A Lawyer's Opinion on Zaid Ibrahim and His Actions II

In this second part of his critical view on Zaid Ibrahim, successful and locally trained Loyar Korporat disagree with his plan to remove the Certificate of Legal Practise requirement.

By Loyar Korporat

The Government introduced the Certificate of Legal Practise or CLP as it is commonly called from the early eighties. The CLP was an alternative and a means to allow Malaysian students who had completed and obtained their LLB but failed to gain entry into the respective Inns of Court or were not in a financial or economic position.

The operative word being “failed”, to gain entry into the respective Inns of Court. The failure of these Malaysians in obtaining entry into the Inns of Court could be partly attributed to the results of these Malaysians which basically did not meet the entry requirements of the respective Inns of Court.

From my understanding, the Law degrees awarded by the English and Welsh Universities require three (3) years undergraduate studies and upon completion, the graduate is conferred the degree.

The English legal system makes a distinction between a Barristor and a Solicitor. The year spent at the Inns of Court would entail the study and understanding of the various procedural laws.

In Malaysia, we have a fused profession meaning that here in Malaysia the lawyer is admitted to the rolls as an Advocate and Solicitor of the High Court and not a Barristor or a solicitor as in the United Kingdom.

The local public universities including the National University of Singapore which conduct the LLB courses require that all its law undergraduate students complete four (4) of studies. Normally, the fourth year is mainly for the various procedural laws.

It is beyond comprehension that the law graduates of the British or Austrialian universities, and who have not gained entry into the Inns of Court or who have not studied the various procedural laws, not be required to undertake the CLP.

Any proposal to do away with the CLP must take into consideration the aspect of any law undergraduate having completed the required various procedural laws.

The capability of the foreign law graduates is not being questioned here but why should these individuals be exempted from the study and understanding of the various procedural laws.

Furthermore, the question for the Bar Council (both past and present) and Government authorities is: Why these issues have not been addressed and explained to the general public?

It is convenient for the various parties, for whatever purposes and with whatever vested interests, to side step and sweep these issues under the carpet.

The first part of this series is available here.

Note: In the opinion of this blogger, this is exemplary of Zaid's myopic view of the bigger picture. Sadly, as someone who benefited from the education at ITM, he has lost any sense of Malayness. He fail to see the tersirat in any that is tersurat. Shouldn't someone that has excelled in law be able to see the spirit and text? That happens only when one has lost ones soul.

This blogger recalled well the hue and cry from the Bar Council when Tun Sheikh Ahmad Fairuz, for the second time, spoke of the need of a Malaysian Common Law last year. There was a well coordinated and consensual attempt to ridicule his view, which is essentially developing the Malaysian Common Law to incorporate Malaysian values which is essentially the heritage of Islamic values and other common and universal values found in all religion of Malaysia.

The commonly cited reasons by Bar Council members was the British tradition of the Malaysian legal practise and their foreign qualification. So much for developing a Malaysian identity (jati diri) and the often used sloganeering of Bangsa Malaysia by Bar Council activists who are generally believers in multi-culturalism, multipluralism and multi-religion.

In the private opinion of locally trained Loyar Korporat, our legal system has elements are already infused with While they believed that Tun Salleh Abas had been unfairly treated and had defended him, the irony of their allergy to anything Islamic is that few charges on Tun Salleh Abas, which had led to his dismissal by the YDP Agong, was that he had similar view with Tun Sheikh Ahmad Fairuz in advocating for the incorporation of Islamic legal system.

Strangely, while other professional bodie stry hard to exert a local standard and soem level of exclusivity, the local Bar Council is happy being non Malaysian and adopting other standards. These lawyers are not worth calling themselves Malysian and fighter of justice (which I seriously doubts lawyers do but pandering to teh needs of clients).

They are colonised minds ever willing to remain colonised!