Comparative civil procedure: Teaching experience at Moscow State and Saint Petersburg State Universities

Abstract

There is a large variety of legal and procedural systems. According to the classical point of view, there are three dominant legal systems: civil law, common law and mixed jurisdictions. While the distinction between the systems is not as strong today as it has been in previous centuries, it still exists, along with the controversial features that are associated with each tradition. The distinctions between the three systems are following: civil juries, pre-trial conferences, judicial precedents, active judge, class actions, notary, legal education, etc. All these features are discussed in the course “Comparative civil procedure”, that is read at Moscow and Saint-Petersburg universities. Today, as a global, unified approach to civil procedure is being developed, comparative civil procedure becomes important in contemporary word. This article is devoted to the historical analysis of the teaching experience of comparative civil procedure at Moscow and Saint-Petersburg universities. It concerns not only contemporary period, but also history in the pre-revolutionary (1917) and Soviet periods.