Mohamed says, ‘my sojourn towards achieving this result was borne out of my passionate desire to get a very good law qualification from a reputable university.’ Explaining his challenge, the extraordinary student said that although he is honoured, and at the same time humbled, at achieving an excellent result, this final year result does not reflect the grilling he went through in the most difficult year of his legal studies, which was the first year. He noted that, ‘deep understanding of legal concepts is not easy and takes stamina’. Describing his immersion in law he recognized quite early in his studies that knowing the law is ‘like learning a foreign language or mathematics’ where he ‘gradually became familiar with the language of the law: statutes, court judgements, journal articles and text books’. Consequently, when the first year exam results were out, he was awarded a cash prize from the university for achieving one of the best results.
However, he admitted that earlier then as it is even now for him, reading these tomes looked difficult and, sometimes, futile. But merely reading these sources forced him to ask the big question ‘Why?’ Why did Parliament enact the statute? Why did that author recognize that defendant’s right? Why did another author feel that he was wrong? Although the language was generally easy to read, the difficulty was appreciating their importance. Mastering this skill he says ‘elevates the law essay into something which is much more – a commentary on how effective the law is in answering these enquiries’. Thus, the law becomes support for arguments of fundamental nature, rather than a framework for success.
He does not, however, recommend a total immersion in the law, and says that spending time with his wife and family was key to ‘finding a balance’ to bolster his academic success.
