GNLU to explore new vistas of law education

Gujarat's premier institute for legal education, Gujarat National Law University (GNLU), added yet another achievement to its record on Thursday when it organised its first annual International Moot Court Competition. The institute aims to carve a niche for itself by exploring new horizons of legal education in the country. In an interview with DNA, Bimal Patel, vice-chancellor of the university, talked about the future plans of the institute.

Where do you want to place the GNLU vis a vis other national law schools of the country?
We are not comparing GNLU with any other national law school. We also don't want to claim that we will make GNLU the best law institute in India, or in Asia. But, I would like to say that GNLU is a world-class university in making.

What are your plans to take GNLU to the next level of legal education?
During my meeting with the then President, APJ Abdul Kalam, he told me to explore the future possibilities in the area of my specialisation. So, besides having traditional courses, we are developing some future-savvy and emerging areas in legal education, like agri-economic laws, sports laws and foreign laws.

Can you explain it further?
Take the instance of sports law. Recently, Indian Premier League match venues were shifted to South Africa. Now, in such a situation, many legal issues need to be considered. What if a player refuses to play outside India? What would be the business transaction between IPL officials and South African organisers? Besides, what would be the statutes, rules, regulations and laws governing any sports. The need for a specialised sports law expert arises at that time. There is no dedicated centre in the country to study sports law. We are planning to have a research chair in the area of sports law.

How would you go for foreign law courses?
GNLU will start foreign language courses for its students. Students will be able to learn a particular foreign language and understand the legal system of the country concerned. We will also invite legal experts from other countries to our campus as visiting faculties for several weeks. This will help students understand the legal framework of a particular country. In this era of globalisation, when someone from India wants to do business with that country, our students exposed to that country's legal system would be able to provide initial consultancy for making legal processes easy.

What are the activities of GNLU other than teaching?
As part of Swarnim Gujarat Legal Reforms, we are helping the Gujarat government reduce the backlog of cases, which is nearly 23 lakh. There have been initiatives like nyay adalat, lok adalat etc. If these initiatives are not fully effective,  we can say how academic institutions can play a part. We are also engaged in drafting various government bills. 

What is the role of GNLU in drafting government bills?
The state government doesn't have adequate legal infrastructure to draft various legislations. We approached the govt's legal department with our teams and they were happy to have our assistance. Now, our teams are working on government bills like Gujarat Innovation Commission Bill, Common University Bill, Teacher Education and Training University Bill, Kalpsar Project Bill etc. We want to partner with the government for research and legal governance.

What other assistance is the GNLU providing to the state govt?
Our team went to Copenhagen last month, which was the only team from south Asia. We and Singapore were the only teams in Asia to be selected to negotiate the climate change protocol. Negotiations will begin in December 2009. We were selected as the Gujarat government has set up a department for climate change, which is first of its kind in India.