a real setting of mooting

I didn’t sleep a wink the day before our constitutional law mooting up to the real presentation. The rest of the team had a very sleepless and brainwashed day by all the justices in the cases that we were relying on to support our submissions. Now i really can feel the side effects of being unable to sleep even a minute. I have a terrible headache and am unable to concentrate. Surprisingly, I didn’t mumble during the questioning and delivering submissions. Anyways, it was a worthwhile sacrifice because we all did well though i did a very big mistake. I was not quite sure whether the single chief justice was asking me to make a summing up. I ended up proceeding to my second submission. well, traditionally, the counsel should ask the court's permission to proceed to the next submission and auchhhh i didn't ask the court's permission. Thank goodness, she was quite pleased when I delivered my second submission. I hope She won’t mark me down for that.

just wanna give a little of background of our moot question. it was about whether the commonwealth has a broad implied nationhood power to pass law in regards to obesity in which its provisions seek to restrict the distribution of junk food and prohibit its advertisement on Tv and radio and criminalise the offenders. our main submissions were based on 3 grounds namely, the scope and the breath of an implied nationhood power, whether the commonwealth can make a coercive law and in doing so, whether it accords with proportionality principle. obviously, the state would argue the implied nationhood power should be interpreted narrowly, whereas the commonwealth would argue otherwise.

anyways, this mooting isn't about who wins or loses the case. it is purposed not just to give us a real experience to stand on our feets and try to defend your client position, but also to gather us to be able to co-operate with our opponents. the justices seeks to mark us on our team work, i.e. correspond with every single issues.

here are some photos taken before and after the mooting.

carolyn was a senoir counsel for the Plaintiff, the state government. her arguments were the implied nationhood power should be intrepreted narrowly on the ground that it will give the commonwealth a wide ranging and unlimited power to step into every single matters that the states traditionally have jurisdiction to deal with.

Li Yin was a junior counsel for the plaintiff as well. her submissions were based on coercive law and proportionality. she argued that the commowealth had no power to be paternalistic restricting people's basic rights of dietary choice.

that's the sequence. on the right is the plaintiff acting on the behalf of the states. on the left is the respondent acting on the behalf of the commonwealth

Janice was my partner. she's a senior counsel

i was the junior counsel, acting for the respondent

that's four of us sitting on the bench where the justices sat

this was taken outside the court room