Lecture by the Honorary professor of IvSU Martin Finke

On October 29, within the framework of the International Academic Week, Doctor, professor, Honorary doctor of St. Petersburg State University and Ivanovo State University Martin Finke delivered an online lecture on the initiative of the head of the REC "Interuniversity Research and Educational Center of German Law", associate professor of IvSU Evgeny Potseluev.

Martin Finke gave a lecture in excellent Russian on the topic "The role of suspicion in prosecution". A scientist in a specific criminal case ("Marina's Case") showed the peculiarities of initiating a criminal case in modern Germany on the basis of a suspicion of sufficient intensity and validity and a conviction in the court of first instance, and then overturning it in the Supreme Court of the Federal Republic of Germany. The speaker revealed the grounds and arguments of the courts; described how the victim and her family members behaved, including her father – the accused; stressed the importance of following legal formalities during the investigation. Since Martin Finke knows very well the Soviet and current Russian criminal procedural legislation (as well as the criminal, criminal-executive law of the Russian Federation) and is familiar with well-known Russian legal scholars, including proceduralists – M.S. Strogovich (1894–1984) and one of the developers of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, a member of the Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building of the Federation Council E.B. Mizulina, he compared the norms of German and Russian criminal procedure law throughout the lecture, and sometimes turned to the provisions contained in the French Criminal Procedure Code.

The lecture was attended by more than 50 listeners: mainly first – fourth year undergraduate students of the law faculty of our university, as well as its employees, teachers and managers: associate professor Irina Borzova (Institute of Humanities), international project coordinator Yulia Travina, professor Nadezhda Usoltseva (Director of the Research Institute of Nanomaterials), associate professors Olga Sokolova (Dean of the Law Faculty), Evgeny Potseluev (Head of the Department of Theory and History of State and Law) and Olga Kuzmina (Head of the Department of Criminal Law and Procedure, First Vice-Rector of IvSU).

After the end of the lecture, Olga Kuzmina asked a question about M. Finke's assessment of the adversarial nature of the Russian criminal process and got a detailed answer. In the final part Nadezhda Usoltseva, Olga Kuzmina and Evgeny Potseluev, who have known M. Finke for more than a quarter of a century, expressed their deep gratitude to him for the lecture, for choosing in the early 90s of the last century the Faculty of Law and the entire university as a partner of the University of Passau, for the continuation of scientific cooperation and expressed hope that after the end of the pandemic, face-to-face contacts will be resumed, including internships for teachers – lawyers of our university – in Bavaria.