Saturday, August 25, 2012

My feelings about the first VCF cell group meeting; Should I join the pro-bono club?; CLT class: the common law tradition

The first cell group meeting for varsity Christian fellowship would be held on Wednesday next week. I have received the contact details of the people who have been allocated to my group “Jireh” in my email inbox. There are quite a number of year 1s who have signed up for VCF and have been allocated to my cell group. There are also be a handful of new year 2s who have decided to come sign up for VCF. I suppose the tentative number of people who would be in the cell group is around 20. This is a stark contrast to the small size of the group which I had the previous year, where there was only 4 people in the group. Frankly, I am a little intimidated of having a big group. I suppose the group size would minimize when some of the year 1s and new year 2s who had registered their names during the VCF tea session withdraw or stop coming after a while, especially if they find themselves with other law club commitments.
 
I am a little intimidated with how I would fare in fulfilling my role and responsibility as the new cell group leader. I hope I can be accommodating and spontaneous enough in my interaction with the members of my cell group. I hope I can make people feel welcomed. However, I am faced with a challenge posed by the condition I have called Aspergers Syndrome. I might find it difficult to know what to say or do in order to engage the other members of the group. I become socially exhausted easily, and may appear aloof. I might be socially oblivious to whether other people are bored with the line of discussion I am bringing up, and may get carried away with pedantic discussion of theology or biblical facts and history. I might appear insensitive to the sentiments or emotions of those in my cell group, and may not be able to provide the necessary support. Generally, people in my life do not find me a suitable person to relate to in times of their troubles. I might be relatively emotionless in the way I carry out worship and prayer sessions. I also have trouble saying group prayers, such as prayers for meals, and opening and closing prayers for group sessions.

I hope this first session would turn out well. I am afraid that I would be paralyzed by fear or by the sensory overload from the number of people that are in the cell group. Such paralysis happened to me during my criminal law presentation last semester, and I was struggling throughout the entire presentation to recall what I was trying to put forth and expressing them in words. It may very well occur during VCF sessions as well. I take quiet confidence that I have led discipleship group in my own church 3 times. I didn’t think I fared too well on those occasions, but my discipleship group mates affirmed me that I did okay.

My former cell group leaders, Charmaine and Sabrina, have been very encouraging of me to assume the role of cell group leader. Their words to me when I told them of my worries due to my having Aspergers Syndrome have been most comforting and inspiring. Charmaine related to me the account of various characters in the Bible whom God have chosen for his purposes despite of their weaknesses. Sabrina related to me her own challenges in being the cell group leader and why she chose to be one despite the challenges she knew she would face. I suppose I want to challenge myself to be able to do things that people without Aspergers Syndrome are able to do. I want to develop skills of leading a group. The VCF would be a safe and accommodative avenue for me to develop such skills. I want to be able to lead a normal life, and do things other normal people do.

Today, I went to the pro-bono welcome tea session. I have been considering joining the pro-bono club. I think it would give me a fuller experience at law school. However, I am apprehensive of assuming too much commitment for myself. The various projects that I can participate in for the pro-bono club would require me to participate in the pro-bono activity a day or two every week. I think my Christian commitments and activities consume much of my time already. There is VCF cell group meeting and Central Bible Study session on Wednesdays, Professor Thio’s bible study sessions on Fridays, Church discipleship group on Saturdays, and the usual Sunday service. I need to carefully consider whether I should take on any more commitments. Intuitively speaking, I would give the pro-bono club a miss.  
Professor Michael Dowdle conducted the second seminar for comparative legal tradition today. It was about the history of the common law. The common law legal system culminates very much by incremental refashioning of the justice system by succession of governing kings of England to conveniently expand their bureaucracy across England and to generate revenue for their war and opulent living expenses. Compared to the civil law legal system, there is relatively less intellectual foundation undergirding the formulation of the common law legal system. The formalistic writ system was conceived during the reign of Normandy King Henry the Second to establish a convenient working judiciary system that administrate land dispute amongst the nobles, and generate revenues for the King’s coffers. The purpose of the writ system was never so much concerned about administration of justice, as it was about implementing a system that regulates access to justice. The common man could only seek justice from the King’s court if his complaints fell within a specified category covered by the available writs. A purchase of the appropriate writs for the dispute is made and the writ referred to the Justiciar(judge-delegate appointed by the king) who would approve the referral of the dispute to trial. Then after, the dispute is referred to a “petty assize” consisting of a jury of 12 men from the province of the dispute whose verdict settles the land dispute.
Due to the divide between the merchant class and aristocracy class, the merchant-classed jury began making decision in disfavor of the aristocracy class. In order to solve this issue of jury nullification (where the jury makes a decision contrary to prevailing laws), the Nobles tried to seize control by moving the decision from the jury into the hands of the judge.
The take-home question from the seminar is “Is Singapore really a common law jurisdiction?” In tackling this question, I suppose I first need to find out the characteristics of a “common law jurisdiction”. However, all the seminar by Professor Michael Dowdle does is tell me about the history of the formation of the common law. But all these information are really redundant in giving me a characterization of what a common law legal tradition is. If I should refer to Wikipedia, the main characteristic of the common law tradition is the great precedential weight to case law. This is a very straightforward characterization of the common law. It is almost too simple to just conclude that Singapore is thus a common law jurisdiction. I suppose I am missing out something.

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