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Address on oath Taking Ceremony of the Office Bearers of the Law
Society of the Collage of Law, University of Management Sciences and Information Technology, Kotli, AJK
On April 25, 2015
Conference Hall- University`s Main Campus at Kurti, Kotli, AJ&K
The Worthy Vice Chancellor, Prof. Dr. Ghulam Ghous
The Distinguished Dean of the Law Department,
The Distinguished Faculty Members,
The Distinguished Members of visiting faculty
The Distinguished District and Session Judge and the Members of
District Judiciary
The Distinguished Secretaries of the Government of AJ&K
The office Bearers of the Law Society,
Dear Students,
The Ladies and Gentlemen,
Aslaam o Alaikum!
It is great pleasure for me to be here with you. I am thankful to the
University of Management Sciences and Information Technology for inviting me on the launch of initiative “Vision 2030” and oath taking ceremony of the office bearers of the Law Society.
I would like to congratulate to all of you especially the students on establishment of UMSIT at Kotli. I hope that the management and the faculty members will do their level best to impart the quality education

2 to the students. I also congratulate the office bearers of the law society and expect that they shall contribute in achieving the excellence of education along with other fellow students.
Education helps us to know the unknown, finding the new ideas, communicating with the world. It is an effective tool for transforming an individual and the society as per the directions determined by authority of the sovereign.
Imam Ghazali defines education,
“Education is a process which enables an individual to distinguish between the true and the false, the good and bad and the right conduct and the evil doing”.
The celebrated English poet John Milton interprets education as “a device to fit a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously all of the offices, both private and public, peace and war.”
In a nutshell, education is the systematic way of utilization of knowledge. It is an understanding to the meaning of the past and linking the potentials of the future.
For human being, acquisition of knowledge is primarily addressed in
Islam. Islam has its distinct attitude towards education. Education is the instrument by which people should be trained for ways of life.
Allah commands in Sura Al-Alaq (قل ع لا), verse no. 1 to 5, and I quote,
"Read! In the Name of your Lord who has created (all that exists). He has created man from a clot (a piece of thick coagulated blood). Read!
And your Lord is the Most Generous. Who has taught by the pen. He has taught man that which he knew not.”
Education is a basis for the satisfaction of the needs of the human beings and saves them from wilderness and destruction. The first verse of the Holy Quran was revealed with the instruction of education. The first word “Iqra” is a command that means “read”, and that implies the concepts of “learning”, “exploring” and “seeking enlightenment”. This

3 reflects that the act of reading (knowledge) is the way to approach the ultimate goal of just society. . Education can very rightly be regarded as a starting point of every human activity. Allah created man and provided him with the tools for acquiring knowledge, namely hearing, sight and wisdom.
Allah says in
Surah An-Nahl (لحن لا), verse no. 78, and I quote
" And Allâh has brought you out from the wombs of your mothers while you know nothing. And He gave you hearing, sight, and hearts that you might give thanks (to Allah)"
Allah has honoured the human beings the mastery over all other its creations only by giving them knowledge and wisdom. The human beings since earlier created certain do’s and don’ts or we can say that standard operating procedures for regulating their individual and collective behaviours and enabling themselves to live a harmonious social and vegetative life in a particular neighbourhood. These were called usage, customs and conventions. These accepted norms were regarded as natural, conventional or customary laws and later on, turned into codified laws. One of the definitions of law is that, “law is nothing but rules of morality, ethics and common sense codified. The codified laws are result of the collective wisdom and will of the mankind based upon the past experiences of centuries old, passed from generations to generations. There is hardly any aspect of this world which might have remained out of the ambit of any law or laws.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
From foetus to ozone layer all are being regulated by more or less some laws. So laws have got immense importance in every sphere of our life. Among others, law perform four basic functions which are of much importance for our welfare.
1-Encourgaing us to do good;

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2-Defending us from evil;
3-Resolving our disputes; and
5-Promoting our common good.
The proper interplay of all the factors among the aforesaid four, results into achieving the rule of law. For dispensation of justice, enforcement of fundamental rights enshrined in the constitution and ultimately the rule of law, from an individual to a representative group of the society and from a small civil servant to the organs of the state, on the larger context, has to act lawfully and judiciously.
Education is one of the fundamental factors for development of every society in all respects. The efficient judicial system is must for creating a peaceful society. The quality of justice partly depends upon quality of legal assistance rendered by the Bar. The quality of legal assistance correlates with the quality of the legal education. United Nations
Instrument on Legal Profession stipulates that “the independent legal profession is sine qua non for any system of protection of human rights and fundamental freedom."
Socrates believed that the Guardians of the city, whether it be the intellectual or military must be educated, order and disorder in the souls of guardians originate from the education they receive and the disorder in their souls is the source of injustice in society.
Legal education is defined as a skill for human knowledge which is universally relevant to the lawyer's art and which deserves special attention in educational institution. It may be termed as a science which deals with the practical aspects of the law of the land and consists of relating on statutes, moots or arguments on points of law and putting of cases. Education in law enables the citizens learning their rights and duties. A well acquainted with law society may be most effective in nation-building.

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Most prominent leaders of the independence struggle such as
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Mohandas K. Gandhi, Allama Muhammad
Iqbal and Jarwaharlal Nehru, were lawyers. Further, now by the passage of time the number of lawyers-turned-Politician has increased and there are a big number of members of national, provincial and legislative assemblies who belongs to legal profession. Barak
Obama,44th president of USA, 25th president who was a lawyer. At present, in Pakistan, the ratio of lawyers joining politics and reaching in assemblies is much higher than other professions.
Lawyers are regulated by the Bar Councils in Pakistan. In AJK under the provisions of AJ&K Legal Practitioners and Bar Council Act, 1995,
AJK Bar Council has been established. One of its primary functions under the provisions of this act is, “to promote legal education and prescribe standards of such education in consultation with the universities.
It has been empowered to make rules to carry out its functions which include rules to provide for “the standard of legal education to be observed by the universities in Pakistan the inspection of universities for purpose.” The Bar council has framed the Bar Council Legal
Education Rules, 2007, wherein it has issued guidelines for admission in LL.B course, for student-teacher ratio in law colleges , for provision of library in a law college, the criteria for passing percentage in the law examination, for duration of the courses, for inspection of law colleges by the Bar Council, for qualification of part time teacher etc.
There has been observed a steady decline in the quality of legal education in Pakistan and AJK. The causes identified are mushroom growth of private law colleges, lack of adequate facilities, absence of qualified faculty and failure of the regulators to ensure a certain qualitative standard. In this regard the Supreme Court of Pakistan has laid down a celebrated judgment in the case titled, “Pakistan Bar
Council v. Federal Government and others”, reported as PLD 2007 SC

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394, and given many recommendations. Serious concerns have been shown on the regulatory role of the Bar Councils over the legal education by some legal researchers.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
Today’s' student of law are future’s lawyers, public prosecutors, civil servants and the judges of tomorrow. Inadequately qualified lawyers, public prosecutor, judges, legal scholars, law draftsmen, governmental legal official and other such officers become hindrance in the administration of justice instead of supporter. To promote standard legal education we all need to work hard, the universities, law colleges, the judiciary, the lawyers, the students and obviously the government, as it is essential for achieving good governance and rule of law which benefit all of us.
Today, along with the ordinary nature of the cases, the courts have to resolve the disputes of very complex nature and have to interpret the laws of novel kinds i.e. local and international environmental laws; ecommerce law; cyber crime law; electronic media law; WTO law;
NGOs laws; International child-abduction law and many more.
The new concepts in criminology such as transnational crimes, state crimes, race and crime, organized crime, cyber crimes, terrorism etc required very deep approach to understand the issues, complex acts of crimes and to deal with laws of not-ordinary nature. Further, it is usually the percentage of acquittal or conviction which is debated or criticized but the criminal justice system which is kicked off on very early stage after commission of offence or even before that, requires a complete revamping even of the statutes.
There is an overlapping field of laws such as banking, corporate governance, e-commerce, international trade, competition, dumpingtrade, intellectual property etc. The courts not only have to look into

7 legal aspects while adjudicating but also give strong consideration to the financial and economic aspects of the decisions on the broader horizon. The usual phenomenon of delayed adjudication, if persist with the matters of corporate and business nature, it may adversely affect the trend of investments and overall economic activity.
Since beginning, the human being has been striving for exercise of some basic rights rather natural rights. History witnessed that there had existed some such natural right i.e. the right to life, the right to freedom, the right to property. The origin of the concept of human rights is traced back to ancient Greek and Rome. The one of the purpose of the establishment of the UNO in 1945 was to promote and encourage human rights and fundamental freedom for all without any discrimination. Furthering the end, the General Assembly of UN has proclaimed, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has conferred upon the citizens of the member states different kinds of fundamental rights as laid down in its 30 Articles. Following the international obligations and stepping on the foot-prints of other countries the Fundamental Rights have been enshrined in the
Constitution of Pakistan, 1973, and the AJK Interim Constitution Act,
1974. The constitution is a kind of social agreement of the state with its citizens through which it guarantees the citizens certain basic rights called fundamental rights to reciprocate for non-defiance of the state’s writ. The relation between the state and the state-subject remains sustainable subject to reciprocal performance of their respective obligations.
The courts have been striving for supremacy of the constitution, enforcement of the fundamental rights and the rule of law. Only an independent judiciary may be instrumental in mending, in meaningful way the damaged chain-links of the relation between the state and its subjects through enforcement of fundamental rights. The concept of rule of law remains a far cry in absence of an independent judiciary.

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The whole structure of the administration of justice rests upon this. The other organs of the state have important role for effective system of administration of justice. The overlapping and transgression lead to chaos.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
Taking this opportunity, I would like to give some suggestions for achieving quality legal education.
Elementary knowledge of the basic laws and the education should be given to students at the secondary level of education.
Clinical legal education should also be imparted along with conventional curricula of legal education, so that the student may be able to have some experiential knowledge when they join the Bar.
The principles of the legal and professional ethics should also be taught extensively and the students should be sensitised that the nonadherence results into creation of injustice-cycle in the society overall.
The legal research skills, conventional and electronic, should also be part of curriculum of legal education.
The Socratic method of teaching which is prevalent in USA law schools and in Pakistan LUMS is also giving legal education in this way should also be adopted along with conventional teaching method.
The students should be sensitised with critical thinking methods along with other modern learning skills other than syllabus.
The gradual increase in complexity of litigations demands extensive knowledge of comparative laws, new developments and dimensions in legal field, require that there should be free facility of information technology to the students for access to electronic law journals and legal materials.
The library should be up-dated and its requirements should not be compromised on any cost and meaningful visitation of the student to

9 library for some time may be made mandatory and library log of each law student be evaluated in this regard.
It should be mandatory for the faculty members to get publish their research papers of their respective teaching subject in any local or foreign law journal
There should be requirement for submitting research-based assignments during the academic sessions.
The provision of continued legal education should also be among the taught programmes of law collages so that the lawyers may be able to enhance their theoretical and professional skills in their respective fields of practice. This may be achieved by a range of forms which can include seminars, lectures, re-fresher courses. In USA and UK, the regulatory bodies of the legal profession give emphasise to continuous legal education and now it is becoming mandatory to go through certain amount of training every year.
Thanks all of you.