From June 29 to July 11, 2009 the Summer School within the scope of the three-year Project for young teachers from the CIS countries "Comparative Constitutional Law: Theory and Methodology in the Context of Constitutional Reforms" took place on the premises of the Institute for Law and Public Policy. For two weeks the participants of the Summer School, among whom are academics from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and 8 Russian regions, have had to study the genesis and basic features of Russian and post-Soviet separation of powers models, present their own hypotheses on the ground of interdisciplinary approach, and also master new methods of teaching constitutional law using comparative studying and acquire skills in problem-oriented method of teaching ("Socratic method") spread widely in many legal education institutions in the world.
The program of the Summer School entitled "Theoretical Grounds and Constitutional Implementation" included regular sessions within the Institute for Law and Public Policy, lectures and seminars by visiting professors – famous lawyers, political scientists and academicians, and also round tables in some legal education institutions of Moscow.
Teaching in the Summer School was performed by international professor group: Renata Uitz, associate professor, Chair of the Comparative Constitutional Law program of the Central European University (Budapest, Hungary); Alexander Blankenagel, professor, Humboldt University (Berlin, Germany); Andrey Medushevsky, professor, State University – Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia); Adam Bodnar, PhD, University of Warsaw (Warsaw, Poland); Daniel Smilov, program director, Centre for Liberal Strategies (Sofia, Bulgaria). CEU doctorate Svetlana Tyulkina assisted the academic staff.
Morning classes were intended to perfect the methodology of teaching comparative constitutional law and to study certain problems of modern constitutionalism and the theory of separation of powers. Among examined questions are the following:
- the making of the US Constitution;
- separation of powers on paper and in practice – the US experience;
- development of constitutionalism in Russia;
- separation of powers in modern Russia;
- Round tables in Central Europe;
- separation of powers – post-communist perspectives;
- forms and methods of case study;
- using comparative method in case study.
According to the teaching plan of the Summer School the afternoon classes included, besides individual consultations on participants’ individual projects, organization of disputing round tables with well-known Russian legal scientists and lawyers participating in them:
July 1. Round table on the premises of the Faculty of Law of the State University – Higher School of Economics with the Head of Constitutional and Municipal Law Chair, Professor Mikhail Krasnov. Discussion topic: "Zero-sum Game as a Result of Constitutional Construction".
July 2. Visit to the Law School of Lomonosov Moscow State University where the round table under the guidance of the Chairman of Constitutional 
and Municipal Law Chair, Professor Suren Avakyan and with participation of professors of the Chair Natalia Bogdanova and Irina Kenenova was conducted. The main theme of the debates concerned modern problems of Russian constitutional order, and also methodological specifics of teaching state-law disciplines in Lomonosov Moscow State University.
After the discussion was over Professor Natalia Bogdanova kindly agreed to familiarize the participants of the Summer School with the Law School of the MSU by holding an excursion to the museum of its history.
July 3. Meeting with the Justice of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, Professor Gadis Gadzhiev who specified the key problems of constitutional justice in general and relating to Russian reality in his lecture entitled "Constitutional Courts in the Maze of Separation of Powers".
July 4. Round table on the premises of the Institute for Law and Public Policy with participation of the Referent of the State-Legal Directorate of the President of the Russian Federation Oleg Tarasov. The problems of place and role of the President in the system of separation of powers in Russia were in the centre of attention.
July 7. Round table on the premises of the Institute for Law and Public Policy under the guidance of the Director of the Centre for Comparative Law of the Faculty of Law of the State University – Higher School of Economics, Professor Alexey Avtonomov who presented his point of view on evolution and specifics of the Russian parliamentarianism.
July 8. Visit to the Russian Legal Academy of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation where the participants of the Summer School had a meeting with the Head of Constitutional and Municipal Law Chair, Professor Vadim Vinogradov who, being accompanied by professor of the Chair Anna Madyarova and professor the Faculty of Law of the State University – Higher School of Economics Svetlana Vasilyeva, conducted the round table devoted to the topic of "Flexibility of the Russian Constitution and the Influence of Flexible Interpretation of the Constitution on the System of Separation of Powers".
During the session on July 10 the participants introduced their individual projects on different aspects of constitutional law which they had been developing through the course of the Summer School. On the basis of these projects by the beginning of the Winter Session which is planed to be conducted in Saint-Petersburg November 18-22, 2009 the participants are supposed to present the results of their researches, and also develop the basics of their own methodological programs of teaching constitutional law using comparative constitutional studies and the "Socratic method".
The topics of the participants’ individual projects can be found here.
Upon completion of the Summer School the participants received certificates proclaiming that they had successfully accomplished the First Stage of the 2009-2012 HESP ReSET Project "Comparative Constitutional Law: Theory and Methodology in the Context of Constitutional Reforms" by attending the Summer School of 2009 entitled "Theoretical Grounds and Constitutional Implementation".