This year, the Federal Social Court in Kassel organised a moot court for the first time. At the final event on 14 January 2026, the student team from the Faculty of Law at Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin (HU) was crowned the winner. Alexa Frei, Amelie Haeberlin and Jost Roeber competed in the simulated court hearing against nine teams from the universities of Bayreuth, Bochum, Bonn, Frankfurt am Main, G?ttingen, Hamburg and Cologne and, according to the jury, were able to impress with their free speech, negotiating skills and genuine representation of interests.
Simulated negotiation of a case from the statutory pension insurance scheme
The simulated hearing, in which the students acted as lawyers, dealt with a case from the statutory pension insurance system - the appeal against a (real) judgement by the Münster Social Court and the consideration of child-rearing periods in favour of the child's father. The background is the socio-political question of what a fair division of child-raising periods between parents looks like and to what extent pension law needs to be changed in this respect.
The team had spent months preparing for the moot court, accompanied by Dr Stefan Schifferdecker, lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the HU and judge at the Berlin-Brandenburg State Social Court. The team was also supported by the Humboldt Moot Club. The association was founded at the HU specifically to coordinate the participation of students in national and international moot courts.