The country needs another two to three years before it can embark on a viable revised system for professional legal qualification, de facto Law Minister Rais Yatim said today.
Rais, who is minister in the prime ministers department, said he would submit a report on the matter to the Cabinet tomorrow summarising recommendations from a discussion held on Jan 15.
We have discussed the collective views of the Attorney-General, the Bar Council, and representatives from the student committees, he told reporters in Putrajaya after a dialogue with visiting Vietnamese Deputy Chief Judge Le Duc Tu.
There are, however, many unresolved issues including the position of students currently undergoing the Certificate in Legal Practice (CLP) in the system. We cannot arbitrarily cut off the Legal Profession Acts application under which the CLP is prescribed, Rais said.
The recommendations which have been put forward include a common fourth year of study for both local and overseas law graduates and that the task of conducting such a course be made solely the prerogative of four local universities Universiti Malaya, Universiti Islam Antarabangsa, Universiti Teknologi Mara and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
Half-baked lawyers
Rais also spoke on the need to review the effectiveness of the legal chambering system and reiterated the unequivocal necessity for well-trained lawyers.
The government will concern itself with the supervision of the legal qualification course. Over the next two years, we will enforce a more vigilant check and balance system.
We cannot have half-baked lawyers, Rais said.
On the practical aspect, he said the government hoped to receive interim reports from the Legal Profession Qualifying Board (LPQB) to ensure the standard of lawyers in the country was up to par.
This will probably be done once every six months, or even more frequently if possible, he said.
Responding to a question concerning a statement made by former Attorney-General Ainum Mohd Saaid that only law graduates with a minimum second-lower honours degree could sit for the CLP, Rais said the implementation of such a measure would be dependant on the LPQB.
The CLP exam, which is the Malaysian equivalent of the British Bar Entrance Examination, came into gross disrepute last November when papers were found to have been leaked and marks were allegedly tampered with.
Smaller margin
In his dialogue with Rais, the Vietnamese chief judge expressed hope that Malaysia would extend its co-operation to labour issues involving both the countries.
The government recently announced a list of several new countries, including Vietnam, from which employers could source their workers in light of the clampdown on Indonesian and Bangladeshi workers.
We hope Malaysia will make a policy decision to invest in Vietnam, Le said through an interpreter.
Rais said that the government intended to conduct comparative law research and Vietnam would be included in the study.
Right now we are subject to the ambit of international law. But there has to be an area of comparative law mutuality so that when it comes to international trade problems later on, these can be converged to a smaller margin of dispute, he said.
The Vietnamese delegation will also be looking into the Malaysian legal administration and hierarchy system during their four-day working visit.
