SHC CJ sees prospects of better law graduates emerging

Karachi
The Sindh High Court chief justice said on Wednesday that legal education in the country was not at par with that imparted by law schools in other parts of Southeast Asia.
Justice Faisal Arab was addressing the launching ceremony of the Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Law University.
“Most law graduates who obtain law degrees from the local law schools do not attain advocacy skills which those who have studies at renowned law schools in other countries possess,” he observed.
“Only a few graduates from local schools gain good quality of advocacy skills and that too by working hard with senior advocates,” he added.
“Our students from good schools are competent enough to take admissions in law schools in other countries but our law school graduates do not possess the legal education of the requisite standard.”
He stressed the need for law schools to endeavour hard for imparting a higher level of legal education so that law graduates could become competent and confident enough to display their advocacy skills.
“Adopting only part-time methods of teaching will take us nowhere even if we establish 20 more new law universities,” he noted.
The SHC chief justice said law schools must take an admission test before admitting students as merely possessing a graduation degree should not be considered sufficient enough.
He was of the view that the semester system of teaching and examinations had proved to be more effective than the annual system.
On establishment of the first law university, the chief justice said the people’s expectations were very high and this institution should be run on modern lines from its very inception.
“It is good that the majority of its faculty members will be working full-time as they will get more time to study themselves and then give lectures. Not only this, full-time faculty members will have more time at their disposal so that they can also effectively participate in the process of reviewing the curriculum periodically and enormously help in raising the level of imparting legal education.”
Governor Dr Ishratul Ebad Khan, who is also chancellor of the university, said the provincial government had timely realised the importance of a law university and assisted in its completion on a priority basis.
Tajikistan ambassador Sher Ali S Jononov, Sindh ombudsman Asad Ashraf Malik and Higher Education Commission executive director Prof Dr Mansoor Akbar Kundi also spoke on the occasion.