Raising the bar: Panel to improve legal education proposed

CJ Nasirul Mulk says committee has to reflect on various aspects of judicial training

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Judicial Academy’s board of governors agreed on Saturday to set up a National Judicial Education Coordination Committee in order to improve legal education and the quality and efficiency of judicial training as well as boost coordination among the FJA and provincial academies.

The body will be headed by the senior most chief justice of the High Committee and comprise all directors general of the academy and provincial academies. The decision was taken at the 39th meeting of board of governors of the academy at the Supreme Court building.

Presiding over the meeting, Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk observed, “Increased consistency and sharing of standards is required. This committee has to be futuristic. It has to devise strategies and plan training and sort out other issues of mutual interest. This multi-task body has also to examine the syllabus and annual judicial training calendar, besides standardizing and redesigning the ACR for judicial officers.  Such a body is the need of the hour.”



Dilating further, the CJ observed that the committee has to reflect on various aspects of training enabling maximum number of judicial officers to benefit at their respective duty stations.” Showing an unflinching determination for quality legal and judicial education in the country, the chief justice directed urgent steps to expedite legislation aimed at transforming the Federal Judicial Academy as the centre of excellence for law and judicial education.

He pledged that the “time will come when we will consider converting this CoE into the Federal University of Law and Judicial Education.” To attain “the long avowed goal, the law ministry has to put in practice its pragmatic efforts so that it becomes a reality.”

Besides Pervaiz Rashid, Federal Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs/Vice Chairman BoG, FJA, the meeting was attended by the academy’s members, Chief Justice, High Court of Sindh Maqbool Baqar, Chief Justice Peshawar High Court Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel, Chief Justice, Lahore High Court Kh. Imtiaz Ahmad, Chief Justice, High Court of Balochistan Muhammad Noor Meskanzai, Special Secretary, Ministry of Law,  Justice & Parliamentary Affairs Justice (retd) Muhammad Raza Khan and Director General, Federal Judicial Academy Dr. Faqir Hussain.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 18^th, 2015.