The Bar Council today said that it is recommending for all law students to do a common fourth year of study to ensure that the students are well versed in practical legal skills.

Chairperson of the Bar Council Mah Weng Kwai said that it is in favour of replacing the Certificate in Legal Practice course with a Common Bar Examination (CBE) so that there is a common entry point into the legal profession regardless of whether the students graduated from overseas or domestic law schools.

The CLP is a requirement for all foreign law graduates to be able to practise law in Malaysia. Local students are however exempted from taking the course.

Mah, during a press conference, revealed the findings of the council's special committee on the review of the CLP which was set up in light of the recent CLP marks tampering scandal.

The committee, in an 11-page report, proposed for the content and syllabus of the CLP to be reorganised to incorporate practical aspects of the law profession and to orientate graduates from foreign universities to local law.

The report suggested the implementation of a course covering topics such as the Malaysian constitution, the Islamic legal system and the work of the Syariah Courts, Malaysian Land Law, Malaysian Criminal Law and Malaysian Evidence Law.

Mah added that the committee is of the view that teaching of the course should be done solely by four local universities - Universiti Malaya, Universiti Islam Antarabangsa, Universiti Teknologi Mara and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia - and no longer by private colleges to ensure consistency of content and standards.

Mah also said that the recommendations of the committee are consistent with the council's stand since the inception of the CLP to institute a professionally run CBE instead.

Need for safeguards

According to Mah, the latest report was also prepared based on earlier ones including the 1989 Morrison report, a 1993 report by the Bar Council and a report by UM, all related to the CLP qualification.

He added that the findings of the committee were earlier unveiled during a Jan 15 workshop organised by the Prime Minister's Department to discuss necessary improvements to the legal examination system.

However, Mah said that even if the proposals are accepted by the government, it would still take four to five years' time before sufficient infrastructure can be made available for its implementation.

"In the meantime, the CLP examination should still be carried out but with the necessary safeguards in place," said Mah, who is also on the another committee set up by the council to investigate the problems that beset the CLP.

He added that the investigative committee had completed the preparation of a draft report on the matter and will be sharing its findings with the Legal Profession Qualifying Board at their next meeting.

Last November, the five-member board came under fire following its decision to annul the examination results of both the July CLP exam and October supplementary exam after it discovered that examination questions have been leaked to candidates.

In addition to the leakage, there were also revelations that the examination marks have been tampered with, forcing the board to re-grade the papers.

Still under probe

When asked, Mah who is also a member of the board, said that board secretary Khalid Yusoff was still suspended pending a domestic inquiry on his alleged involvement in the tampering of marks.

Mah said that the government will still have to make the final decision on whether to implement the CBE in place of the CLP, but added that it would be "prudent" for the government to consider the Bar Council's recommendations.

Mah also said that Bar Council does not agree with the government's proposal to incorporate the CLP examinations within the ambit of the proposed Malaysian Academy of Law as it is of the view that the present system with the board is better placed to oversee aspects of the legal education.

The government's proposal was made last December by de facto Law Minister Dr Rais Yatim in the wake of the CLP controversy the month before.

The academy, which received the approval of the Council of Judges last May, is to include participation of the bench; legal practitioners; legal officers in the federal judicial service and the Attorney-General's Chambers in Sabah and Sarawak; and academics in law faculties of local universities.

Call for Mah to quit

On another matter, Mah said that he would be "responding shortly" to a call by senior lawyer Karpal Singh for Mah's resignation for allegedly failing to support a motion by a lawyer to cite a High Court judge for contempt.

On Tuesday, Karpal said that Mah had brought "disrepute" to the Bar Council for taking a neutral stand on a contempt proceeding filed by lawyer Christopher Fernando against High Court judge S Augustine Paul.

The judge is alleged to have uttered a contemptuous statement during the corruption trial of jailed former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim.