Gook wants to shake up the system

[dropcap]G[/dropcap]OBBLE D Gook is pleased to read reports that the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has decided to focus its attention on the deteriorating standards of the legal profession. It was high time that some high court took up this burning issue seriously.

A division bench consisting of Justice N Kirubakaran and Justice S S Sundar has emphatically suggested that the Bar Council of India ought to consider rules requiring the obtaining of some “minimum experience criteria” before fresh law graduates are let loose in courts.

The Hon’ble judges have suggested that a minimum of three or five years practice with a senior, experienced practitioner must ideally be prescribed as a condition precedent for trial court or high court practice respectively.

The bench has also asked the Bar Council to respond to its suggestion of holding an exam, similar to the AOR exam in the Supreme Court, for new entrants before they embark upon trial and high court practice, so that at least a minimum measurable standard of professional competence is hopefully achieved by them.

Gobble D Gook feels that the Hon’ble judges have hit the nail on the head by recording the fact that “Trial Court experience cannot be obtained anywhere from the Constitutional Courts.”

Gook is witness to the fact that our high courts have many Milords who were elevated from the Bar to the Bench on the basis of their alleged practice in Constitutional Courts alone without verifying whether they had any trial court experience at all.

The general opinion is that the performance of such privileged Milords is pretty pathetic due to inadequate knowledge of the fundamentals of evidence, procedure and trial practice and lack of training in first principles.

Such palpable ignorance often leads to frustration which is then unleashed by these Milords as anger aimed mostly at hapless juniors who have the misfortune of being sent before them and who, for most part, have no chowkidars from the Bar to take up cudgels on their behalf.

To applaud this initiative of the Madras High Court and with a hope that the Bar Council of India indeed does something about it, Gook has penned this Law-merick:

Ever noticed standards fallen by the way?

The Legal Profession is not child’s play!

 

     We don’t get assistance

     Reforms meet resistance

 

How long can we go on like this, anyway?