Lahore University of Management Sciences

Department of Law and Policy

Programme Development and Extra Curricular

	Academic and Guest Lectures Student Activities Initiatives in Executive Development Conferences, Seminars, Workshops, Projects

Law & Politics Society

LPS was formed in the academic year 2004-2005 to organize various events including law moots, discussion forums, guest speakers, political games, movie weeks and related publications. Currently, Professor Sikander Shah and Professor Moeen Cheema serve as two (2) of the three (3) patrons of LPS. Some of the recent LPS events are described below.

“Relationship between the Northern Areas and Pakistan”

The LPS hosted a discussion group on the “Relationship between the Northern Areas and Pakistan” in October 2006. Guest discussants were invited, including Nisar Memon (senator of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam), and member of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas), Ismail Khan (Skardu-based development consultant and analyst, who writes for the newspaper “The News”), Imran Shigri (member of the Northern Areas Legislative Council (NALC), which is the de facto legislature of the area), and Saalim Ansari (Karachi based lawyer who has written a book on Kashmir, and has also written several articles on the status of the Northern Areas).

Balance of Terror – ‘Empire’ v. Jehad”

The first discussion forum, titled “Balance of Terror – ‘Empire’ v. Jehad”, was held in April 2005. Professor Sadaf Aziz was one of the faculty participants.

In May 2005, LPS hosted a seminar on ‘Combating Corruption and the Role of the National Accountability Bureau’. Six student groups presented academic papers on various aspects of corruption and state-led accountability strategies in Pakistan, which were supervised in part by Professor Moeen Cheema, Professor Sadaf Aziz and Professor Sikander Shah. The idea of the seminar originated in the National Accountability Bureau (the “NAB”), and the event at LUMS was the seminal exercise in line with a new public awareness campaign. The Chairman of NAB, Lt. Gen. Munir Hafiz, along with other senior NAB officials, was in attendance. The Chairman NAB responded in a generous manner by addressing individual points and suggesting that he was open to further dialogue and engagement. The event received substantial coverage in national Urdu and English press. Leading journalists, including Mr. Irshad Haqqani, made direct references to some of the points raised by the students during the seminar.

The second discussion forum, titled “Interference of Religion in Politics – How Much is Too Much”, encompassed debate on what role religion has, and what it role it should play in the political arena. Professor Roger Normand was one of the speakers at the forum.

As part of the LPS Guest Speaker Series, Mr. Aitezaz Ahsan was invited in December 2005 to talk about various constitutional issues in Pakistan, including the validity of military coups de tat, and the role of the judiciary and democratic governments in the evolution of the constitutional history of the country. Professor Osama Siddique set down the parameters for the talk with an introductory statement and moderated the question and answer session at the end.

The Reading Circle

The Reading Circle (the “Circle”) was founded by Professor Osama Siddique, Head of the Law Department, on 21st February, 2006, in an effort to create a forum that would bring together both students and faculty who had a genuine interest in discovering and sharing good literature and to inculcate and encourage reading as a habit. The Circle seeks to encourage its members to read and recite the literary works of both classical and contemporary writers, and encompasses economic, political, historical, and sociological works that are now widely renowned within mainstream literature.

Though the workings and meetings of the Circle are presently piloted by Osama, the eventual aim is to make the Circle a purely student-driven entity. The Circle’s membership is open to both faculty members and students at LUMS, though it is expected, inevitably, that student involvement will exceed faculty involvement by a huge margin. The meetings of the Circle are generally scheduled to take place every fortnight at a convenient time after classes on weekdays.

Student Council

In early 2005, a fully functional Student Council was created at LUMS for the purpose of forging a structured relationship between the student body and the faculty and administration of LUMS. Professor Sikander Shah was the driving force behind the establishment and formalization of this body. Democratic elections were conducted for the selection of the Student Council Constituent Assembly, which, once elected, drafted the Constitution of the Student Council under Professor Sikander’s supervision and also laid down guidelines for the functioning of student societies and centralization of mechanisms for all material student grievances. The Constituent Assembly also laid out the requisite procedures for the General Student Council elections, which were held in the Spring Quarter, 2006.

Sports Activities

Professor Moeen Cheema was appointed Patron of Sports at LUMS (“SLUMS”) and the Convenor of the new Sports Committee for the year 2005 to 2006, and played a significant role in the development of the sports structure in the university. Amongst other things, Professor Moeen was instrumental in the creation of the Sports Committee comprising of faculty, administration and student representatives to oversee the management of sports facilities. The Committee is also responsible for the development of sports facilities' budget proposals for the year 2006-07.

Under Professor Moeen’s guidance SLUMS is seeking to reform its governance structure in order to make it a more efficient and professional organization. SLUMS is now the most active society at LUMS, both with regards to student participation and the number of organized events. Aside from regularly organizing inter-batch tournaments in popular sports, SLUMS is increasingly developing an outward focus and LUMS teams are participating in inter-university sports matches and competitions. SLUMS hosted the traditional LUMS-GIKI sports fixtures in 2005 in which the LUMS teams won all nine (9) matches. SLUMS also hosted the first ever fixture of the Aftab-Hassan Trophy competition between LUMS and Government College University the same year. During the Winter Quarter, 2005-2006, SLUMS organized an Inter-School Sports Gala in which a number of the leading schools of Lahore participated. The Gala introduced the students of these schools to LUMS and helped market LUMS. Simultaneously, SLUMS organized its first Inter-University Football Challenge supported by a number of corporate sponsors. The tournament was widely advertised and was hailed as the most professionally-organized university sports event in recent history.

SLUMS also initiated a coaching program to train LUMS teams for participation in the HEC Inter-University sports event to be held in future.

Moot Courts & Competitions

Three (3) students from the Law Department won the Moot Court Competition organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross (“ICRC”) in Pakistan in September 2005. They were subsequently selected by the ICRC to participate in the International Moot Competition held in Serbia in March 2006.

The purpose of the Moot Court is to expose the LUMS Law Students to rudimentary lawyering skills, such as legal research, drafting, case preparation, and advocacy, through a structured program of classes and exercises which draw upon and add to the basic knowledge provided in the first year of the LL.B. The Moot Court aims to develop students’ potential in written and oral advocacy by providing them with the opportunity to critique each other in a positive and meaningful manner, and to work as individuals as well as team members steering towards a common goal.

The primary function of the Moot Court activities is to provide a clinical educational experience and any competitive aspect of the Moot Court is secondary.

The first Moot Court was held in the Summer Quarter, 2006. There were two main successive law moot exercises, for which the law class was divided into groups of petitioners, respondents and, where necessary, amicus curiae.

The Moot Court comprised of 3 phases. The first phase commenced with introductory training sessions, the purpose of which was to equip the students with a basic understanding of litigatory practice. These included: (i) legal research, (ii) drafting and case preparation, (iii) advocacy and presentation skills, and (iv) review of the substantive law to be employed in the moot exercises.

In the second phase, in accordance with the problem scenarios presented to them, each group of students was required to draft (i) a written statement (petition, reply or brief, as the case may be), (ii) a memorandum succinctly outlining the legal arguments used as well as the full case citations, and (iii) photocopies of the important case law cited in the legal arguments, with the relevant portions of the cases highlighted for use by the judges. Students were given a few days to undertake research, draft their statements and prepare the case.

The two moot exercises took place in the third phase. The 2 moot exercises were centered on legal debates canvassing Constitutional Rights in Pakistan and subsidiary issues. The parties presented their respective arguments in front of a panel of judges comprising one or more members of the Responsible Faculty, namely, Professor Osama Siddique, Professor Moeen Cheema and Professor Bilal Minto. The moot exercises were video recorded to assist the students in advocacy skill enhancement.