The Bar Council of the Maldives (BCM) has held the first national bar exam.
The bar exam was held with 176 examinees in Male' City and Addu City. The exam had a 98.3% turnout for both the morning and afternoon sessions.
BCM stated that the bar exam assesses skills at a basic level by addressing a candidate's analytical abilities and understanding of the law. As such, the bar exam sets the minimum benchmark for admission to practice in the Maldives. It is a multiple-choice exam that tests the knowledge to practice in Tort Law, Criminal Law and Procedure, Constitutional and Administrative Law, Contract Law and Practice, Land Law and Practice, and the Maldivian Legal System.
The syllabus for the bar exam was developed by the Bar Exam Committee of Experts, and the dual-language exam, conducted in both Dhivehi and English, consisted of a total of 120 multiple-choice questions. BCM also prepared reading lists for the six examinable areas, with the support of volunteer lawyers, to assist with the preparation for the bar exam. The council also provided sample practice questions, illustrating the kind of questions that appear on the exam, and conducted a total of 18 lectures during 2022, to provide support to examinees sitting the exam.
The bar exam is one of two essential requirements for becoming licensed to practice as a lawyer, as established under the Legal Profession Act 2019, with the other being the completion of a licensing training programme. The BCM congratulated all candidates who sat the exam, becoming the first-ever law graduates to sit the bar exam in the Maldives.