Law letter
Legal education for pro-poor lawyering
The legal education in Bangladesh is still lying in the traditional footing given its curricula, teaching methods, orientation to research and students' exposure etc. Legal research and publications both in academic and non-academic levels are also in a pity condition. There is no institute devoted to specialized law course and research aiming to higher degrees and quality publications. Also, studying a complete human rights programme which is considered as a complementary part of legal education are yet to be rolled out.
Few of the training institutes or centers whatever are there lack standard setting and sustainability in terms of their goals, objectives, area of works and activities apart from having lack of permanent faculties and researchers, research programmes and publications of a standard level. We are yet to have an institute in the area of law and human rights with an international repute which even people in Nepal (i.e. Katmandu Law School) already have. An ADB-sponsored study depicts the gloomy picture of the legal education here as well.
There are mainly three (except distance/correspondence course of few foreign universities) flows of legal education. There are four-year LL.B (Honours) and Master programme at four public and a dozen private universities. Private law colleges under the National University offer a two-year LL.B. (Pass) programme. Private Universities also adds this LL.B. (Pass) course in their run.
However, there are lot of criticism in terms of the standard and quality of degrees in the field of law offered by the private universities (except a very few). It also goes for law colleges. There is no effective monitoring and quality assurance mechanism or activities either from the University Grants Commission or from the Bangladesh Bar Council.
The Government and its relevant machineries are apparently reluctant in this regard. We are yet to have any public law colleges in the country which could set a trend for quality legal education. Unfortunately, the “renowned legal academics” few of those are here and the “famed legal practitioners” hardly have time and come forward to initiate a trend setting institute for legal education and research here. (Recently, we have heard about an initiative regarding South Asian Institute of Advanced Legal and Human Rights Studies-SAIALS under the leadership of Dr. Kamal Hosaain in Bangladesh).
We have also not come to know about any serious effort undertaken so far by Bangladesh Bar Council (which is a statutory body to oversee quality of legal education and set out standard for legal profession among others). Few of the private universities who have set a trend for standard of quality education in other disciplines like business management or computer sciences but did not venture for introducing programmes on law or human rights.
Given ours if we look in the Indian context, it (India) is far ahead in legal and human rights education and research. It has now dozens of national law universities or schools of international repute at places like Bangalore, New Delhi, Kolkata, Bhopal, Gujrat, Hyderabad, Jodhpur, and Pune.
India has started its trend setting move for modern legal education and research through establishment of the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) sponsored by the Bar Council of India back in 1988. NLSIU aims to provide high-quality legal education. For this it has forged unique partnership with the Bar, the Bench and the Academia. Right from its inception, leading lawyers, academicians and judges have associated with NLSIU in different ways.
The five-year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) programme offered by the NLSIU integrates legal studies with that of four social science subjects. It includes History, Political Science, Economics and Sociology.
The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS) established in 1999 is another landmark in Indian legal education and research. The WBNUJS aims to: (i) Advance and disseminate learning and knowledge of law and legal processes and their role in national development, (ii) Promote legal knowledge and to make law and the legal process efficient instruments of social development, (iii) Develop in the student and research scholar a sense of responsibility to serve society in the field of law by developing skills with regard to advocacy, legal service, legislation, law reforms and the like, and (iv) Promote inter-disciplinary study of law in relation to management, technology, international cooperation and development.
The WBNUJS is running through different schools like Criminal Justice and Administration, Economic and Business Laws, Legal Practice and Development, Private Laws and Comparative Jurisprudence, Public Law and Governance, Social Sciences, and Technology, Law and Development. As visioned by Dr. Mizanur Rahman, Professor of Law at the University of Dhaka there is a dire need for pro-poor lawyering and justice system in Bangladesh. For this a overhauling is due in the legal education system (legal system as well).
If we want to have the rule of law in the country, it is the desired expectation anyway, there is no other alternative but to expand opportunities for quality legal education as argued by one of our renowned lawyer-cum-academician some time back. Quality law and human rights education could contribute to promotion and protection of human rights, rule of law, democracy and development. And it's high time to initiate this.
Uttam Kumar Das
PhD, legal researcher and practitioner.
