jovičić respectively, and to the best MA student, Ilija Džamić. Mr Ratomir Slijepčević addressed the guests on behalf of the Trust; since the awardees were not able to receive their prizes in person, they will do so on the 18th of February.

Finally, a number of awards were given from the foundation of our former Dean, professor Mirko Vasiljević. The award for the best student in class was given to Konstantin Babić. The foundation’s Board of Directors decided to give the award for the best paper to Katarina Kračun, for her paper in the field Company Law, and to Dimitrije Jovanović, for his paper in the field of Commercial Law. The award for the undergraduate student of lesser means who fulfills his/her obligations in a timely manner was given to students Ana Kopunović from Požega (third year of studies), and Tamara Zdravković from Belgrade (second year of studies). The foundation is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, with 81 student receiving awards so far.

Apart from the awards, certificates of appreciation were awarded to students who have achieved significant results at international competitions. The certificates were thus given to Miloš Marjanović and Janko Đorđević, for winning the Oxford Intervarsity debating competition and ranking second at the World Universities Debating Championship in Thailand. Another certificate went to our Faculty’s team, for winning the regional “Big Deal” tournament (dedicated to Company Law). The members of the team were: Mila Radosavljević, Dušan Nikolić, Nikola Lazić, Dušan Vasiljević, and Katarina Milić, and their coach was Dr Jelena Lepetić. Finally, the team who won second place at the regional competition dedicated to foreign investment laws received a certificate as well; the members of the team were Aleksandar Kaluđerović, Stefan Jovanović, Sanja Petrović, and Anja Mihajlović, and they were coached by Dr Marko Jovanović. (All of these achievements were covered in our news section.)

The ceremony was concluded with the awarding of diplomas, along with certificates of commendation for students who completed the previous year of study with an average grade of 9 and above.

The photos of the event can be found here.