Law students share lessons learnt at Moot Court contest

By Michael Oriedo

"The experience was enlightening and rewarding. We will become better lawyers because of what we learnt," says Faiza Sidi, a law student at Catholic University who participated in a recent Moot Court Competition in Arusha, Tanzania.

Sidi and her campus mates Grace Keiru and Mellyne Ogonjo won the Henry Dunant Prize for displaying commitment and passion in International Humanitarian Law (IHL).

The team trounced 10 other contestants to scoop the award that honours Dunant, the founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the organisers of the competition. "We did not expect to win anything since we were eliminated in the quarter finals. This came as a surprise to us," they say.

The three attributed their performance to teamwork and team spirit. "When we given a question, we divided it into different sections among ourselves to speed up research. Then we would meet and polish up our work before heading into the competition room," says Mellyne.

She says the team did so because each one of them has a weakness.

"We knew that we each had a weakness but if we complement each other, we turn our frailties into strength," she says.

Role-playing

At the end of every session, the team would debrief and assess each others performance.

"We did not just listen to the judges comments but constructively criticised each other to point out areas we should improve on," says Keiru.

Besides the passion for IHL, Keiru says role-playing also helped them.

"At one time we were told to act as UN officials during a war. For us, we made the situation real by wearing T-shirts with the UN emblem. This helped us to put our simulation in context," she says.

The students, who had earlier won the Moot Court National Competition say that the contest teaches one to be prepared.

"We read extensively so that we could understand IHL and international conventions. You also have to sharpen your oral skills so that you can face off with your competitor," they say.

Competitors did not intimidate them.

"We knew that all of us were at the competition on merit because we had won in respective countries," says Keiru.

Among the tough teams the students competed against were University of South Africa and University of Zimbabwe.

The former were the winners and the later came second. The three say they will help other students interested in IHL to understand the legislations and what the moot court is all about. Catholic University last won the competition in 2008.

The annual competition promotes IHL among students in higher learning institutions.

"As future leaders, the competition encourages and sensitises them on the principles and values of the law," said Ms Angela Cotroneo of ICRC.