The great British legal tradition

The legal community of Lahore is very proud of its High Court.  In a network of sprawling buildings, it is reminiscent of a Cambridge college, with green lawns and beautiful flower beds. 

The 'lawyers' uniform' is a black suit, white shirt and highly polished shoes. I must add that, so far, I have not adhered to this uniform.  I didn't think that my one smart suit would be appropriate attire for the famous 50 degree heat of the Lahori summer.  This view, it seems, is shared by every non-lawyer in Lahore.  But lawyers, especially around the High Court complex, waddle bravely around like self-important penguins.

My first trip to the High Court found me being introduced to the Lord Chief Justice.  I had been told that he was an impressive figure, and so I was interested and slightly intimidated to meet him.  He sat us down in his large leather armchairs and quizzed me on why I was in Pakistan.  I felt as if I was being interviewed and responded with nervous hyperbolic clichés.  He was educated and engaging, with a perfect upper class English accent. He was open to discussing some of the challenges currently faced by the judiciary and receptive to our request to hold judicial training in mental health at the High Court.

At this point, being a busy man, he handed us over to his less senior colleagues to plan the training.  And thus begun our day-long tour of judges' offices.  First we were directed to an office belonging to another helpful man, who once again took an interest in our ideas.  After a short discussion, he introduced us to more junior colleague to finalise the details.

From the outset of shaking hands with this old-school judge, it was clear that he did not like the presumption of 3 young women that they might be able to organise training for learned judges such as himself.  My valiant colleague entered in to a debate about whether judges needed to have an understanding of mental health problems.  "You don't tell doctors to be judges, so don't tell judges to be doctors" was his stock retort.

After a few moments of this, he smiled in an entirely unconvinced way and invited us to his office to discuss the matter further.  He, too, lived in a large office and had many staff attending to his every biscuit and beverage requirement.  We were offered tea, which we politely accepted and then we waited.  We were offered books to glance through, on the pretext of being relevant to the training discussion.  The book I politely looked through was called 'Guide of Rules and Orders of the High Court'.  I tried to find something interesting to say about the procedural orders I was looking at.  I failed. And so we waited some more.

Finally the judge asked why we were so concerned with the conditions in Pakistani prisons, a subject which we hadn't mentioned at all.  He added that he knew them to be very good, and American prisons to be much worse.  My (Pakistani) colleague quietly replied that our clients would likely disagree about the conditions of prisons here, and that as a Pakistani she could not do much about the condition of American prisons.  So he continued, "you see it in all these Hollywood movies, how awful their prisons are." My quick-witted colleague retorted, "Yes and in Bollywood movies the star goes flying off into the rain and we all know that is an accurate representation of Pakistani society".  Silence.

As our discomfort grew, the judge grew happier.  He gave orders to his staff and left us to wait for our tea.  We all understood that until we had drunk our tea, we were captive in this room.  And in this room, the judge was king.  Eventually, after nearly an hour of crawling time passed, our tea arrived.  We gulped and gulped and burned our mouths, hoping to get away. "What is the rush?" These were the first words he had uttered in a good half hour.  He answered himself with a sneery, "I am sure ladies like you have time for a cup of tea." 

Finally, once every drop of tea had been drunk, we were invited to see the hall we could use for the training. Thankful, for this is what we had come for, we accepted.  We piled in to a car to cross the 200 meters across the High Court and then out of it, only to be led, with sinking hearts, into another office, and not into the hall. 

We were introduced to an elderly, smiley, ex-Supreme Court judge.  We were offered tea, which we refused on the basis that we had just had some. "Coffee then - ladies like you must have time for coffee.”  We were asked where we were from.  London, I replied. Ah, I know London well, I spent many excellent years there studying.  We discussed universities.  Cambridge is very good but my college not famous enough.  Law degrees.  How could I possibly have studied politics as my first degree and still be a lawyer? This could not be good for the excellence of the English legal system.  Chambers in London.  The best in the world.  Buses.  Wonderful value for money.  English weather.  Too cold but nice cool summers.  English tea.  Strange, but drinkable. The state of British society.  Much better 45 years ago.  Going downhill now. 

This old Judge was ostensibly proud of his time spent in England and his ability to talk about the country knowledgeably.  It is often clear how much influence, thanks to colonialism, Britain has had here, and no more so than within the legal system.  I felt struck then, as I often have over the last few weeks, how much ongoing damage this has done.  How can such a system possibly work when it is built from an alien value-system and operates, still, in a foreign language?

The contrast between the 'ordinary' streets or police stations of Lahore and the world of the High Court has to be seen to be believed.  It seems as though the two have just completely forgotten each other. 

We finally get to see the hall, and it was just as impressive as we expected it to be.  In this hall, we will probably get to hold our training, and possibly even make some small difference. All that I know for sure, though, is that we will all sit around in comfort, drinking tea and swapping tales about the great British legal tradition.