|
 ©The
Star (Used by permission)
by Royce Cheah
• Bar Council welcomes move
• About the CLP
KUALA LUMPUR: The Certificate of Legal Practice (CLP) will soon be scrapped in
favour of the Common Bar Course (CBC) and Common Bar Exam (CBE), Law Minister
Datuk Zaid Ibrahim said.
Citing that a study by a committee appointed by the Legal Profession Qualifying
Board (LPQB) on how to implement the move was in its final stages, Zaid said the
goal was to standardise and improve the quality of law practitioners.
“The CBC and CBE will be mandatory for anyone who wants to practise law, whether
they are local or foreign graduates.”
Zaid, however, would not speculate on whether the CBC and CBE would be the only
prerequisite before a graduate is called to the Bar or whether chambering would
continue.
“The course and exam will be overseen by a non-profit organisation supported by
the Government.”
Zaid, who was speaking to reporters at the Parliament lobby, was expanding on a
written reply to Bukit Gelugor MP Karpal Singh’s question on whether the
Government had plans to abolish the CLP and what it would be replaced with.
He added that views from the Attorney-General’s Chambers, Bar Council, Malaysia
Qualification Agency and universities were also being sought by the committee.
“The LPQB has also advised the committee to look into the possibility of local
universities already offering law degrees to also offer the CBC, considering
they have the infrastructure.
“I know this issue has been going on for a long time and that questions had been
raised by students and parents. As such, we are moving forward to implement what
has been discussed.”
When asked if the move was due to complaints by CLP students over the low pass
rate, Zaid said he did not want to discuss that but was more concerned about
executing what was planned.
He added that the report on the study would be ready in a number of months and
that it was part of his responsibility as law minister to improve the current
situation.
Bar Council welcomes move
by Shaila Koshy and Amanda Christi
KUALA LUMPUR: The Bar Council welcomes the announcement that the Certificate in
Legal Practice (CLP) would be abolished and replaced with a Common Bar
Examination (CBE).
“This is what the Legal Profession Qualifying Board (LPQB), chaired by the
Attorney-General, has been actively looking at the last couple of years,” said
council chairman Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan, who is a member of the LPQB.
“Both the Board and the council have a special committee to come up with a
proposed syllabus and infrastructure to adopt for a Common Bar Course (CBC) and
Common Bar Examination.”
“The council is exploring a proposal that the CBC be a training course rather
than one catered to test a law graduate’s legal knowledge as in the CLP,” said
Steven Thiru, a member of the council’s ad hoc committee on the CBC.
“We are looking at what the list of subjects should cover, a
syllabus to underlie that and modern teaching methods being employed in other
jurisdictions.”
He added that they were also studying what the teacher-pupil ratio should be in
such a course.
Jumping for joy over the announcement, two law students interviewed expressed
the hope that the CBE would be easier to pass than the CLP.
Bethany Rosanne, 20, who is studying law at Kolej Damansara Utama (KDU), said:
“The CLP is very dull and difficult compared to the other law subjects. I’m glad
that it has been abolished. We don’t know what the new exam will bring us but I
hope it will lessen our burden.”
Bethany added that certain law students were not required to undergo the CLP
examinations if they take the Bar examinations in England, therefore this change
would not affect them.
KDU first year law student Ow Yong Jo Jo, 21, from Petaling Jaya said: “Not
everyone is able to pass the CLP subjects because there is a certain quota
requirement and many students have failed and retaken the paper repeatedly
before finally being allowed to practise.
“We just hope that the CBC and CBE will better enable law students to pass.”
About the CLP
The Certificate in Legal Practice (CLP) is a compulsory examination for law
students with degrees from universities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland
and some
universities in Australia and New Zealand before they can practise law here.
The examination is conducted once a year. Candidates are examined on General
Paper, Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, and Professional Practice.
It was introduced in 1984 as a rescue programme for Malaysians who graduated in
Britain but who did not qualify for the Bar after a new ruling was enforced.
Students have long complained of the high rate of failures for the examination.
The CLP was also tarnished by a scandal in 2001, where its then director Khalid
Yusof was probed for manipulating the test results.
On July 24 last year, Khalid was found guilty by a Sessions Court of cheating
and falsifying results of the 2001 examination.
Trackback(0)
 |
News 
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Malacca Bar: Conference on the Roadmap to Local Government Elections 
Circular No 181/2008 : 22nd Sultan Azlan Shah Law Lecture
The 23-year-old chapter of the Certificate of Legal Practice has closed on an almost ugly note. Its director, Khalid Yusof, was found guilty by a Sessions Court of cheating and falsifying results of the 2001 examination on July 24, 2007.
Let us now see whether the new Common Bar Course will prove as helpful as it ought to be.
Important as legal knowledge is, the emphasis should shift to legal practice that will hone the practitioner's competence. Any other emphasis is a betrayal of this ethical profession.
Ethics is another emphasis. I believe my learned friends know what I am talking about.
In the short time that I have been in practice, I have seen questionable statutory declarations and unethical practice. I shall take such matters up at the appropriate time.
Stephen Tan Ban Cheng