Law embraces every sphere of life and society. Knowledge of law is indispensable for human development. The quality of legal education in the higher seats of learning is more obligated to contribute to the rule of law. Law graduates from the universities and colleges would become not only future judges, lawyers, legal counsels, law officers, teachers, and researchers, but also responsible employees in the public and private sectors to take part in the overall governance of the country. Outcome-based legal education can bring positive changes and prosperity to legal professions.
For a long time, law schools in Bangladesh have been getting criticism for not being able to produce efficient graduates who are expected to work as legal professionals both in bench and bar. With the global progress of the legal profession, improving the quality and standard of legal education has thus become a prime challenge for Bangladesh. Among other limitations, conventional teaching methodology and curriculum with less practical implication, inadequate orientation of doing research, and limited establishment of clinical legal education mainly reinforce this challenge.
Responsibilities of law Graduates do not end with performing their professional functions at the bar, bench, or elsewhere. Legal education entitles law graduates with solemn duty to take law to the people. It is to make the people aware of laws and their rights and to help them seek remedies through courts and alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in facilitating access to justice.
In Bangladesh, young legal professionals face various types of problems in their daily activities. Normally, after appearing in the Bangladesh Judicial Service Examination, an Assistant Judge starts to work in civil courts. During their early recruitment days, they need to deal with some issues that were not taught in their law schools. For example, execution suit is a very crucial stage of civil proceeding, and sometimes young assistant judges feel helpless in executing such suits at their own court due to a lack of knowledge. In our law school, we do not get the opportunity to learn the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, practically. As a result, we are deprived of the understanding of the proceedings, which we ought to learn. Judges also experience difficulties arising from procedural laws. Our law schools do not promote and encourage students in case study. It is one of the weaknesses, and as a result, judges lack proper perception of precedents and case analysis skills. Our young Advocates and early professionals do not have proper knowledge in pleadings; as a result, they cannot prepare a plaint or written statement correctly. Some Advocates do not possess the strategy and skill in cross-examination, and they perform poorly in courtrooms while cross-examining the opponent’s witnesses. It puts a negative impression on the Advocate’s image. It is also a shortcoming of our law schools, as our law schools do not introduce students to successful practitioners frequently. Students do not get the opportunity to learn professional tactics from them. Argument is the most significant phase of a suit, and lack of strategy in this step brings failure in a suit. Due to the deficiency in understanding and lack of clinical legal education, they are behind. In criminal proceedings, confession under Section 164 is crucial and can be admissible. However, our law graduates cannot utilise it to bring out the truth. Lawyers fail to counsel their clients sometimes as they did not perceive professional ethics and morality in law school. Legal ethics as a separate course is almost nonexistent in our curriculum. On the other hand, there is no provision for training and continuing legal education for the law teachers in Bangladesh. It is one of the reasons for poor quality education in law school, as incompetent law teachers cannot undertake concrete steps to ensure outcome-based education.
Law curriculum and teaching methodology should be designed in a way as to involve people’s participation, which can be done by clinical legal education. Students need to be taught the attributes of judicial activism to interpret laws in order to protect justice and the interests of the marginalised sections of the people. To underline the vocational or professional nature of legal education, it is necessary to emphasise the need for practical methods of teaching law by problem method, case study, moot court and mock trial, clinical legal education, etc. Some law schools may have introduced some practical methods of teaching law, but in most cases, law teaching in Bangladesh has remained theoretical as well as lecture-based. Hence, legal education should be more inter-disciplinary and academic in approach in order to provide the students with a credible and liberal legal education.
While receiving legal education, every law student needs to know the methods of doing research. No matter what career he/she might choose in the future, each of them requires possessing sound knowledge on legal and other multidisciplinary issues. In any profession, be it a law practice in chamber and court, teaching law at university, or advocating on legal issues in national or international organisations, we need to do research, which is mandatory for expressing one’s capability of maximum excellence. In Bangladesh, there exist a few law schools that train up their students with the skills of legal writing and research methodology. Arguing with lack of research for a party in the court often seems to be illogical and less attractive to the judge, and it ends with losing the case.
A court visit should be mandatory for the law students. During their student life, they need to be introduced to the total environment of court. Client management and professional behaviour are also required to learn. A mock court and mock trial competition should be arranged in law schools on a regular basis. Law schools should concentrate more on practical legal education to overcome the weaknesses of their own students. Law students should make a habit of reading various law reviews and law reports, which will stimulate the tendency of case study. To ensure outcome-based legal education, such steps are not exhaustive. Our policymakers and skilled professionals can bring new attributes to our curriculum simultaneously.
The issues and problems of legal studies in Bangladesh are many. Legal education needs to be achieved by a humanistic approach with social involvement to establish social justice. We should aim to make the legal studies intellectually stimulating, socially relevant, and professionally significant.
About the author –
Ms. Tarin Hasan holds both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Law from the University of Chittagong. She is currently serving as a Lecturer at Southern University Bangladesh and is also an Advocate at the Chittagong District and Sessions Judge Court. In addition to her academic achievements, she completed her legal internship at the National Legal Aid Services Organization, Dhaka. Her notable research career includes internships at the Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (BILS) and the Chittagong University Higher Education and Research Society (CURHS). Ms. Tarin earned prestigious scholarships for her academic excellence in both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. Her research interests include constitutional law, environmental law, and international law.