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Maher Arar and Monia Mazigh addressed first-year uOttawa Common Law Students on September 4. In their speech entitled, “Who do you want to be?” Arar and Mazigh addressed some of the challenges that law students face in their professional paths.
“The real world is becoming more and more complex,” stated Monia Mazigh, “there are many challenges where you [as law students] can put your own personal stamp and create your own difference. It is a matter of looking deep in your soul and making choices. Ask yourself the question, ‘What do I want to be 5 or 10 years from now?’”
The audience was greatly moved by the speech given the tragic experience of Maher Arar. In September 2002, he was wrongfully detained in the U.S. on his way home to Canada after a vacation in Tunisia. He was deported to Syria, his country of birth, where he was imprisoned and tortured.
Maher Arar underscored the importance of the legal profession in his speech. “The importance of lawyers in society [must] be emphasized. We live in a society that respects the rule of law and the ideal of justice. Lawyers are both skilled interpreters of the law…and are passionate defenders [of the law] when we are desperate for help. Law itself is not enough,” declared Mr. Arar. “Without the efforts of lawyers we cannot have justice. Unfortunately, despite the good examples that so many Canadian lawyers have shown, the legal profession still suffers in terms of [its] reputation.”
For more information, visit www.commonlaw.uOttawa.ca.
