Commonwealth Law Student Essay Competition:
This year will see the launch of our 5th Essay Competition. The competition is open to all students registered on an undergraduate law degree course within a Higher Education Institution in a Commonwealth Nations (see below for the full competition rules).  The competition closes on 31 October 2014.
Essay Competition 2014The title for this year is:

“Can the Commonwealth (Latimer House) Principles on Three Branches of Government 2003 serve as an effective framework for safeguarding democracy and the rule of law in Commonwealth Countries?”

£1000 of cash prizes will be awarded to the winners of first, second and third places as follows: 1st Prize: £500  2nd Prize: £300 3rd Prize £200.
The winning entry will also be published in the Newsletter of the Commonwealth Legal Education and may also be published in the journal of Commonwealth Law and Legal Education. Further details are available from: the Essay Co-ordinators: [email protected].
Rules:
1. The competition is open to any of the students on undergraduate degree in law at a Faculty/School of Law or equivalent institution in a Commonwealth country.
2. Eligibility shall be determined by the essay coordinators whose decision shall be final and conclusive
3. Students of both full-time and part-time degree programmes are eligible.
4. All entries must address the topic of this year’s competition and not exceed 2,500 words (excluding footnotes and bibliography).
5. The essay must be an original piece of work free of any plagiarism. No essay should have been previously submitted or shortlisted in any previous essay competition. The essay must not have been be previously published either in full or part.
6. All entries must be in English and must be presented formally acknowledging sources with footnotes and references in one of the accepted styles such as OSCOLA or Harvard for legal essays and a bibliography.
7. Entries must be in electronic form as a word document. Footnotes should be placed at the foot of the page, not at the end of the text. Please make sure that the essay can easily be opened as a Word document and does not have any restrictions placed on it in terms of access. The text should be in Ariel 12 font, 1.5 line spacing and the footnotes in subscript.
8. The entry should have a cover page giving:
i. The Entrant’s full name
ii. Postal address and email address
iii. The course of study and the name and address of the institution
iv. The word count of the essay ( excluding footnotes and bibliography)
9. The judges will be particularly looking for:
i. Originality of ideas
ii. Feasibility of outcomes
iii. Depth of research and analysis
iv. The use of comparative Commonwealth materials
v. Logical structure
vi. Literary merit of materials used
vii. Good presentation
10. Each entry must be accompanied by an entry form and a scanned signed copy of a declaration by the entrant that the essay represents his/her own unaided work. It must also be accompanied by a similar supporting statement by a teacher or administrator of the law school of which an entrant is a student, to the effect that he or she satisfies the criteria for entry. The statement must be stamped with the institution’s stamp.
11. All entries should be sent by email to the following email address on or before the 31st of October 2014.
• [email protected].
12. Closing date will be posted on CLEA website: http://www.clea-web.com/ and published in the CLEA newsletter.
13. The entries will be assessed by a team of markers and essay co-ordinators whose decision will be final and no correspondence in this connection will be entertained.
14. The Association reserves the right to decline to award any or all prizes in the event of a failure of entries to reach an appropriate standard.
15. The author of the essay retains the copyright of the respective work, but CLEA reserves the right to print, reprint, and distribute all submitted entries at any time, regardless of whether or not they are prize-winning entries. The credit will be duly attributed to the author of the essay.
Processing and Evaluation:
1. On receipt of the entries, The Coordinator will record and acknowledge their receipt.
2. The Coordinator will then send the entries for checking for plagiarism by a member of the panel appointed by the CLEA Management Committee (MC), who will check using an application such as ‘Turn it In’. Entries with a high incidence of similarities will be eliminated and a report may be sent to student’s institution.
3. The entries will then be sent by the Coordinator to all the panel members marking. They will mark them applying the criteria given in Rule 9.
4. Following the completion of marking final three best essays will be considered winners in order to merit.
5. The Coordinator will then present the marks and the scripts to the MC for confirmation and award of prizes.
6. Once approved, the competitors will be informed of the results and the MC will take action to award the prizes to the winners and publish the winning entries.
 
Info. Courtesy: KnowledgeSteez