The age limit

PBC must reconsider the wisdom behind its age-restriction policy

‘Age is no limit to learning’. Should the truism apply to professional education? It is argued that the imperative of regulating standards of professional qualification and training justifies the institution of age limits for enrolment in professional degrees. Such regulation, however, arguably offends the constitutional guarantee, under Article 19, of the right “to enter upon any lawful profession or occupation, and to conduct any lawful trade or business.” The Lahore High Court (LHC) was recently confronted with these conflicting positions in a constitutional challenge against the prescription of an upper age limit by Punjab University for admission to LLB. In an interim order passed last week, a full bench of the LHC ruled that the age restriction should not be “a consideration for granting provisional admission in the LLB programme.”

The Court was unconvinced by the argument that the University’s policy, reportedly adopted in accord with the suggestions of the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC), was essential for ensuring quality and calibre of the legal profession. The Article 19 guarantee not unrestricted and may be subject to regulation. The Courts have, in the past, adopted a deferential stance towards such regulation. The superior judiciary has on occasion held that prescription of a maximum age for admission to a particular degree is a reasonable and permissible mode of regulation by educational institutions. But one must ask whether age should be treated as a relevant criterion for assessing a person’s eligibility to partake in professional education and instruction? Where physical fitness and stamina are central to the nature of professional work demanded, probably yes. But the legal profession does not fall within this category. Advanced years, maturer minds and richer experiences may serve as assets to a student and practitioner of law. Though the question may not have been at issue before the Court, one must also ask whether the PBC is competent to recommend/impose limitations on admission to LLB. Pursuant to section 13(j) of the Pakistan Bar Council Act of 1973 the PBC is empowered to “promote legal education and prescribe standards of such education”. The Act does not grant the PBC the authority to determine the admission criteria for the LLB degree. The Council’s regulatory role is arguably relevant post-admission, when it may prescribe the conditions for enrolment of graduate lawyers as Advocates of the Superior Courts. The High Court of Punjab and Haryana in India struck down a maximum age limit notified by the Bar Council of India (BCI) for admission to the five-year law course on two counts: that it drew an artificial and irrational classification between students; and that BCI lacked competence to frame and implement such policy. Although the BCI withdrew the notification in 2013, the age limit has recently been resurrected following a decision of the Madras High Court that the withdrawal was not in accord with requisite legal procedures.

The PBC’s concern for the deteriorating standard of legal education, however, must be taken seriously. In a judgment delivered in 2007 the Supreme Court lamented the uncontrolled, mushroom growth of law colleges in Pakistan, which often lack the infrastructural and intellectual capacities to impart the requisite standard of education. Such institutions, the Court opined, function not as centres of learning but as business houses driven only by the incentive of greater profit margins (PLD 2007 SC 394). The Court called for the strengthening of the eligibility criteria for admission to LLB and concluded that the “Bar in general and the Pakistan Bar Council in particular therefore have awesome responsibility to improve the quality of legal education because it is the possession of a degree of law which is a sufficient academic qualification for entering the Bar”. The PBC has been entrusted with a difficult task. It must be commended for its earlier initiatives for the cause of standardised, in-depth and multi-disciplinary legal education in Pakistan. Earlier this year, the PBC increased the minimum duration of the LLB degree to five years and instituted stricter standards for according affiliation to law colleges. The PBC must, however, reconsider the wisdom behind its age-restriction policy.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 9^th, 2016.

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