Law Students Reach Quarter-Finals at Arabic Moot Court Competition

A team of students from the College of Law at the University of Bahrain reached the quarter-finals at the Arabic Moot Court Competition hosted by the College of Law at Kuwait University in April.

Dr. Nora Shamlan, Assistant Professor of criminal law at the University of Bahrain College of Law, said that the students performed well, pointing out that moot competitions organized for students by the law faculties help prepare them for future integration in the labour market and develop their legal skills as lawyers.

Dr. Shamlan, who supervised the training of the team involved, said: “Moot court competitions bring opportunities for students to read about new legislations, especially since these competitions are held in different countries. Students participate in legal debates and advocacy on several topics. The latest edition organized by Kuwait University College of Law discussed the Kuwaiti law, which was intellectually rewarding for our law students”.

Each of the 12 participating universities was represented by two teams: the prosecution team and the defense team.

The prosecution team from the University of Bahrain outperformed the defense teams from Alexandria University in Egypt and Al Jouf University in Saudi Arabia. The defense team from the University of Bahrain outperformed the prosecution team from the Kingdom University in Bahrain.

The competition gives students a platform to develop their pleading skills before a simulated court using legislations and laws from the Arab world as well as using the Arabic language as an official language of the competition. It also provides students with a valuable opportunity to hone both their written and oral advocacy skills and fulfill the requirements of the labour market and become more marketable to legal employees.

Dr. Shamlan said: “A moot competition consists of two stages. In the first stage, a written court memorial is drafted by the teams about both the plaintiff and defendant, considering the legal issues raised in a specific case. The second stage is the oral pleadings where each participating team competes in arguing their case on behalf of the plaintiff and defendant before a simulated court of a group of legal experts invited by law colleges for this purpose”.

Dr. Shamlan encouraged law students to participate in moot competitions, noting that “In addition to developing the students’ legal skills and providing them with valuable training, such competitions develop the students’ personalities and help them overcome their fear of standing before a court.”

The universities which participated in the Arabic Moot Court Competition were: University of Bahrain, Kingdom University (Bahrain), Kuwait International Law School, Al Jouf University (Saudi Arabia), Sultan Qaboos University (Sultanate of Oman), Qatar University (Qatar), Birzeit University (Palestine), University of Jordan, University of Baghdad (Iraq), Beirut Arab University (Lebanon), Alexandria University (Egypt) and Cadi Ayyad University (Morocco).