Kathmandu University School of LawNEWSLETTER1

NEWSLETTEREducation for leadership |||||Year 1|||||Issue 3|||||November 2014KUSL

Kathmandu University School of Law, KUSL

irst of all, I take this opportunity to congratulate the

Kathmandu University in Dhulikhel for taking a firm

initiative to establish the School of Law (KUSL) as its

seventh School. It was a very timely move, in view of

our pressing national requirement for quality legal

education, and the Kathmandu University was certainly

the best to think of it. The appointment of Dr Bipin

Adhikari, a senior constitutional expert, as the founding

law dean shows how serious the University is about

its commitment for quality legal education.

I would also like to congratulate the Kathmandu

University School of Law for launching a very important

course, BBM, LL.B (Bachelor of Business...(see page 3)

The keynote speech delivered at Kathmandu University during launching of the integrated Bachelor of Business

Management Bachelor of Law (BBM,LL.B) Programme of the School of Law (KUSL) on August 11, 2014.

Justice Kalyan Shrestha on the Prospect of Legal

Education in Nepal

F

Dr Bipin Adhikari (Dean, School of Law), Dr Bhola Thapa (Registrar, KU), Dr Suresh Raj Sharma (Former

VC, KU), Dr Ram Kantha Makaju Shrestha (VC, KU), Hon. Kalyan Shrestha (Justice, Supreme Court), Hari

Krishna Karki (V ice-chairperson Nepal Bar Council; Chairperson, Nepal Bar Association) Professor Tom

Ginsberg (University of Chicago Law School) and Sumit Bisarya (Constitution Building Programme, IIDEA,

Sweden) at the lunching ceremony of the BBM, LL.B programme on August 11, 2014. (from the left)

Kathmandu University School of Law 2

he five year, integrated Bachelor of Business Management, Bachelor of Law (BBM,LL.B) programme of the Kathmandu

University School of Law was launched in Dhulikhel today.

Launching the programme by lighting a ‘Panas,’ the Kathmandu University Vice Chancellor Professor Dr Ram Kantha

Makaju Shrestha said this programme is a well thought-out intervention of the Kathmandu University to fulfill the

pressing requirements of the Nepalese society today.

While the guests of the launching programme were welcomed by Dean Dr Bipin Adhikari in the CV Raman Auditorium

of Kathmandu University, the launching of the programme was graced by the keynote speech of Honorable Justice

Kalyan Shrestha of the Supreme Court of Nepal on the prospects of legal education and the role of the Kathmandu

University School of Law in realizing its goals.

The programme was addressed by Professor (Dr) Suresh Raj Sharma, former Vice Chancellor and Coordinator of the

Kathmandu University School of Law Planning Advisory Committee. Emphasizing the importance of quality legal

education for Nepal, Dr Sharma said this programme has been picked up by the University keeping in view the problems

in the corporate sector in Nepal. He stated that it was initiated in order to create and train the necessary human

resources that will help find solutions to complex corporate legal problems.

On the occasion, representing Nepal Bar Association and Nepal Bar Council, Mr Hari Krishna Karki, who heads the

Association as the Chairperson and the Council as Vice Chairperson, emphasized the importance of a quality legal

education and expressed his hope that the Kathmandu University will do everything possible to meet the existing legal

challenges of the 21st century’s legal profession.

As for the two important foreign guest speakers who participated in the programme, Professor Tom Ginsberg of the

University of Chicago Law School spoke about the role of the Law in society, while Sumit Bisarya of the International

Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance discussed the topic of “Constitution Building Processes: the last mile

and the journey beyond promulgation.”

The programme was marked by the presence of leading legal luminaries of Nepal, including former Chief Justice

Govinda Bahadur Shrestha, Chief Secretary of Nepal Government Mr Lilamani Pokharel, the faculties of the Kathmandu

University, and the newly recruited students and their parents. g

BBM, LL.B (Bachelor of Business Management Bachelor of Law)

Programme of Kathmandu University School of Law launched

Former Supreme Court Justice Bharat Raj Uprety, National Law College Principal Dr Ramkrishna Timalsena, Chief

Secretary Lilamani Pokhrel, Former Chief Secretary & Senior Lawyer Tirthman Shakya & Nepali Congress Politician

Sunil Kumar Bhandari (from the left) at BBM, LL.B launching programme (August 11, 2014)

T

Kathmandu University School of LawNEWSLETTER3

...(cont. from Page 1) Management Bachelor of Law)

as its premier academic programme. The course is not

just first of its type in the country, it is also very well

designed. I believe this course is a beautiful marriage

between the two important spheres of the knowledge

system - management and law. The combination of the

two independent subjects creates some synergy which

helps in proving the whole as more than the sum of its

parts, as Gestalt phrased it.

This marriage may create among the undergraduate

students the capacity to understand the legal

perspective while taking a management decision, and

the managerial implications of a legal opinion, in the

absence of which business enterprises may suffer for

one or the other reason. The novel objective of this

course, I hope, should ultimately help in creating

lawyers who understand business management, and

managers who understand law. This helps lawyers

create favorable business environment. They will be

equipped with enhanced legal knowledge engineered

with the capacity of a risk manager who is schooled in

related disciplines and can provide multi-disciplinary

solutions to the business clients and corporate sectors.

This type of programme was much needed in Nepal.

One caution if I may add is that the course should be

oriented not only to promote the legal business market

through the profession, but should also be inspired by

the ethical considerations in the operation of business.

I understand ethics alone could not have prevented

many of the corporate malpractices that have occurred,

but ethical lapses certainly can escalate legal

violations. Therefore, in addition to law and

management, ethics too must be imparted in this type

of course. The course would certainly cater to the

needs felt by the market and not be overly commodified

in the name of marketing the course. In this context,

the role of a legal practitioner must be reinvented in

the light of existing limited contributions made by the

Profile

Justice Kalyan Shrestha

Justice Kalyan Shrestha, 63, is the senior-most sitting judge in Nepal’s

Supreme Court. A law graduate of 1976, from Tribhuvan University, he

became a District Court Judge in 1979, a Zonal Court Judge in 1985, a

Judge of the Court of Appeals in 1990 and a Judge of the Supreme

Court in 2005. He was the Chief Judge at the Appeals before he joined the

Supreme Court. Shrestha is a widely-read lawperson and has contributed immensely to legal academia. He

has put in many efforts in the judicial sector strategic plan and legal reforms processes. At present, he is

the chairperson of Judges Society Nepal, the SAARCLAW, and the Working Group of LAWASIA on

Administratively Independent Judiciary, among others. Shrestha is also a member of National Judicial

Academy. Considered a liberal in legal academia, Shrestha has many of the outstanding judgments that

the Supreme Court has delivered in recent years to his credit. Kathmandu University School of Law is

grateful to him for this keynote speech delivered at the BBM,LL.B Launching ceremony.

Kathmandu University School of Law 4

law and the legal profession in maintaining the

compliance culture of law.

Be that as it may. Now coming to the format and focus

of legal education, let me be honest that I may not be

the right person to speak about it. But as I am asked to

speak on the prospects of this new law school I will try

to present before you my fleeting thoughts on the issue

on the basis of my limited exposure to recent

development in international legal education and later

my associations with the professors and professionals.

As a sitting judge I am always concerned about the

quality of legal profession from where many make to

the Bench. The foundation on which the legal and

judicial system stand is no doubt the legal education.

Having a quality legal education in place is thus crucial

for maintaining and enhancing the quality of the legal

and judicial systems of the country.

For a long time legal education was considered a

specialized education. It is still considered so in many

parts of the world. It is as rigorous and meticulous as

the study of science, where very high

emphasis is given to research and

research-based education. But in our

part of the world, mainly owing to the

wind that blew in this sub-continental

plains in the 1950s, legal education

began to be considered as a liberal

education. Again, gradually, students

with poor grades started opting for

law courses. Legal education got

institutionalized as part-time

education. Many students enrolled in

night and morning shifts of law

colleges. Permission was also granted

to students to appear in law exams

as privately studying students. This

really affected the scenario of legal

education for nearly thirty years. I am glad the situation

now is changing. This School of Law can really show

the difference.

I start with

a popular

statement

that “law

schools

are great

not

because

of

teachers

but

because

of

students”.

Professor Rainer Arnold from Germany lecturing on international constitutional law

Kathmandu University School of LawNEWSLETTER5

I start with a popular statement that “law schools are

great not because of teachers but because of students”.

Now when I see the attempts being made by great law

schools like Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge

etc in roping in bright students and offering attractive

packages, this sounds very true. Rigorous screening

of application, entrance examinations, and interviews

may help the school draw able students. I know that

Dean Adhikari and his team have already worked on it

from the very beginning.

Let me emphasize here that I myself have been sharing

my complaints with the working of our legal and judicial

structures for long. Currently I have been taking the

responsibility of implementing the Strategic Plan for

the integrated Judicial reforms in Nepal. In that process,

one of the daunting problems faced by our judiciary is

the lack of proper human resource.

One disappointing trend noticed these days is that the

Public Service Commission, which has a major role in

public sector appointments, is receiving far fewer

quality applications for the judicial service positions

than its vacancies announced. Law Schools are not

producing an adequate number of meritorious

graduates to meet the demands of the public and

private sectors. The declining interest of the

meritorious new graduates in joining the government’s

judicial service necessitates the review of the service

conditions, which in turn negatively affect the service

delivery capacity of the judiciary. The judiciary is largely

leaning on the untrained subordinate judicial staffs

who have limited orientation to the law.

Another most worrying factor for me at the moment is

that neither the Public Service Commission nor the

Ministry of General Administration, which administers

the civil service are concerned about it. I have hardly

sensed any communication between the faculty board

of law schools and the judiciary taking place in terms

of the appropriateness of a curriculum or course. That

demonstrates how mindlessly we are functioning in

terms of preparing the legal human resource. I believe,

the kind and quality of judicial services is bound to be

affected by the kind and quality of legal education that

prevails.

Currently, the junior officers in the judiciary do not often

have any opportunity to be specifically trained in law

before they join the service; this has happened

KUSL faculty members and visiting Professors: Bishal Khanal, Dr Surya Dhungel, Attorney Egbert Lindner, Dr Bipin Adhikari,

Bishweshwar P. Bhandari, Anup Acharya, Sombhojen Limbu and Administrative Officer Chetan Acharya (from the left)

Kathmandu University School of Law 6

particularly after the closure of the

certificate level course in law. I

believe the judicial service is not

just composed of the judges and

the judicial officers, but also the

lawyers and legal academics. If

one branch is uninformed about

what is happening to the other

branch, the whole health of a body

is bound to suffer. The potential of

complimentarity between various

justice sector actors is

conspicuously missing.

I call upon the Kathmandu

University School of Law to take

some initiative to continue a

dialogue among all justice sector

actors, including the other law

schools, the judiciary, the Bar

Council, the Judicial Council, the Nepal Bar Association,

the Public Service Commission and the Ministry of

General Administration, that alone can streamline the

contemporary needs of the different branches of the

legal system. The more we communicate and

cooperate with each others, the more we can create

tangible, mutual benefits, which

ultimately can enrich and standardize

the legal system - our principal

objective behind the creation of the

law school. I have a lot of expectation

from this bonafide partnership.

The other important issue for legal

education is the issue of faculty

development. I believe the law

schools should take this seriously.

This has been a bane in not just

Nepal but our part of the world as

well. Even though we know pretty

well that law teaching and law

practice are two different areas, we

like to forget it for a variety of

reasons. We come across advocates

taking classes in law schools and full-

time teachers practicing in courts.

Barring some situations, this kind of arrangement should

not be tolerated. Having said this, I equally emphasize

that law teachers should be handsomely paid, so that

they do not have any financial strain and are able to

use their time in research and writing.

One disappointing trend

noticed these days is that

the Public Service

Commission, which has a

major role in public sector

appointments, is receiving

far fewer quality

applications for the judicial

service positions than its

vacancies announced. Law

Schools are not producing

an adequate number of

meritorious graduates to

meet the demands of the

public and private sectors.

KUSL faculty Anup Kumar Acharya, former Dean of Tribhuvan University Law Faculty Professor (Dr) Amber Kumar

Pant, former Chief Justice Govinda Bahadur Shrestha and KU Founding Registrar Dr Sitaram Adhikari (from the left)

Kathmandu University School of LawNEWSLETTER7

I believe the Kathmandu University School of Law can

reinvent the role of law schools to vouchsafe ultimately

the legal and judicial system in the country. Apart from

the BBM,LL.B course that is just inaugurated, more

specialized courses of different nature can be offered.

My personal impression is that the legal education

currently is increasingly disoriented to the legal

philosophical overtones. Consequently the legal

profession is taken more as a bread-earning activity

than soul-searching, more tactical than logical, more

as mystifying than experiencing. We are standing amid

massive contradictions. The KUSL can help demystify

them. I welcome the School of Law to take this

challenge.

My firm belief is that the law cannot be understood

without understanding the context under which it might

have been enacted and in what situation it is being

applied. The contextual knowledge makes our

understanding of law more realistic. This underlies the

needs for multidisciplinary interface while studying the

law. I may submit that the interface between science

and law; law, economics and development, law and

poverty alleviation, law and management, law and

social change and the like could be taken up as an

advance area for research and study.

They can help us identify our roles in positively

steering the law in a manner that serves the society

in a better way. I believe, economically inefficient

laws should not form part of our good laws. An

obstructive litigation strategy that amounts to

increase of unreasonably high cost of the project,

making it unamenable for implementation cannot be

condoned as part of exercise of professional

autonomy. Development hindered should mean

development justice hindered. For me, the aim of legal

education should be to create the capacity among

people to enjoy their rights, inspire democratic

behavior and ultimately distribute equitably the

benefit of the law. Exposure of the student to the life,

liberties and opportunities for that becomes crucial.

I see it a great merit for the School of Law to have

network and linkages. By that I mean linkage with noted

law firms where law students work as apprentices,

linkage with professional organizations and civil

society organizations that are working in different fields

such as victim support, legal aid, and support to

marginalized groups such as women, Dalits, and

others, and also linkage with professional

organizations such as the judicial academies and even

the courts. Creating opportunities for meritorious

students to work as law clerk with judges enhance their

professional knowledge. I do understand that we, as

the professionals, should help law schools in acquiring

such openings, and I support your initiative in this

direction in future. I do believe that Dr. Adhikari is aware

of both the challenges and the prospects that this law

school possesses.

Another important issue could be the teaching method.

My only concern here is how to develop the legal

acumen among the students. Coming to pedagogy, as

the lecture method is not always encouraged now, law

schools have followed novel methodologies that

encourage learning. Instead of spoon-feeding their

students, law schools encourage self-study, intense

participation in the class, and usage of creativity right

from the beginning to the end of courses. Asking

students to write papers on given areas and creating

possibilities of peer evaluation and feedback on

presentations help students focus on sharpening their

S t u d e nts ta k i n g Ka t h m a n d u Un i vers i t y L aw

School Admission Test (KULSAT) in July, 2014

Kathmandu University School of Law 8

knowledge on the subject. Instead of concentrating on

final examinations, it is always better to divide the

score on a range of areas such as attendance,

participation, paper, and presentation. Sir Francis Bacon

was quite right when he said “reading makes a learned

man, conference a ready man and writing makes an

exact man”. Encouraging students to write more and

more brings handsome dividends to them.

It is very clear that law schools can play an instrumental

role right from the point of conceptualization of laws

to their implementation. Laws should be understood

in such a way that they be practically meant for clarity,

certainty, consistency, efficiency, effectiveness,

accountability, fairness and equality. The understanding

of law should promote entrepreneurship. It should

encourage creativity through motivation and incentive.

The confidence in law enhances when it is enforced.

How far we live up with their qualities determines how

correctly we are serving the cause of the rules of law.

Finally, I come to the ultimate objective of the law

schools. What should be the objective of the law

schools? Should they limit themselves to imparting

skills or have some social orientation of promoting

democratic governance, rule of law, human rights and

social justice? Should lawyers engage in resolving

social problems or promoting divisive tendencies and

social strife or just be involved in wealth maximization

without minding anything else? To my mind, legal

education should be guided by greater societal goals

of fair play, equity, justice, and democratic governance.

Otherwise there will be no difference between a law

school and a skill-imparting professional organization.

I am confident that the School of Law that Dr Adhikari

is leading will be unique in many respects and not be

just yet another law school in the crowd.

I offer my best wishes to the new law school.

I thank you all for your kind attention. g

Students at John Marshall Law Library