Need & Importance of Moot Courts
This Article is written by Harsh Khatri, 3rd year Law intern from the University of Petroleum and energy studies dehradun. This article speaks about various aspects of Moot Courts and its needs and importance.
Introduction
A sort of oral procedure known as mooting, which is used primarily in institutions and universities where law is studied as a subject to evaluate a student's efficiency in defending a legal argument, can be compared to a court case. Proceedings in a courtroom follow a set pattern of conduct. Right from the attire to the language and the way we speak and behave follows some norms.
Law students benefit from mooting by learning practical implications and information that they would not learn from books or be aware of. Practical and theoretical knowledge are like two sides of the same coin, and you must study both to get over the hurdle, even though they seem to be the same but are actually different.
Terms used in moot court
● Moot proposition - Compendium
● Memorial - Speaker/Counsel
(Petitioner/Respondent)
● Researcher - Rebuttals and sub Rebuttals
Components of a moot
❖ A Judge or a bench of Judges
❖ Team of 3 people from both the side(petitioner and respondent) represent as counsel
❖ A moot proposition (legal problem)
❖ Court clerks.
There are some key points that explain the Importance of mooting in law schools are as follows:
➔ Writing skills
➔ Researching skills
➔ Efficiency in working as a team
➔ Practical knowledge as being an advocate
➔ Building of confidence in relating to arguments and speaking
➔ Socialising across the globe as students from different law colleges
➔ Improving of legal reasoning, legal research and speaking of legal terms
Since they will be presenting their case and defending their side based on their research as well as constructing a strong moot court memorial on which the other team will raise objections and interrogate them, participating in moot court competitions helps students strengthen their research skills. Children's capacity to deal with challenging circumstances and adjust to unexpected events can also be improved with this. Moot court competition even helps people build confidence in speaking and presenting their ideas to others. It helps to build a person’s confidence so that they are not scared to question or speak in front of others and can effectively defend cases.
Moot court competitions are held at the host school or institution, and teams from various schools come and fight the competition. A team consists of three people in which two would be speakers and one would-be researcher. In the courtroom during the pleadings researcher is not allowed to speak and speakers would be addressed as counsel and will be putting the arguments in front of judges. At the end of the arguments of a single round there is a time slot for the rebuttals for which the time period varies. In this, the petitioner side can question the respondent side based on the loopholes arising from the memorials/ written submission or the oral arguments.
Conclusion
One of the key components of a law student's education, in my opinion, is mooting. Students ought to participate in many kinds of mooting activities because they gain an incredible amount of exposure and benefit from the knowledge and experience gained. This will be particularly important when they go on practising law and serve as judges on the High Court and Supreme Court in the future. Therefore, these mooting events enable students to stand up and demonstrate their skills while helping them in developing as individuals.