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

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.

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.

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kt comments:

On 13 April 2012 I posted the following (edited extracts only):

The MMC was accused of practising double standards in requiring students going to universities in Balkan countries (you know who) to do a foundation course while exempting those going to Egypt and Jordan (you also know who).


In that post I recall the case some years ago of the Crimea State Medical University (CSMU), whose medical degrees were initially recognized by MMC (because you know why).


Then, when Indian Malaysians, the majority of whom preferred a medical career, followed the government sponsored students to CSMU (principally because of its recognized medical degrees by MMC), it led to a minister visiting there to state that there were 'too many blacks', meaning 'too many' Malaysian Indians, attending the same medical degree course.


As I alluded in the title of that post, it would not do (for our remarkable government) to have Indian doctors outnumbering the scholarship students. The MMC withdrew recognition of CSMU medical degrees, but blatantly only after, we suspected, the privileged batch(es) could graduate, thus 'amputating' the poor Tambees at their career knees and leaving those unfortunate Malaysians in the lurch.


My uncle has just chipped in to relate a story in much early days (you know whose), confirming our suspicion that only some may be doctors. Then (at time of Unc's story), despite the reality that most Chinese and Indian students (other than a few for window dressing) were already marginalized out of local universities, an UMNO MP was still not satisfied with the very much imbalanced ratio of undergraduates in our higher institutions of learning.

He demanded, apparently in Parliament, a two-pronged strategy of 'promote' and 'prevent' - that was, promote the Malays (which in truth no one was against, subject to minimum standards) and also prevent non-Malays from seeking tertiary education outside Malaysia.


He urged that non-Malay students be prohibited from going abroad to study at foreign universities to ensure the goals of our most remarkable social engineering could be achieved. It was fortunate that his proposal was seen as far too openly racist for the mores of that time, and so was ignored.


But to say something in his favour, though no doubt he was an extremist he was at least open about his extremist views. For the last several years, we have instead sinister sneaky sly Machiavellian machinations achieving the very same two-pronged strategy, promote & prevent, to ensure the medical profession remains dominated by The Chosen Ones. I mentioned some of those mafulat Machivellian move to 'close the gates' to 'others' earlier.

Dr Subendran, himself a graduate of CMSU, was particularly furious because he had personally talked at length with Liow 3 years ago on this particular topic of racial discrimination against 'nons' studying medicine abroad.


FMT reported Dr Subendran writing about the double standard in an email to Liow’s personal account on Aug 14, 2010, with copies to the Chief Secretary to the Government Mohd Sidek Hassan and deputy ministers SK Devamany and A Kohilan Pillay. None of them responded. And why should we be surprised?


Dr Subendran informed FMT that a 2007 news report reported an education consultant explaining that the Sijil Peperiksaan Malaysia was adequate as an entry requirement into Egyptian medical programmes. Hmmm, shades of Chubby Checker and his 'How low can you go' Limbo rock.

The infuriated doctor said: “So, it is crystal clear that MMC implements different sets of rules for Malays and non-Malays.”

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Thus was for doctors, now is for lawyers - Amin!