March to academic excellence

Nipuni WIMALAPALA

Colombo Law Faculty team members
* Yanitra Kumaraguru
* Shalomi Daniel
* Sarani Gunatilake

APIIT Law School team members
* Dilhara Goonaratne
* Shehara Athukorala
* Bemani Abesinghe

They made the atmosphere original at the International Criminal Court. Confidence was brimming in them. Talent glistened within them. And their performance was remarkable at the National Rounds of Henry Dunant Memorial Moot Court Competition 2012 held recently at Colombo University. There was heavy competition between the Colombo University Law faculty team and Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology (APIIT) Law School team. But it was the APIIT Law team that clinched the trophy.

Objectives of the competition

Henry Dunant Memorial Moot Court National Competition is organized by the Faculty of Law, University of Colombo, together with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The principal objective of the Henry Dunant Memorial Moot Court Competition is to develop an increased awareness and interest in International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in academic institutions throughout South Asia. The other objective is to use IHL to further academic excellence in the student community and to develop their advocacy skills through a friendly competition.

The National competition where the teams presented a fictional international court case associated with international war crimes was illuminating. One party acted as the prosecution while the other defended. The board of judges comprised Attorney General Palitha Fernando, Justice Priyasath Dep and Dr. Mario Gomez.

Excitement of the victory

The winning team members were overjoyed. They claimed to be quite excited since it was a tight competition having gone through a lot of commitments. Throughout the process of the competition, they learnt a lot and gained a thorough access to the practical use of law in a real court case. The whole team is ready and confident to face the next step representing the country, to bring victory with courage. The best Memorial Award went to the Colombo Law faculty team while the best Researcher’s Award went to Yashara Abeysinghe of APIIT Law School. Performing outstanding advocacy skills, Yanitra Kumaraguru of Colombo Law faculty won the most challenging award: the Best Advocate’s Award.

Spirit of skilled recital

Yanitra Kumaraguru, past pupil of Ladies’ College, speaking to Daily News, says that the competition helped enhance her skills in advocacy and have a practical approach to the theories she learnt at the university.

“I am still a First Year student. I always like to be occupied with extracurricular work since they refresh our academic mindset. From the beginning, I was interested in performing as an advocate through which I can improve my presentation skills. This competition gave us a very good start to improve our skills in every manner with confidence.

We were supposed to do a lot of research and be well prepared. It is not just presenting something, but we always had to be armed with legal points to defeat the opposition. And the other thing is we had to have a thorough understanding of the case, since the board of judges were always keen on asking questions.”

Because of being framed in a competitive examination based education system, according to Yanitra, most students are extremely academic-oriented even though they possess extra talents. They are made to think the extra work would harm the academic process on which their future depends. This is not a correct impression. Activities of these type enhance the students’ interest in practical usage of theories they learn. That is pretty impressive.

“At the beginning we thought it would consume a lot of time. But later we found that it is really interesting to apply law practically than learning it in the classroom. When we look back, we are really happy of what we achieved. The trophies, medals and certificates count a lot in success but the experience we gained and the improvement we had is more important.

I highly believe that if youth, especially the university crowd, is engaged in such things, they would benefit a lot in every aspect and it would definitely help decrease the unnecessary activities within the university. And also extra work apart from academic process of course enhance the friendly solid relationships among students,” Kumaraguru added.

Intellectual opinion

Colombo University’s Law faculty Dean V T Thamilmaran emphasized the same fact. “It is all about participation than victory. I highly value the way they presented themselves before the judges. This kind of extra works definitely lay the path to students to have a practical approach, enhance the art of presentation and to engage in excessive research. Pleasant and clear expression blended with confidence is essential for a becoming lawyer,” he said.

The ICRC delegation head Yves Giovannoni was impressed by the performance of the two teams. She noted that they would join hands with Colombo University to carry on this work further since it facilitates students to develop and showcase their skills. He added that this continued partnership will help provide an increased awareness of IHL as it is quite relevant to Sri Lanka being in post war stages.

Followed by the national rounds, the regional competition will be held in Bangladesh where the national teams of the participating countries of South Asia will compete. Winners of the regional moot court competition will represent South Asia in Asian Moot Court competition in Hong Kong.