“A weak system of legal education has therefore continued to render pernicious impact on state of justice service delivery in the country,” he said, adding that as a result, the economic development and overall performance of system of governance had been adversely affected.
The Prime Minister said that Pakistan owed a lot to the legal community. Founding Father of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah was a renowned Barrister who achieved Pakistan purely through democratic and legal struggle.
Even in the recent past, he said, the legal community played an important role in restoration of democracy and rule of law in the country. “Therefore, promotion of legal education and strengthening of legal institutions is of paramount importance for the progress of our society,” he added.
He said the primary goal of law schools should be to train generalists who can utilize their skills in a variety of responsible positions.
Nevertheless, social and economic changes may create increasing demands for knowledge about complex affairs and specialized bodies of rules and demands for new kinds of counseling and representational skills, he said.
The Prime Minister said that many fields such as taxation, corporate finance and banking may require specialized lawyers. Lawyers in government may need to know more about economics, research methods, information systems and decision theory, he added.
Academic education should lead to originality and independence of the mind and the ability to think and work in a reflective and academic manner.
He said a university graduate should receive not only schooling i.e. training but also education. Otherwise, programmes may become just apprenticeships and universities mere polytechnics, he added.
Likewise, in training prospective lawyers, certain prerequisites should be kept in mind, he said and added that there was a growing trend towards the assessment of the reasoning and critical-thinking skills of potential law students and lawyers, in addition to the assessment of their knowledge of the law.
Prime Minister Gilani said that there was recognition that the ability to read and think critically was a vital skill for legal training and law practice. “Our legal education programmes should hone these skills while simultaneously providing instruction in the content of the law”, he said.
He said,” prospective lawyers need keen analytical skills. The globalization of law practice should lead to a truly global system of legal education, with an international focus on training in the law and the development of critical-thinking skills. Wherever these needs are identified, assessment schemes both of legal knowledge and of reasoning abilities are sure to follow.”
He said the law schools should establish graduate-level programmes dealing with interdisciplinary subjects relating to important sectors of the development process.
Studies for specialization, like the study of para-professionalization should became an important component of the more general, but sophisticated field of delivery of legal services. It deserves more attention than it has so far been accorded, the Prime Minister said.
He said that education about law in the society would be promoted. The needs might range from rudimentary, non formal law education at the pre-university level.
He said that the importance of legal education, both as an educational experience and as a source of valuable practical skills for the development of the society, had been consistently underestimated in the developing countries.
“It is pertinent that the legal education should be planned within the context of and related to the local social situation and developmental stage, taking into account factors such as differences in the use of formal laws, legal processes and value system.
“It is necessary to approach law as a discipline which helps to understand and solve problems of development,” he said and added that ideally, legal education should correlate to new developments in the planning of a system of education and in teaching methods.
The Prime Minister hoped that the Bahauddin Zakariya University Gilani Law College would be instrumental in promoting innovations in legal education. It was heartening to note that the Vice-Chancellor Bahauddin Zakariya University and his team were striving hard to achieve high standards at the University.
He assured all necessary steps to ensure the smooth flow of funds for the University so that the projects that are waiting for completion are not delayed any further.
Prof. Dr. Muhammad Zafarullah, Vice-Chancellor, Bahauddin Zakariya University also spoke on the occasion.
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