UM team wins national moot court competition
Five UM students from the Dutch Law master’s programme were crowned the winners of the national 2016 moot court competition on 18 May, organised by VAR (Vereniging voor bestuursrecht). This was the twenty-fifth edition of the moot court competition and the first time Maastricht took home the cup. The winning students successfully defeated eight faculties.
The Maastricht team consisted of Dagmar Gerards, Stef Huijnen, Danique Knibbeler, Bas Maas and Kirsten Thoma. They specialise in Constitutional and Administrative Law as part of the Dutch Law master’s programme and were coached by Sander Jansen and Ellen Hardy in preparation for the competition.
The team was in third place after the written preliminaries (three written documents) and took second place after two debate rounds. This landed them a spot in the finals, which consisted of a quick debate round against formidable opponents from Utrecht and Groningen. The teams were sequestered and managed to prepare themselves excellently for the moot court hearing in just forty-five minutes. The finals were thrilling, according to participants, but the team managed to keep their cool and quickly analysed and translated the case study into legal arguments. The jury was extremely impressed by the team’s substantive level and convincing presentation.