Juridical World: Sergei Belov ’Law should help keep society from crises and catastrophes’

Professor Belov, what distinguishes the St Petersburg school of thought in law from other schools of such kind?

The scholars of our University have always been developing their research projects not only in a legal way, but rather in an interdisciplinary one, through the prism of social sciences. It was at St Petersburg University that Leon Petrażycki’s psychological theory of law was formulated. It was during the Soviet era that our Faculty of Law became the base for the Institute for Comprehensive Social Research led by Aleksei Pashkov. And research into the issues of legal relations in various areas of law is a key topic that has been in the focus of our scholars for many decades. We continue to develop this scientific tradition today. For example, the communicative theory of law, developed at St Petersburg University by Andrei Poliakov and his colleagues, involves the analysis of social relations and the social context within which law functions. This requires the study of sociological issues and attention to the issues of psychology.

It is important for us to study law not as an abstract system of norms, but as an instrument of social interaction and, partly, of social control. In this regard, law, along with other regulatory systems, helps society in its functioning, including keeping it from crises and catastrophes. Methods of achieving these social goals with the help of law are what we are studying.

Another distinguishing feature of the St Petersburg school of thought is the separation of law and legislation. In our opinion, law as a system of principles and values exists regardless of what is happening in legislation. With all the criticism that we could address to both the legislator and the law enforcer, we cannot reproach the law for being inconsistent or following momentary, opportunistic and sometimes exclusively political motives. Law is eternal and provides those basic values that initially formed it as a way to ensure the coexistence of people in society.

Developing this idea, we have proposed to hold a conference titled ’The Legal Policy of the State’ at St Petersburg University. We are planning to discuss how the interaction and correlation of the basic principles and principles of law with what is happening in legislation and law enforcement should be evaluated.

What other research projects and areas are currently being developed at St Petersburg University?

Today, while remaining a fairly small faculty, we carry out research in so many different scientific areas that we can be compared with some higher education institutions that deal with jurisprudence only. Moreover, an important feature of our University projects is their interdisciplinary character. Apart from lawyers, other scholars such as economists, geologists, geographers, sociologists, doctors, and psychologists are also involved in our research and expert projects.

This year we are launching several projects supported by the Russian Science Foundation. I am glad that these projects are focused on public law. This is very important, because I, as a representative of public law, understand how significant the development of the doctrine of public law is. In real terms, law is often forced to yield to political, economic and social necessities. This is extremely relevant today.

One of our projects is devoted to the issues of subjective public rights, including those in administrative relations. The other is a completely new concept of public law. It should become a game-changer not only in the Russian doctrine, but also present a new look at public law on a global scale.

Today, public law exists in fact only in one form, in which it appeared and developed within the framework of the concept of Western European and American legal systems. We see that some of the axiological foundations of this vision of public law turn out to be poorly compatible with: a number of cultural traditions of the East in a broad sense; and individual cultures of Confucian, Islamic, Buddhist, conservative Orthodox worldviews. The social structure in many countries is based on them. They undoubtedly influence the whole system of legal relations, including public law. Yet so far they do not have sufficient conceptual substantiation in the doctrine of public law.

Our projects that are partly scientific and partly expert in nature include: monitoring of law enforcement practice; research on control and supervisory activities, problems of domestic violence, and regulation of the education system; the language of law; and legal regulation of genetic research and medicine. As for the latter, in our work we try to use the advantage of a classic university, i.e. the Faculty of Medicine as our subdivision and the University Clinic (the Pirogov Clinic of High Medical Technologies at the University). This helps a lot in discussing those issues that, on the one hand, are of concern for doctors and are relevant for modern medical practice, and, on the other hand, require answers from legal theory. These include: issues of the concept of informed consent to medical intervention; issues of iatrogenic offences; and issues of social relations that ensure the functioning of the healthcare system.

Another area of our work is sports law. The University organises a lot of research related to: disciplinary responsibility in sports; the mechanisms of such responsibility existing in the sports community; and self-regulation mechanisms with the participation of the state and involving administrative and criminal liability.

In addition, the long-term cooperation of the University with the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly served as an incentive for scholars to think about some topics important for the doctrine of public law. For example, St Petersburg University experts developed a draft model law on administrative procedures. It was adopted last autumn. Working on it, we required serious conceptual support. Our work became a ground for particular research. Without such research, it would be difficult to formulate the concept of legislative regulation even for a model law.

You initiated the creation of the Research Institute for the State Language at St Petersburg University. Why?

The issues of the difficulty of the legal language, which is the language of legal documents, are relevant not only for our country, but also for many foreign countries. Today, it has become a sign of our time, a global problem. It is paid attention to in many countries, both at the state level and at the level of public initiatives.

Despite the fact that a lot of research has been devoted to the language of law, it has not been fully explained, at least in relation to the Russian language, what makes legal texts so difficult and incomprehensible. It is even more difficult to issue a prescription to correct these difficulties.

The project, which has been implemented at the University for the sixth year, is focused on the study of the language of legal documents. Our task is to offer both the legislator and the authors of any official documents recommendations on their preparation. This issue requires a whole range of research, starting with how to assess the language competence of ordinary citizens, and ending with how to identify the communicative properties and characteristics (for example, who is the addressee) of many types of legal acts. We are trying to formulate recommendations based on cooperation with representatives of different sciences such as linguistics, sociology, and psychology. At the same time, jurisprudence is still at the core, because, when simplifying an official document, it is very important to preserve what it was written for, its main legal content.

It is unlikely that we will achieve that every citizen can, after reading the law, form an absolutely complete picture of what the legal assessment of their behaviour will be. Of course, when we work on the intelligibility of the language of laws, we inevitably think about what concepts of law every citizen should have. But we are sure that, firstly, a person should, at least in general principles, get such an idea from the particular law alone, without studying a huge array of different documents. Secondly, laws should also be clearer for professional lawyers. In many cases today, even professionals are faced with difficulties in deciphering the wording in regulations.

You have said that the fundamentals of legal literacy should be taught to schoolchildren.

Yes, and now we have joint work with school teachers of social studies on the agenda. Together with our colleagues who teach subjects united at school by the general course of social studies (political scientists, sociologists, economists), we are trying to help teachers who have found themselves in a very difficult situation. It is associated with the need to present all social sciences at once within the framework of a single course. We are to help them single out and formulate the main things every school-leaver must know.

In our opinion, this is a task that requires the involvement of the university community. We set ourselves the task of designing professional development programmes for teachers, and various methodological and other materials to help those who teach social studies at school. Moreover, it is very important for us that the school not only prepare for the Unified State Examination, but help our future citizens to adapt to adult life and to life in society, so that they could understand how society works, how it functions and what rules it lives by.

Who do you primarily focus on when developing academic programmes? Do you follow the lawyers’ labour market?

We try to create packages of programmes in response to the changes that are taking place in our society, and to the needs that are constantly formulated in discussions devoted to legal education. But first of all, we think and ask our master’s students. We try to respond to their requests and needs, because neither our ideas, nor even the ideas of employers form a comprehensive picture. The student is the main person at the university. And we are working for them.

At present, we have 20 master’s programmes, and they are built on different principles. Some of them offer students advanced studies of traditional, classical branches of law such as criminal law or civil law. Others are associated with professional activities in particular, sometimes very specialised areas, for example, medical law or sports law. We are also developing master’s programmes by creating innovative approaches to the educational process. For example, we offer applicants the programme titled "Legal Support of Business". It enables them to independently choose a set of disciplines they are interested in, which they believe necessary for their professional development. This suggests that their training path is not limited to some narrow topic or one particular branch of law, but enables them to combine different courses in accordance with their personal interests or future career prospects.

How do you feel about the Bologna system in legal education?

We perceive this very primitively, as a division of degree programmes into bachelor’s and master’s programmes. In my opinion, this sidetracks your focus of attention. The fundamental issue of the Bologna system is the integration of the national education system into the system of global educational standards. If we want to participate in the global market of educational services, we must offer the product that will be in demand not only in the context of the Russian education system. The President of the Russia has repeatedly said that, despite all the recent political events, we do not set ourselves the goal of cutting ourselves off the outside world and building a wall around our country. On the contrary, we strive for cooperation, but this cooperation in the education system is possible only if we create particular conditions for students from China, India, Iran, Saudi Arabia or Dubai to come to us and receive education.

Are you launching new programmes this year?

Yes, we are offering two new master’s programmes, "Advocacy" and "Information Law and Data Protection".

We see that many universities today are carried away by the so-called digital law. Our programme will be devoted to information law as such, because, in our opinion, digital law does not form any new entity in the field of law, while the relations associated with the flow of information have always been and continue to be a special area of legal regulation. That is why we do not create a "Digital Lawyer" programme. We are focusing on the development of information technologies and their legal support instead.

The potential of the programme is determined by the fact that it was developed by our teachers, who had been studying innovative issues in digital environment law for many years. For some of them, those studies were part of interdisciplinary research and cooperation with other research teams. They had started their studies long before any strategic planning documents were approved in the field of digital economy. I am speaking here of: legal issues of communications in the digital environment; protection of personal data; and legal issues of the virtual space often presented now as the "metaverses" issues.

St Petersburg University has always been and remains one of the few higher education institutions where those who already have one higher education can get a full-fledged bachelor’s degree in law.

Yes, our second higher education programme is one of a kind. It is a choice of both those who want to change their profession completely, and those who have established themselves as a professional outside of law, continue to work in their field, but want to get additional legal training at the highest level. Among our students are: lawyers who received their first education at other universities; doctors; engineers; economists; translators and interpreters; and sociologists.

One of the features of legal education at St Petersburg University is an internship at the Legal Clinic. It involves working with real clients and their legal issues.

The creation of legal clinics at universities has become a compensation for the shortcomings of higher education that were formed during the Soviet era, namely, the lack of practical skills and abilities. For many years, the situation was like this. When graduating from the university, the graduates knew everything, but were unable to do anything. Being involved into practical training or starting to work, they needed a mentor and a leader who would explain the most primitive things to them, starting with launching a lawsuit. Not everyone was lucky to find a mentor who would be ready to make up for the shortcomings of university education. In the late 1990s, our University was the first university in Russia to open a legal clinic. It made it possible for students to gain practical skills along with theoretical training.

Today, legal clinics exist in most law schools, but in many of them only a part of the students undergo training, while at St Petersburg University this is an obligatory part of the educational process. Our basic point is that legal education is of an applied nature, which means that a lawyer who graduates from a university must have a certain set of skills.

On the one hand, our Legal Clinic offers practical training. Within the framework of the legal aid system, students, under the supervision of their teachers, provide counselling for citizens. On the other hand, it is an addition of our academic programmes in the form of special courses and workshops devoted to what is not covered by traditional theoretical courses. Our students learn legal writing, professional communication, and the ability to present and promote the results of their professional activities.

Do you think lawyers should pursue lifelong learning?

I think they should. And I am looking with a certain envy at how the system of continuing medical education is organised. New technologies and methods of treatment emerge in medicine. The field of law, both in theory and in practice, is also developing something new all the time, and any lawyer needs to keep track of this. It is difficult to do it on your own, combining it with the main daily professional routines. I therefore consider it absolutely necessary to create a system of continuous professional development for lawyers. St Petersburg University is focused on ensuring that the package of our academic programmes could give students an opportunity for such continuous development.