Mock Trials
This semester department of law witnessed its first mock trial sessions by the graduating class. The graduating batch made great efforts in presenting their cases. The department was honored to have MUST Department of Law’s faculty as Judges (Chairman Department of Law, Major Shahzada Masoud, Ex-chairman Sir Sarfraz, Sir Saqib Shahabaz, Sir Sardar Azam and Sir Nafees Ahmed) to adjudicate the trials.Cases were argued on various civil and criminal areas such as a murder trial, hit and run cases, bail proceedings, cases on cyber-crime and property law cases. All teams were quite confident and raised some good points and presented some strong evidence backed by unparalleled skills and solid arguments. Amongst the highlights of the trials was professionalism, admissibility of evidence and unprecedented hard work that went into the cases by 10th Semester. The series of events was concluded by the certificate distribution ceremony. The mock trials were nothing short of a real court and all this was made possible by the efforts of (Ma’am Arooj Malik) who encouraged the students speak in front of people. More importantly the mock trials were made possible by the chairman, department of law Sir Shahzada Masoud for giving the students a platform to practice their legal skills.
1st MUST Intra-Departmental Moot Court Competition
On 31st of May, 2022 a one-day “Orientation Session on Law Mooting” was organised by the Department of Law at Mock Trial & Moot Court Room, Department of Law, MUST. The resource person for the session was Mr. Same ur Rehman, Assistant Professor, National University of Science and Technology, Islamabad. He served as Assistant Professor at the Shariah Academy, Islamic International University, Islamabad, and at the Bahria University, Islamabad. He is former legal advisor of ICRC, Peshawar. He organised, administered and Judged National and South Asian rounds of Henry Dunant Moot Competition for five consecutive years. Further, he also judged the national, regional and International rounds of Jessup International Law moot competition and pioneer judge in Washington DC, USA from Pakistan. He is first Pakistani author to write a book on Moot Court.
The session was stated from the recitation of Holly Quran followed by Naat e Rasool e Pak.The session was based on three parts; general mooting culture, research memorial and oral advocacy in mooting skills. In first part of the session, Mr. Sami ur Rehman discussed the importance of Law Mooting, and explained how such activity which helps students of law,becoming good professionals.Mock Trial is different from moot court, it involves witness testimony, with statements and arguments directed to a jury, whereas moot court involves attorneys making arguments to, and answering questions directly from, a panel of judges only.Producing good law professionals is not an easy task; it needs tremendous efforts and commitment to achieve such goal.Moot court is an artificially created arrangement with a get up similar to a real court where student advocates argue hypothetical cases.The moot problems are mostly based on actual cases with some modification.While in second part, Mr. Sami ur Rehman shared his experience about the tools for excellence and how to crack the problem.He said that master the facts by reading again and again. Make two columns in note, one for plaintiff and one for opponent side. Start writing facts which favour each party in their respective columns.After mastering case facts, its turn to master the law.Create a timeline of events for ease of referral and better understanding.Determine the points which favour your side.Find legal authorities to back up your argument.Last but not the least, he explained about Basic etiquettes for Oral Arguments and things to do and not to do while arguing in the Court.
At the end of the session, a Moot Trial was arranged, in which two teams of students participated and argued on a mock problem shared by Mr. Sami ur Rehman and the mock trial was chaired by Mr. Same ur Rehman and senior faculty member, Mr. Saqeb Shabaz, in which they guided the students how to present before the court.
He further described that what opportunities will law mooting creates for the students he included that it will help them to become a good lawyer, a judge, teacher, law officer, public prosecutor, become an author etc.
In the last of the session, Dr. Muhammad Mushtaq Ahmad, Chairman Department of Law thanked Mr. Sami urRehman, the guest speaker and presented shield to him.
In furtherance to the orientation session, Department of Law has organized its 1st MUST Intra-Departmental Moot Court Competition from 7th till 9th of June, 2022, 42 participants comprised of 12 teams participated in the event. To promote teamwork, each team comprises of one understudy from every semester and each team was supervised by permanent faculty member. A case-based scenario on Constitution Law was proffer as a moot problem.
On Day first, 7th of June, team 1 to 6 represented Applicants side, while remaining teams represented respondent side. Each match was of 45 minutes, 17 minutes for arguments, 3 minutes for rebuttals & Sur-Rebuttals. Top scorer team represented Applicant was team 7 and top scorer team represented Respondents was team 4 and qualified for first semi-finals. While on day second, all applicants teams of day 1 represented respondent side and vice versa. Top scorer team represented Applicant was team 6 and top scorer team represented Respondents was team 10 and qualified for second semi-finals. Each match as two judges, lawyers from Mirpur and Bhimber bar Associations along with permanent faculty members of the Department of Law acted as judges in this competition.
On Last Day of the Competition, first semi-final match was between team 4 and team 10 and was judged by Ms Sidra Ataa Gondal and Mr. Nafees Ahmed Kiyani, upon result announcement, team 10 qualified for the finals. Further, second semi-final was held between team 6 and team 7 and was judged by Ms Sidra Ataa Gondal and Mr. Saqib Shehbaz, upon results, team 6 made their way to the finals. The final match was between team 6 and team 10, in which team 6 represented the applicant and team 10 represented the respondent side. The competition was won by team 6, team members of winning team are Mr. Daniyal Ashfaq from 8th semester and Mr. Sarddar Hussain from 4th the semester, while, runner up team members are Shanza Akram from 8th semester, Rida Imran from 2nd semester. Upon conclusion of all the marks, Mr. Saqib Javed was nominated as best mooter for the competition.
Concluding ceremony was held on 20th of June, 2022, in which Professor Dr. Mohammad Mushtaq Ahmed, Chairman, Department of Law, congratulates all the participants and distributed certificates to the participants, further, distributed shields and certificates to winning, runner-up team and best mooter of the competition.
Dr.Mushtaq also informed students about inter-universities moot court competition at AJK level in July. He also encouraged the students by informing them that the best team will be sent for participation in the prestigious Henry Dunant Moot Court Competition to be organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross in September, 2022.