| |
October 15, 2007
Dear Mr.
Prime Minister,
The National Knowledge Commission, while deliberating on
issues related to knowledge concepts, recognizes legal education as an
important constituent of professional education. The vision of legal education
is to provide justice-oriented education essential to the realization of
values enshrined in the Constitution of India. In keeping with this vision,
legal education must aim at preparing legal professionals who will play
decisive leadership roles, not only as advocates practising in courts, but
also as academics, legislators, judges, policy makers, public officials, civil
society activists as well as legal counsel in the private sector, maintaining
the highest standards of professional ethics and a spirit of public service.
Legal education should also prepare professionals equipped to meet the new
challenges and dimensions of internationalization, where the nature and
organization of law and legal practice are undergoing a paradigm shift.
Further, there is need for original and path breaking legal research to create
new legal knowledge and ideas that will help meet these challenges in a manner
responsive to the needs of the country and the ideals and goals of our
Constitution. As part of a consultative process, we constituted a working
group of experts, including distinguished members of the Bar, the bench and
academia under the chairmanship of Justice M. Jagannadha Rao to suggest
necessary measures to improve the quality of legal education in India. A list
of the members of the working group is set out in
Annexure I. Ourconsultations with
stakeholders have helped identify a few key reform proposals which are
elaborated as follows:
1. Regulatory Reform: a new Standing Committee for Legal
Education
We recommend the setting up of a new regulatory mechanism
under the Independent Regulatory Authority for Higher Education (IRAHE),
vested with powers to deal with all aspects of legal education and whose
decisions are binding on the institutions teaching law and on the union and
state governments. The Standing Committee for Legal Education may consist of
twenty-five persons (including eminent lawyers, members of the Bar Council of
India/BCI, judges, academics, representatives from trade, commerce and
industry, economists, social workers, students and others) and it must aim at
revamping legal education to meet the needs and challenges of all sections of
society.
At the time of enactment of the Advocates Act, 1961, it was
envisaged that legal education would only produce lawyers for the courts and
accordingly the BCI had been entrusted with the limited role of ‘promoting
legal education and laying down minimum standards of legal education’ required
for students who ‘are entitled to practice’. In the last fifty years, and
particularly after liberalization in 1991, the entire concept of legal
education has changed considerably. Today, legal education has to meet not
only the requirements of the Bar but also the new needs of trade, commerce and
industry, in the context of growing internationalization of the profession.
The need for improvement in overall quality to match global standards has
become even more salient when viewed from such a perspective. In light of the
changed scenario in the last fifty years and the existing gaps and
deficiencies in overall quality, it is clear that the BCI has neither the
power under the Advocates Act, 1961 nor the expertise to meet the new
challenges both domestically and internationally. It is, therefore, necessary
to constitute a new regulatory mechanism with a vision both of social and
international goals, to deal with all aspects of legal education and to cater
to the needs of the present and the future. The BCI would however continue to
exercise its powers to recommend minimum standards required for practice in
the courts. Further, the BCI would continue to enjoy its powers of discipline
so far as the members of the Bar are concerned. A more detailed analysis of
the rationale, structure and functions of the new regulatory mechanism, as
excerpted from the working group report, is set out in
Annexure II.
|
|
|
|
