Respected Sirs,
Welcome to the era of Anthropocene, space discovery and artificial intelligence (AI), wherefore these developments have been and are shaping the research and services dimensions.
Catastrophic events recently alarmed the global leaders, and accordingly the international scientific community suggested to reform the environmental protection strategies. The climate change has emerged as a new form of sustainability, and formally the sustainable development which is the obligation of States to implement it in local, sub-national and national frameworks now exists in the form of GOALS.
Given that, the scientific progresses made so far, and its continuity is restructuring the education systems. While adopting these current technical, methodical, and systematic studies, the trends in legal education are changing as well. For instance, in the United Kingdom and United States of America, the Bar Councils, Association, Regulators (of the lawyers and legal education) and law schools have adopted a holistic approach to address emerging issues. Similarly, in China, Singapore, Malaysia and Korea, the State authorities (regulating the lawyers and legal education), law school and organisations for lawyer’s welfare are working in close coordination and in a spatial manner to integrate governance, education and legal practice of the evolving issues. The matter of fact is, this is a common practice and now prevails in a smooth manner, as it has been implemented in phases and contemporarily the differences or conflicts are managed efficiently. Such synergies among the authorities, councils, associations, and law schools are promptly building the capacity of the lawyers, academia, and judiciary.
Contemporary developments are quite challenging to our political, legal and governance systems, and, at this juncture, it appears to be a challenging task for government and institutions for such large-scale reforms. However, while recognising our own duty as lawyer and regulators, dominantly working for lawyers’ welfare, it’s time to change, not limited to a scale of integration, extending to have a voice in governance mechanisms. Meaningful integration of current scientific developments into legal education and practice may work as a first step towards policy reforms. Such amalgamation of science-knowledge-law-education is working in developed and developing States for policy, management, and organisational improvements.
There is no point to criticise our legal education system at this crucial point because we all are aware of its shortcomings, gaps, and deficiencies. The product we are producing in the form of a law graduate is moreover un-employable. Common issues identified are lack of office and case management skills and knowledge of basic procedural law. The approach of a law student while pursuing LLB (bachelor’s in law) is that ‘degree is a mere requirement in obtaining a license and learning starts with practice.’ Unfortunately, our legal education is not standardised to equip law students with minimum practice standards, while other issues apart.
Most respectfully, as members of Bar Council(s), it is one of the primary duties to reform and update the legal education system. This calls for leaving behind the traditional approaches and prepare law graduates to work in the international arena. The two proposals being made through this letter are i) functional approach to be adopted in the legal education system to produce such legal professionals’ able to compete in this age of globalisation, and ii) updating legal education by integrating the latest developments. Research and studies have proven that these approaches in education produce critical minds and put-forth a positive role of them in social and political events. The emerging trends in legal education and its research are shaping policies not only at national but at the global level. Today, the global level is surfacing into levels, as the discovery of species in outer space is creating more spaces than existing ten planets.
There is always discussion on revamping the judicial system of Pakistan because the existing regime is not delivering the required to poor. The dilemma is that we are not producing such critical minds to analyse the actual fault-lines in adjudication processes and fill the gaps accordingly. The lawyers or the law students are getting use-to the practice with time and become the part of the system consequently.
On the other hand, specialised fields are developing, and due to a typical mind-set, less attention is given to particular practice. This could be entirely a new phenomenon in our system of legal practice. Nevertheless, change is inevitable, and in this meantime, where the next five years of your cabinet could be more crucial due to emerging legal practice in this era of specialisation shaped through scientific trends and developments. At the end, it is pertinent to mention that in an Islamic State, wherein, all the laws and regulations are derived from Quran and Sunnah, we can re-affirm environmental protection through Surah-Hud (85) Al-Quran ‘And, O my People! Give full measure and weight in justice! Do not defraud the men their things (rights), and do not act corruptly in the land, making mischief.’ Interpreting this verse with an enlarge canvass, it means that the resources of the world are to be utilised for common goals, while it is duty of the people to ensure protection of ecosystems. This scientific calculation and its integration in policy orientation was present more than 1400 years ago, howbeit, never realised.
I look forward to hearing from you all soon.
Faithfully and sincerely,
Jahanzeb Butt
Lawyer and Teacher
Research Associate (PhD Scholar)
School of Law,
Dalian Maritime University, China.