Held from 21 to 22 August 2024, the workshop focused on key skills for judicial research officers (judicial clerks) in performing their roles.
This pioneering workshop brought together thirty judicial research officers (JROs) of judges of the superior courts, to develop key skills required in performing their roles, discuss ethical considerations surrounding their work, and share comparative experiences from jurisdictions in which this role is more institutionalised.
Day 1 of the workshop began with an introductory session in which participants shared the nature of their work, and were introduced to different models of the role in other apex courts. Two key skills were discussed in the next sessions: legal research, and legal writing. The former included tips on navigating law databases and adopting a sound methodology for referring to comparative jurisprudence; the latter briefly discussed the essentials of good legal writing, as well as best practices adopted in legal scholarship and judgment writing and in other jurisdictions. The final substantive session for the day explored the different ethical considerations around the role of a JRO, which ignited a lively discussion. The day ended with an exercise where participants worked in groups to research a legal issue and submit a memorandum, which was reviewed the next day by resource persons.
On day 2, the two substantive sessions explored good practices in reviewing judgments prior to delivery, and comparative experiences of how JROs may collaborate to make the process more rigorous and efficient. Participants then took part in a long exercise working in teams to review a mock draft judgment. The day closed with a panel discussion featuring former judicial clerks from four apex courts, who shared their courts’ approach to issues such as recruitment, working collaboratively, orientation and training, and taking initiatives as clerks / judicial research officers.
A unique feature of this workshop was that most resource persons were former clerks of apex courts: the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the Supreme Court of India, and the Supreme Court of Canada. In addition, on day 1, the Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Colombo, outlined the basics of research methodology. The workshop was conducted under the project ‘Consolidating the Rule of Law in Sri Lanka: Strengthening the Resilience of Democratic Institutions to Promote Stability in the Face of Crises’ funded by the German Federal Foreign Office.