The Last Resort!

So, here comes the 2nd Post and I am worried of legal actions [defamation and many more, iBelieve] [though I am afraid but I will include the names in here for the sake of clarity].

This story has to come late [very late, I say]. But the sleepless nights have become intolerable and Jessup defeat is overpowering me now. Trust me even while writing this my hands are shaking. This started from 25th January, 2014 [to be specific]. Results of the preliminary rounds were yet to be announced of the North India [Qualifying] Rounds of the GREAT [no offense, I literally mean it] Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, 2014. We were confident that we have registered all the 4 wins and will easily sail in the Semis.

But Wait! And for a change it was not destiny which has something surprising in store for us—any guesses, who it can be? I can tell you it is a very tough answer for some of the elite law schools of the country but an easy one for some chapri law schools like us. It was the mammoth like system.

Now what happened, this is the question, ryt? And it goes like this [Maroon 5]!

We were up against 4 teams [in Prelims, like others 😉 ]: (1) WBNUJS (2) MDU Rohtak (3) NLU-D (4) Nirma.

Before I begin with a stale commentary of our Matches and before you read further, one thing is to be noted: This is neither for sympathy nor for any kind of publicity [whether good or bad]!

So our 1st Round: NUJS Victorious

Both the teams have made themselves comfortable and since I am from Calcutta [I do not feel like calling Kolkata] it was easy to strike a conversation with NUJS. I will not say we have become good friends but we respected them as an opponent of ours and iBelieve this was reciprocated well.

The Judges entered and we begin with the round as Applicant. Now I doubt the judges understood anything [even when NUJS argued] for a simple reason that the lady judge was busy on her smart phone. She alongwith her friend did occasionally asked some or the other question which were there in the Bench Memo but her phone was keeping her busy [michh] and the male judge tried hard to understand but failed.

Now some mysteries unresolved. No doubt they were good speakers but we were not bad either. NUJS submissions both in their memo  and oral were out of reach. The submissions were like:

1) The Applicant has wrongly quoted the Pulp Mills Case and is misleading the bench. How? We said duty to undertake an EIA [Environmental Impact Assessment] has become a norm of international law [Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay (Argentina v. Uruguay), 2010 I.C.J. 14, 72-3 ¶ 204 (Apr. 20)]. The judges were more moved by the use of the words wrong and mislead rather than the correct position of law.

2) They argued that if an Indian is given the licence to keep a Gun and if he kills someone abroad then India cannot be held internationally responsible [State Responsibility]. This was when we argued that they are internationally responsible for the acts of private parties. I am still confused how this example proved their point.

Then we raised certain questions in rebuttals:

3) How come an underwater cultural heritage can be a natural resource? [NLU-D and Nirma has the same argument in their Memo].

4) There is a difference between marine casualty and marine peril. NUJS argued their case [Memo not orals] on marine casualty for underwater cultural heritage. I am again searching for an answer.

5) The Best one: They made their Issue & Prayer against Milo Bellezza [I agree it was a typo] whereas the ICJ Statute states in Article 34(1) that only states can be parties. We pointed this out and judges were not moved at all.

For the above reasons we lost.

Now our 2nd Round: MDU Rohtak – They lost

We won comfortably. Only issue was one of the person accompanying them was using phone [you see these smart phones were so anti to us] and we raised an alarm. As per the rules they were supposed to be disqualified but they did complete the rest of the journey [though they lost the rest also]. They prepared a Memo which was like reading the compromis again and the best part was they end up scoring only 2 marks less than NUJS the Runners-up [NUJS 139 and Rohtak 137]. This gives you the idea of the level of judging.

Here comes the BIGGIE, our 3rd Round: The 3 times and now the 4 times North India Round Champion NLU-D

I will refer to them as Champion 🙂

Intro: Apart from all the other 3 we were more tensed in this one. And out of all the 8 judges across 4 Preliminary Rounds, this round has one judge who was senior of all. The judges took both the teams left, right and centre.

The Champion started as Applicant [no doubt they were fine speakers]. They finished and Chapri [us] started. To be honest NLU-D this time atleast was just a name but there was no spark not because we defeated them by 26 marks which also included the Best Speaker of the Finals and who also end up arguing in the surrebuttal that a developing country is in a better position to take care of artifacts found underwater when compared to a developed country. A good attempt to win the case which they lost long back.

We are now in our 4th Round: Nirma- The Team receiving 4th Best Memorial Award & the winner of the round [and the applause should continue]

The 4th Best Memo did not have certain key-issues covered but still they were the Best. Only now God can answer the questions and clear the confusions. The round was reduced to 30 Minutes per side [so that the judge who was chatting all the way along could just run out of the room, which he actually did, to attend some other important matters of the evening]. So, the rules say you cannot pass notes to the speakers on the podium. They did it more than 7 times [we raised a complaint and it was informed to us that they have been penalised]. I think that they were very very good or wonderful speakers that even after penalty points they won.

The judges of the round defended their passing of notes saying I permitted them and it was legal. The only question before us was how bad are our stars. The organizers also were taking the same view that it was permitted but they must have forgotten the announcement they made in the Orientation Program. The good thing was as a student the pain was felt by the Court Officers [witnesses]. They said it is against the rules and the team should be penalised.

This concludes the Matches.

We move on to the postmortem part of the Competition.

1) Even after raising so many complaints against the judges, we were said that they must be checking the law. This cannot be true for the 1st Round for the reason that even after citing the correct judgment and NUJS putting wrong things before the bench, we lost. The same cannot be true [in the 4th Round] for the judge’s phone was in the visual range and we could see all those lovely emoticons :* 😀 🙂 😉 :p and many more.

2) NLU-D after loosing to us said to every other team that we [our team] lied to the bench [this includes me in particular, the remarks came from the Best Speaker of the Finals] and the Judges were not competent to catch hold of their lies and gave them the win 😉 . Quite an excuse. Btw no one is going to come ahead in support of an assertion made by a student from Chapri Law School.

3) The Best Memorial was given to RGNUL Patiala. Though we did not face them but GNLU did say : SHIT!!!! To say further, our original score was 152.4 and RGNUL’s  was 152 and for some or the other reason we were penalised for exactly the same number that we do not even take away the award of Nirma. Now how we came to know of this, when we went to lodge a complaint we were shown the score-sheet [which we still do not believe as to be a picture of fair-evaluation] and there we saw it. I hope we saw the correct thing. Else every other person reading this is going to forget all the other things and just attack on one or two things 😉

4) Moreover, the Prof. of RGNUL was a part of the Organizing Committee of the Moot and I do not know why? If Dept. of Laws, Panjab University [in the event they participate] have to send their team to South Rounds then why do a Prof. from RGNUL was there at all? Mysteries, mysteries and mysteries!!!! Tadaaaaa!!!!

5) We raised all this before ILSA too but iBelieve lack of evidences was ruined our case more [and on another note from where we would collect some ] and so we asked for a mere comparison of Memorials to get a clear picture of how the rounds were conducted…umm…but kaun itti mattha pachhii karey hamarey liey.

Do spread it and I urge all the non-national law schools to just boycott even for a year or two all the moots [organized by some big law firms or these national law schools] until and unless the things are not corrected. Our hard-work and effort for every moot has gone into vain.

What I always lacked is the name of a law-school for the purpose of recognition. I seriously cannot take this out of my head so I though to TAKE THAT RAGE AND PUT IT ON A PAGE [If you could see me now, song]. It demands a lot of courage for someone like us. I then finally decided I will write for there are no effects on me:

1) No internship in any reputed law firm. [They see the name]

2) If no internship, then question of becoming an Associate is like Humans plan to reach out to Sun.

3) Publications: I was never interested in writing one but when I did it was nowhere. [Maybe I should have belonged to a reserved category].

I just hope this impacts.

Do read this one too: http://opiniojuris.org/2012/02/13/dan-joyner-why-i-wont-attend-the-jessup-competition-again/

This post participates at the Daily Post Weekly Challenge

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/24/writing-challenge-object/