Parliamentarian Ahmed Usham has proposed an amendment to the Legal Profession Act to provide exemptions for the mandatory Bar Exam under certain circumstances.
The amendment bill proposed by Parliamentarian Usham includes two amendments to the Legal Profession Act. The first amendment is to remove Clause 33 (e) of the act, which states all lawyers who had taken their oath by the time the act came into effect are required to undertake the first Bar Exam to be conducted by the Bar Council.
The second amendment proposed in the bill stipulates that individuals who were studying to get their law degrees and those who had completed their law degrees but had not gotten their professional licenses by the time the act came into effect in 2019 are exempted from the exam. The amendment states such individuals will receive their licenses within a maximum of 60 days after applying to the Bar Council, if they fulfill all the conditions required by law.
Several legal professionals have expressed concern over the large fees charged for the Bar Exam. The Executive Committee of the Bar Council had also revealed only 200 have registered for the exam, out of more than 1,000 eligible for the exam.