Planning and Methodology

Curriculum design provides a framework to help judicial educators to plan what is to be taught, to whom and why, and implies that decisions have been made about the subject matter, the relationship between segments of knowledge, skills and abilities, and their organization and sequence. The value of curriculum development in continuing judicial education is that it offers a plan of the proposed learning outcomes and the means of reaching them. This enables educators to identify whether segments of the programme are missing or operating ineffectively.  

Topical Organization

The services offered by any program of continuing judicial education is determined by need. Facilitating a programme of effective learning for judges depends in part on the quality of its planning. It follows that strengthening the capacity of the Federal Judicial Academy can be achieved only through methodical planning and development, to enable it to provide training services which are sufficient to meet the designated goals. This in turn can be possible with the application of a framework which matches the delivery of services against a process of designating priorities of educational need.  

Practical Skills  

As a part of capacity building of the Academy, we propose a change mainly in the method of judicial education and training. Hitherto, emphasis has been on dissemination of knowledge and information about substantive law, by way of lecturing. However, we are going to employ more useful and effective means of delivering educational services, with the introduction of a new professional approach to judicial training based on the theory and principles of adult education. In terms of content, this will focus not just on substantive law, but on the skills and disposition of judging. In terms of method, lecturing will be heavily supplemented by the introduction of small group seminars and workshops which will build on the active participation of judges in techniques of active learning, such as problem solving case studies, scenarios and simulations, and also panel discussions to develop professional skills and judgment which will be supported by the foundation of information and knowledge. It is important to stress that this training approach will be considerably more practical rather than theoretical and active rather than passive.  

Training Services Matrix Approach  

Matrix planning provides a means to plan and structure training services to meet categories of educational need in a methodical way, by classifying those services in terms of the nature of the need, which they are planned to meet. This planning process can operate effectively through the formulation of a matrix of educational services. This matrix is defined by content (subject matter) and pitch (the level of application). While designing the curriculum, two aspects of judicial training process have been kept in view with reference to the subject matter and the level of application: First, the duration of the training programmes; and the second is the nature of functions of the trainee judges which determines the extent and character of relationship between the training needs and services offered by the Academy to address those needs.  

  Needs Assessment

 A survey was conducted in March-April, 2002 for judicial education needs assessment, to be used as foundation for curriculum design. The needs assessment document was based on the one provided by Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute and modified by the Federal Judicial Academy to better suit the local conditions. The purpose of survey was to gather information to be taken into account in designing a curriculum which responds to the community perception of judicial weaknesses that could be removed through judicial education. The needs assessment survey report compiled by the CJEI, has been of immense help in guiding us to the preparation of a curriculum for judicial training.  

Periodic Review Mechanism  

Another aspect of the matter should also find expression in this prelude. The curricula remains in the process of constant development. A Curricula Review Committee, consisting of the members of the Faculty and some of the resource persons, has therefore been set up for periodic review of the curricula. The Director General shall be the Convener of the Committee and it shall meet at least once in a year for necessary deliberations. The Additional Director of the Academy shall, in addition to his duties, function as Secretary of the committee, with the assistance of other members of the staff. The Academy' campus will serve as secretariat of the committee.

This will ensure not only the Faculty's association with the development of curricula, but also its religious commitment to the study of new social relations, developing in the wake of behavioural changes and paradigm shifts in attitudes, outlook, environment, values and culture. This aside, it will remain alive to constant changes in the philosophical prospective of law, caused by gigantic socio-economic and scientific development. At the same time, it will keep it in sight that this development, amongst other things, is bringing about basic conceptual changes in rights and corresponding obligations, there by causing the evolution of  new legal phenomena.  

Continuing Judicial Education

The expanded curriculum spells out the detail of fixed courses. This apart, we do have a programme of continuing judicial education to complement these courses. To achieve the avowed goal, we have appended with the curriculum, an account of the seminars and workshops in contemplation under the caption Continuing Judicial Education. These workshops and seminars will be held for the Judges of the Banking courts, special courts and tribunals concerned with judicial or quasi judicial functions and administered either by the Federal Government or the Provincial Governments. They will deal with intellectual property laws, trade laws, environmental laws, commercial laws, alternative dispute resolution techniques and delay reduction.

This programme is obviously the result of awareness that we can deal with philosophical component of the law by continuing judicial education which focuses on these developments and environmental shifts. It is in the backdrop of these considerations that topics such as the Academy as a judicial policy research institute, legal research to improve judgment writing -- judicial decision making, paradigm shifts in law and changing philosophical perspectives, socio-economic impact of judicial decisions, the academy's role in ensuring transparency in judicial administration and the process of adjudication, have found place in the appendix. It was kept in mind that the design of this programme of continuing judicial education should be flexible and responsive to the circumstances and the participants' needs.  

Acknowledgements

Last, but by no means the least, it should be acknowledged, with a sense of gratitude, that positive association of Hon'ble Judge Sandra E. Oxner of the CJEI Halifax-Canada and Mr. Livingston Armytage of the Asia Foundation with us in the successful accomplishment of the assignment and the sincere contribution made by them, have been very useful and of substantial help to us in the development of this curricula for the Academy.