CLP exam cap an unfair hurdle in the way of law grads

 

Placing a limit on the number of times anyone can sit for a professional qualifying test after obtaining a degree just does not make sense to many people.

It would be understandable if universities imposed such a time bar for students to get their degrees but to have it for a qualifying test is highly questionable.

And to impose this only on law graduates who obtain their qualification from abroad and local private universities is not only unfair but appears to be cruel. It cuts short the dream of those wanting to practise law despite having the degree.

Unlike those graduating from local public universities and one government-linked institution in the country, these graduates have to sit for the Certificate in Legal Practice (CLP) in order to work as lawyers.

If this double standard isn’t enough, they are only allowed a maximum of four attempts at passing the CLP examination within five years. Only with a pass can a law graduate enter a legal chambers as a pupil before being admitted to the Bar.

Candidates who fail in one of the five CLP papers are granted a conditional pass for the examination, and are allowed to re-sit the paper but they have a maximum of three attempts to pass.

Some 2,000-odd graduates from local private universities and colleges abroad will take the CLP exam from April 11-20.

Based on the fact that only 20% to 25% of the 2,000-odd candidates appear to pass annually, some lawyers claim that there is an unwritten quota set by the Legal Profession Qualifying Board, which of course has been denied by the authorities.

For the 2020 CLP examination which was only held last year because of the Covid-19 pandemic, only 399 of the 1,656 law graduates obtained a full pass.

This constitutes 25% of the total candidates, a marked improvement compared with the 20% who passed in 2019.

The CLP division is under the Legal Profession Qualifying Board (LPQB) which is headed by Attorney-General Idrus Harun.

There are thousands of Malaysians who must have spent huge amounts of money to obtain a law degree but who cannot go into practice because they have not got through the CLP.

In effect, their legal career is as good as over, even before they get started.

It must be tough for those who had taken loans from banks or the national higher education fund board (PTPTN), and painful for parents who had spent hundreds of thousands of ringgit sending their children abroad for their degrees.

Without the CLP, the graduates can work as in-house legal officers but such vacancies are limited, or work as paralegals in legal firms, but that is not the career they slogged for.

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One lawyer said CLP focuses mainly on procedural aspects of the legal practice and it does not go deep into the actual needs of one practising law. These law degree holders have to attend classes for a good six to nine months before they can sit for the exam.

He feels that most of it can be picked in chambers, a nine-month mandatory period in which graduates serve as pupils supervised by a senior lawyer.

Having been a master to pupils in chambers, he says the quality of some local graduates who do not have to sit for the CLP is much lower than those trained abroad or in private colleges.

The mandatory need for a CLP seems to be an additional hurdle placed by the government in the name of understanding the local legal system.

There is no such requirement for other professionals who graduate from abroad or from local private institutions before they are allowed to practice here, including doctors and accountants.

Some argue that it is no fault of the government as these students knew the requirement before they signed up for their courses. True, but no one expected the CLP to be such a difficult exam to pass. Or the presence of an unwritten quota.

Ok fine, it’s the LPQB’s prerogative to set the passing mark or even impose a quota, rightly or wrongly. But why then limit the number of times one can sit? Shouldn’t they be allowed to re-sit until they get through or give up? After all, they pay huge exam fees each time they sign up.

Looking at the issue from the point of fairness and equality, the government should do away with the CLP and have a common qualifying examination for all law degree graduates, whether they are from local public and private universities or from overseas.

This will ensure all Malaysians get equal opportunity and there will be little reason to complain. The Bar Council has been asking for this for a long time now but the government is ignoring the call for reasons best known to itself. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.