Two years of internships at the Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic and a call for further cooperation with faculties of law

The Supreme Administrative Court has successfully completed and evaluated a two-year pilot project (four semesters) of internships for law students, which ran from the winter semester of the academic year 2023/2024 to the summer semester 2024/2025. During this period, a total of 22 students successfully completed the internship in the Analytical Department of the Office of the Supreme Administrative Court. The interns came from the Faculty of Law of Comenius University in Bratislava, the Faculty of Law of Trnava University in Trnava and the Faculty of Law of the Pan-European University. The project confirmed its significance and attractiveness by the fact that several students took advantage of the internship opportunity repeatedly. The Court plans to continue this initiative and is open to students from other faculties of law in the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic.

The students had the opportunity to gain practical experience and insight into the functioning of the highest judicial instance in the field of administrative justice during the internship, which normally lasts one semester and ranges from 8 to 10 hours per week. They were actively involved in a wide range of professional activities. Among their key tasks were in particular:

• Drafting regular summaries of the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights,
• monitoring slovak legislation,
• preparation of documents for the analysts’ research,
• assistance in the translation of professional texts and preparation of documents for international networks and questionnaires – for example, the Association of the Councils of State and Supreme Administrative Jurisdictions of the European Union (ACA-Europe), the International Association of Supreme Administrative Jurisdictions (IASAJ), the Superior Courts Network (SCN)

The interns were trained and subsequently worked with various legal information systems such as ASPI, Beck-online, HUDOC, Curia, or judikaty.info.

The internship project was also evaluated by the Head of the Analytical Department of the Office of the Supreme Administrative Court, Mgr. Ing. Jarmila Jendrušáková: “During the past two years, our interns have shown not only a great interest in administrative justice, but also a high level of responsibility, analytical thinking and creativity. Their work, whether it was preparing documents for research, monitoring legislation or assisting with international questionnaires, was a real asset for our department. Many of the outputs were of a high standard in terms of content and form. We are glad that we were able to provide them with the opportunity to gain valuable practical experience, which I believe they will put to good use in their future legal practice. We are particularly pleased when students choose to intern with us repeatedly, which shows their passion for the work and their drive to develop further.”

The students themselves also expressed satisfaction in their final questionnaires. In particular, they appreciated the opportunity to develop their professional skills, to improve their work with information systems for lawyers and foreign databases, and to deepen their knowledge of professional legal terminology, even in a foreign language. A student from the Comenius University in Bratislava, who repeated her internship, said: “As this is my third time doing an internship, I knew more or less what I was getting into. Still, the internship was even better than before. (…) I improved my ability to work with information systems for lawyers (…). I very much appreciate the attitude of the staff of the Analytical Department as well as the Head of the Analytical Department. They are always very patient and helpful.” Another student from Comenius University in Bratislava stated: “I gained new information and a clearer idea of how the court works and what working in court entails. (…) For the first time I tried working with the HUDOC portal and I improved my knowledge of ASPI.” A student from the University of Trnava in Trnava evaluated the internship by saying, “Yes, this internship exceeded my expectations. It gave me experience and practice in my field and the ability to work with legal documents.” Another student from the same university added: “I am better able to find my way around case law, laws and literature. I have learned how to search case law and how to use ASPI properly.” Most of the interns confirmed that they received meaningful assignments relevant to their academic focus and would definitely recommend the internship to other students.

The Supreme Administrative Court highly appreciates the successful cooperation with the Faculty of Law of Comenius University in Bratislava, The Faculty of Law of Trnava University in Trnava and the Faculty of Law of the Pan-European University, whose students participated in the project. Based on the positive experience and in order to continue to contribute to the practical training of future lawyers, the Supreme Administrative Court is ready to establish and develop cooperation with other faculties of law in Slovakia and the Czech Republic.