Who Should Teach Law?

The ministry of human resource destruction and the ministry of law are at loggerheads over which of them has the power to direct legal education in India, the Times of India reports. Both ministers are “trained lawyers.” Who is right?

I hold that The State has NO ROLE in any education, and especially not in education in The Law.

Anyway, how good is our “legal system” today under State direction and education? There are over 30 million cases pending in the courts. There is corruption. The country is ruled by injustice and most people have lost faith in the legal system. Property rights are not secure. There is no relief in torts. How can the overseers of such a decrepit legal system take charge of the education of lawyers?

It is instructive to look at history, and how legal education began in England, with many “Inns of Court” being established in the City of Westminster, where the courts were also located. In his history of the common law, Professor AR Hogue says that these inns were all “private corporations.” They were essentially hostels where students of law lived, where the decisions of the courts were quickly made available, for discussion, debate and learning. It was unthinkable that the King of England would run the inns of court. Today, there are just four or five of these inns left – but once there were many. And their stories are not always happy ones:

I read of one such inn that was burning. The Lord Mayor of London came to the inn in order to help douse the fire with his men – but was refused entry because he was carrying his “Civic Sword.” The inn, like all the other inns, was located in the City of Westminster, beyond the gates of the ancient City of London – so the Lord Mayor had no business being there with his Civic Sword held aloft. The help was refused and the inn burned down. This is legal independence - right up to the bitter end.

Indeed, law and legal education never had much to do with the King, or The State in common law England. Ditto with ancient Rome. There is the case of Bracton, the great 13th century English judge who wrote a famous treatise on the laws and customs of England, comparing himself to legendary Roman jurists like Ulpian: disinterested private scholars in the law.

In fact, that is the ideal: that those with legal disputes to settle go to private experts (lawyers) who are scholars in the subject – especially, they possess the knowledge of past decisions in similar cases. There is no role made out for The State to tinker with the processes by which these private scholars and entrepreneurs are trained. As with the Inns of Court, education in law should be a private sector affair, with all the necessary competition.

Lastly, let us not forget that our The State teaches “constitutional law.” And this constitution does not protect private property.

I would say the constitution is such only because the minister of law is confident of his control over legal education.

In my Mangalore years, many of the students who befriended me were students of law. Two of the brightest ones opted out of practicing law because they saw the profession as inherently corrupt. And I did teach them enough for them to be aware that much of their received wisdom was nonsense. They both opted for “social work.”

Anyway, if they are somewhere out there reading this, here is news from Manipur that is a little unsettling for those who believe in “social work” and NGOs. I quote:

“If you see a new house in Manipur, it either belongs to a militant or to an NGO.”

The report says NGOs are part of the problem in lawless Manipur.

Why is there so much lawlessness in India? I believe there is only one reason: The State is in control of legal education. As in Economics, where we need a new private school of Catallactics, so too in The Law, we need private schools of legal education.

One thing our The State has got completely wrong is The Law. They cannot be allowed to teach the subject. And, anyway, this is not what the common law is all about.

Both ministers, both “trained lawyers,” should be told to take a walk – into the sunset.