JULY 19 — I refer to J Philips’ “Law graduates in limbo.”
The Legal Profession Qualifying Board (LPQB) is a statutory body established under the Legal Profession Act 1976 (Act 166). By virtue of section 7 of the Act, the Board consists of:
a) the Attorney General who is the Chairman;
b) two judges nominated by the Chief Justice;
c) the Chairman of the Bar Council; and
d) a Dean of a Faculty of Law nominated by the Minister of Higher Education.
Under section 8(2) of Act 166, the Chief Registrar of the Federal Court is the Secretary to the Board. The Board is further granted powers to appoint other officers and staff to perform its day to day functions.
So, it is curious that Philips should rant about the “incompetence of the LPQB” which “has not figured out a better solution than to simply delay and postpone the (Certificate of Legal Practice — CLP) examination.” According to Philips, the bureaucrats in the LPQB “have no regards to the interest of the candidates [and] refuse to implement changes in the ways they run things.”
He then concluded his rant by calling on the Malaysian Bar to “do something now.”
But the Malaysian Bar is represented in the LPQB by its chairperson!
The Covid-19 pandemic is much more than a health crisis. It is a human, economic and social crisis. After UNICEF’s warning of a “Lost Covid Generation” highlighting irreversible harm which may be caused to children’s education, among others, Philips’ rant may have highlighted a lost generation of law graduates who “are thrown into a limbo where they cannot progress in their career in the legal industry without their CLP results.”
But the blame cannot lie solely with the LPQB. It is already one onerous task of the LPQB to provide for CLP examinations. As Philips rightly said, the CLP is one of the two prominent pathways for students from private and foreign universities to become lawyers in Malaysia, the other being the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) in the UK.
Due to the cost involved in pursuing the BPTC in the UK, the CLP pathway becomes a popular choice for students who do not have the means.
There are now more than a thousand candidates each year. The LPQB has five other statutory functions (section 5 of Act 166).
Perhaps amendments to Act 166 are timely for the establishment of, among others, an Institute of Legal Education — similar to Singapore — to succeed the LPQB in providing for courses of instruction and their examinations.
With a Board of Directors comprising representatives from various stakeholders in the legal community, the institute could be empowered to appoint a dean of the institute, and appoint and employ such other officers and employees as might be necessary for the effective performance of the institute’s statutory functions.
Such appointees should be in a better position to conduct academic and vocational courses and their examinations.
There is a need to ensure that training of lawyers in the country is of a high standard. An institute of legal education could take on the role of overseeing and ensuring that such high standards are maintained.
*This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
