- Sattar says teaching mechanism to train lawyers broken, flawed
- Advocate Bashir suggests quality education for future attorneys
In Pakistan, three parallel law degrees are being offered to students after completion of their intermediate or bachelors.
The conventional three-year LLB degree after 14 years of education is the oldest one while LLB (Hons) is a five-year degree and can be done from various colleges and universities after 12 years of education.
A relatively new degree is LLB offered by colleges and institutes affiliated with foreign universities like the University of London (external programme) which is opted mostly by A-levels students and of three years duration.
In March last year, the Pakistan Bar Council conveyed to the 28 law institutions concerned that the duration of LLB – the basic degree required to enrol as an advocate in any bar of Pakistan – will be of five years from now on.
Previously, it was a three-year degree if done after bachelors. However, the LLB Honors is of five years and was offered to those students who have passed their intermediate or A-levels. Much hue and cry followed the decision and the Lahore High Court formed a commission to look into the matter and submit its findings about the viability of five-year LLB.
In its first report, submitted in June, the commission has pointed out various challenges and lacunae that are the very heart of five years LLB course. The report has pointed out the irrelevance of subjects taught during first two years, lack of coordination between regulatory bodies, syllabus formation and universities, and absence of exit strategy from those who opt to leave the degree after two years.
According to Supreme Court Advocate Majid Bashir, the decision to abolish three-year LLB programme would have adversely affected some affiliated colleges. “The remedy lies not in limiting the number of students or increasing the years of the degree but elevating the standards of education imparted to future attorneys,” he said.
He was of the view that the increase from three years to five years was a futile exercise and stressed that the present nomenclature of legal education allows many students who remain absent all year from their classes to pass their annual exams and then bar exams and become license-wielding advocates.
“So it doesn’t matter whether it is five years or 10. The same lot will be churned out a year in, year out,” he said. Renowned lawyer and political analyst Babar Sattar hailed the decision as good and long overdue. “Teaching mechanism to train lawyers in Pakistan is broken and flawed,” he said.
In the West, the lawyers were trained rigorously both in theory and practice, he said. “To pass a bar exam is akin to Herculean task in countries like the US and England. In our country, the lawyers representing litigants in courts neither know the theory and are oblivious of the decorum and procedures to be followed,” he said.