Pakistan Law Moot – Rules and Regulations
RULES & REGULATIONS
1. Definitions:
a) “Competition” means the Pakistan Law Moot 2015.
b) “Organizing Team” consists of those persons who are responsible to conduct, supervise and manage the competition.
c) “Preliminary Round” denotes to initial round of the competition in which teams shall submit their written responses to the questions drafted by the organizing team.
d) “Quarter-Final Rounds” 08 teams selected out of preliminary round shall compete with written and oral submissions.
e) “Semi-Final Round” connotes to third round of the competition. The four (04) winning teams of Quarter Finals shall compete in this round.
f) “Final Round” shall be scheduled between the two (02) winning teams of Semi-Final Round.
g) “Oral Round” means a team’s pleadings, comprising both speakers, submitted orally in front of a bench on behalf of one of the parties against another team representing the opposing party.
h) “Moot Problem” means the case assigned for the competition to all teams, by the organizing team.
i) “Memorial” means the written arguments submitted, on behalf of both the Applicants and Respondents by each team.
j) “Team Code” means the color code assigned to each qualifying team by the organizing team.
2. Organizing Team:
a) An organizing team is assembled for the supervision of the competition and managerial purposes.
b) Any decision taken by the organizing team renders the final authority.
c) The organizing team of the competition reserves the right to disqualify any team, at any time, upon any improper attitude or fraudulent demeanor or make any amendments in the rules of the competitions to ensure transparency, equity and justice throughout the competition.
d) The organizing team of the competition reserves the right to change the moot problem at any stage of the competition.
3. Registration:
a) The invitation package sent to the each law school includes;
i. The Invitation Letter,
ii. Registration Form, and
iii. Pakistan Law Moot 2015 Introductory Booklet.
b) Registration is mandatory in order to enter into the competition.
4. Teams:
a) Each team shall consist of ONLY 3 members.
b) There shall be no more than 2 speakers and 1 researcher OR coach.
c) Team members shall be in proper standard legal attire at all times during the competition, which is followed in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
5. Format of the Competition
a) The competition is divided into four major rounds; the Preliminary Round, the Quarter Finals, The Semi-Finals and the Final Round.
b) Upon registration the teams automatically enter into the preliminary round.
c) In the preliminary round, a set of questions shall be sent to law schools across Pakistan.
d) Teams must send their written answers to preliminary round questions, along with their registration form.
e) In the preliminary rounds, teams shall be judged according to their best answers to the questions posed and then invited over to Islamabad on October 2nd – 3rd, 2015, in order to compete in the oral rounds of the competition.
f) Top eight (08) teams shall be selected to participate in the Quarter Final Rounds.
g) The four winning team of the Quarter final (04) shall compete the Semi-Final Round.
h) Only two (02) teams shall compete in Final Round of Pakistan Law Moot Competition.
i) Moot Problem shall be based upon constitutional matters only.
6. Scoring:
a) In the Preliminary Round, teams shall be judged on three grounds in their written responses to the Moot Problem; legal language, legal research and legal analysis.
b) In the Oral Rounds, Teams shall be scored on three bases; Court etiquettes, Oral advocacy skills and Research Material.
7. Memorials
i. General Rules
(a) The Memorial scores will contribute to deciding the outcome of a match.
(b) The Memorials shall be written in English.
(c) In the Oral Rounds of the competition, a team cannot raise new arguments which were not included in the team’s Memorials.
(d) In the Oral Rounds, a team may cite judicial decisions handed down after the deadline for submission of the team’s Memorial, provided that the judicial decision is not being used to raise an argument which was not included in the Memorial.
ii. Rights to Memorials
The organizing team reserves the right to publish and disseminate memorials submitted for the competition and also to attribute the memorials to the relevant institution and participants during such publication and dissemination.
iii. Memorial Submission
(a) Each participating team must prepare written submissions for both Applicant and Respondent.
(b) The Memorials must be sent to [email protected] no later than Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015. It is the responsibility of the teams to ensure that there are no technical problems with the attached files. Amongst other reasons, delays connected to technology, infrastructure, equipment and conflicting schedules will not be condoned.
(c) Each Memorial should be contained in a single file with the allocated code followed by the first letter of the party, an R for Respondent and A for Applicant or Petitioner?. For example: Team with code yellow, Respondent Memorial file shall be named “Yellow R”.
(e) The submission of the Respondent and Applicant Memorials must be in one (1) email with the following information in the subject line: ‘Team Code’ R + A. No other information may be contained in the mail. The mail must be addressed to: [email protected]
(f) Each memorial should be electronically submitted in both Microsoft Word and PDF formats.
(g) Teams are NOT required to submit or carry hard copies of their memorials. The organizing team bears complete responsibility of providing hard copies of memorials to all teams and judges.
iv. Style and Format of Memorials
(a) Memorials must be written in Microsoft Word and saved with the corresponding .doc or .docx file extension.
(b) Each memorial should be electronically submitted in two formats: (i) as a Microsoft Word document with the aforementioned file extension and (ii) in PDF format.
v. Structure of Memorials
Each Memorial shall contain the following sections in the following order:
(a) Front Page
(b) Table of Contents
(c) List of Abbreviations
(d) List of Sources/Authorities
(e) Statement of Jurisdiction
(f) Summary of Arguments
(g) Detailed arguments
(h) Prayer/ Relief Sought
vi. Font and Spacing
(a) The text of all parts of the Memorial (exceptions listed below) must be in Times New Roman, size 12 font and double-spaced.
(b) The Front Page may be in any font size or style.
(c) Headings and sub-headings throughout the Memorials may be in a different font size, underlined and/ or highlighted.
(d) Footnotes must be single-spaced, Times New Roman, size 10 font with a 12 pt space between separate footnotes.
vii. Anonymity of Memorials
The names of the team members, coach, institution or city shall not be on any portion of the Memorial. Each team will be given a code which shall substitute the team’s institutional affiliation.
viii. Front Page
The Front Page of the Memorial must have only the following information, which should be in the following order (this information should be centered, except where stated otherwise):
(a) The code allocated by the organizing team followed by “A” if an Applicant Memorial or “R” if a Respondent Memorial (e.g. a team with code yellow would put “ Yellow A” on the top of the Applicant Memorial cover page). \
(b) The name of the Case
(c) The title of the document (i.e., “Memorial for Respondent” or “Memorial for Applicant”)
(d) The word count.
ix. List of Sources/Authorities
The list of sources must contain references to all page numbers where sources or authorities are used or cited in the ‘Arguments’ section of the Memorial.
x. Arguments
Substantive, affirmative legal argument or legal interpretation of the facts of the moot problem may only be presented in the ‘Arguments’ section of the Memorial.
xi. Word Count
The memorial can consist of a maximum of 3500 words. This includes the word count for the Statement of Jurisdiction, Summary of Arguments, and the Detailed arguments. The minimum word limit is 3000 words.
xii. Footnotes
No information may be provided in the footnotes that is not related to the identification of an authority or source.
8. Oral Pleading
(a) The scope of a team’s Oral Pleadings is limited to arguments in the Memorial. In the Oral Rounds a team may cite judicial decisions handed down after the deadline for submission of the team’s Memorial, provided that the judicial decision is not being used to raise an argument which was not included in the Memorial.
(b) The order of the pleadings in each Oral Round at all levels of the Competition will be: Applicant 1, Applicant 2, Respondent 1, and Respondent 2 followed by the Applicant’s rebuttal.
(c) The Respondent shall not have a right of sur-rebuttal. The Respondent may rebut the Applicant’s only arguments in their oral arguments.
(d) Only two (2) team members shall present the arguments during an Oral Round on a team’s behalf.
(e) Judges must be addressed as, “Your Honour” at all times during the Oral Rounds.
Time Allocation
(a) Each team’s Oral Pleadings shall not exceed thirty (30) minutes, including the time for answering questions from adjudicators and the rebuttal.
(b) The team must inform the bailiff of the manner in which the team wishes to divide its thirty-five minutes between its (i) first Oralist, (ii) second Oralist, and (iii) the rebuttal (for Applicant). The time allocation informed to the bailiff may not be rearranged.
(c) No oralist may be allocated less than ten minutes for presentation of main arguments and no more than two (02) minutes may be reserved for rebuttal.
(d) If a team fails to allocate time for a rebuttal, it may not then request that such time be added during the course of the oral round.
9. Grading Criteria
Each speaker will be graded on the following criteria:
a) Correct legal analysis and its application to facts
b) Relevant constitutional provisions, statutory law, case law, regional judgments etc.
c) Clarity and logic of argument
d) Correct primary and alternative submissions
e) Evidence of original thought
f) Overall presentation
g) Ability to communicate with judges- persuasiveness and fluency
h) Ability to respond to opposing side’s arguments
10. Competition Prizes
The following prizes will be awarded:
a) ‘Winner’ and ‘Runner-up’ for the overall competition,
b) ‘Best Memorial’,
c) ‘Best Advocate’, and
d) ‘Future Constitutional Expert’.
Best Memorial
The team with the highest aggregate Memorial points will win the prize for the Best Memorial.
Best Advocate
The participant with the highest average score will be adjudged the Best Advocate. The average score will be calculated by dividing the total number of points of each speaker by the number of times the speaker has presented oral arguments.
Participants have to present oral arguments a minimum of two times to be eligible for this prize.
Future Constitutional Expert
This award shall be awarded to the participant who has a deeper understanding of complex constitutional matters, albeit with reference to Pakistan Law Moot 2015.
11. Rules regarding the Judges
a) A person appointed as a Moot Court judge should be well versed in the subject of constitutional law. Judges are expected to be aware of the procedure involved in mooting and the Rules.
b) Memorials shall be distributed to the Judges for purposes of briefing them on the legal issues addressed by the teams prior to the matches.
c) Judges are instructed to follow the time limit as closely as possible. Interventions from the Judges are permitted at any stage of the presentations. These interventions, however, must be relevant to the issues.
d) Judges, in all rounds of the competition, are encouraged to provide direct feedback to teams regarding their team’s performance, at the completion of the round. On providing such feedback, Judges are cautioned to give due regard to the time limitations and the schedule of the competition as a whole.
