Within the framework of Széchenyi István University’s current internationalization process, two of the twenty-four English-taught programmes offered from September 2019 are to be launched by the Faculty of Law:  LLM in Law and Governance and Expert in Law and Governance.  Questioned as to why our University is the first HEI in Eastern and Central Europe to offer them, Dr Smuk explained it was due to the particularly specialized nature of the two new postgraduate programmes. As far as the academic level is concerned, the LLM is planned as a post-Masters programme, whereas the Expert programme is designed neither specifically for Bachelors or Masters in Law level graduates. Dr Smuk emphasized the practical nature of both the programmes, with a special emphasis on networking. The main idea is to train graduates to be able to speak to people in government at all levels, both local and central.  Lecturers in the LLM Programme will be principally from the Faculty of Law, but will also include experts from Hungarian ministries, The University of Public Service, the Office of the Hungarian Parliament and the Constitutional Court.

Dr Smuk also spoke about his recent collaboration with one of Széchenyi István University’s Erasmus Spanish partner HEIs. As media law is one of Dr Smuk’s research areas, at the beginning of February 2019 he was invited by the Universidad de Leon to act as reviewer of the PhD thesis of Tamara Álvarez Robles, a Spanish doctoral candidate who had earlier spent several months in Győr as a visiting researcher in the Faculty of Law. Ms Álvarez Robles’ thesis proposes the constitutionalization of the right of access to the Internet as a fundamental right and incorporates, as a conclusion, a proposal that could be used in a reform of Spanish law.