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THE Supreme Court is going to review legal education in the country
and the Bar examination system after the 2007 test results showed an
alarming decline in passing percentages.
Approximately 22.9 percent, or 1,289 candidates,
of 5,626 examinees passed the latest exam on a lower threshold of 70
percent, instead of the previous 75 percent.
The Court had lowered the bar to allow more
candidates to qualify for practice and for inclusion in the Roll of
Attorneys. The passing rate would have been five to 10 percent, or a
mortality rate of 90 to 95 percent, if the justices stuck to the
previous standard.
One for history
“If we did not lower the passing rate, only
about five percent of the examinees would have passed,” Chief
Justice Reynato Puno said. “I think that would have broken the
all-time law record of just over 10 percent.”
He cited the “lack of practicing lawyers”
and the fact that most of the “compañeros” were in private
corporations and government service. The shortage is one reason why
there is a heavy backlog of cases, especially in the trial courts,
he added.
The system, if not the law, allows the High
Court to lower or raise passing grades. In 1962, the justices added
five percent to the general average to increase the number of
passers.
The reason why
How to explain the poor passing mark? Some of
the candidates blamed the “toughness” of the exam and the
unpredictability of many questions or subjects. Expressing one’s
answer in essay form challenged one’s competence in communication
and logic. Others blamed “strictness in corrections.”
Many candidates could not express themselves in
correct English, said one reviewer. Chief Justice Puno looks at the
bigger picture: he sees great flaws in the system of legal
education, on the curriculums offered by law schools and the quality
of their faculty.
Despite the mediocre showing, Associate Justice
Adolfo Azcuna noted, the situation does not necessarily reflect a
decline in the legal education system.
“I think they deserve to be lawyers,” Azcuna
said, referring to the successful candidates. He chaired the 2007
Bar committee.
Legal education and the Bar
The study will look into the system of legal
education in the country and the Bar exam itself. A committee
chaired by Associate Justice Eduardo Nachura shall conduct the
review.
There is no shortage of advice on improving
legal education and the Bar exam.
More than 100 law schools attract thousands of
aspiring lawyers each year. The first thing to do, according to some
lawyers, is to toughen entrance examinations and to demand fluency
in English from the applicants.
The English of students
Close down or warn schools with poor passing
records, said House Speaker Prospero Nograles, a second placer in
the 1971 Bar. Focus on universities whose passing average for two
consecutive exams is below the national average. Publicize their
names as a warning to parents and aspiring students.
The relevance of the curriculum to the
political, social and economic life is important, the academicians
and legal observers said. Standards for teaching and teachers need a
lift.
Equally important as improving education is the
reform of the legal profession itself—addressing the corruption,
the poor quality of the prosecution service, the connivance between
lawyers and judges, the low salaries for judges, justices and court
employees, the shortage of trial court judges and public attorneys,
and the inequality of the law for the poor and the rich. We need to
reform the profession as we take a second look at legal education.
Set a standard and protect it
The Supreme Court should reconsider its practice
of lowering or raising passing grades to ensure a pool of lawyers.
It should maintain a universal, acceptable passing benchmark—the
current 75 percent suffices—below which no one may practice law or
must retake the Bar.
Setting a standard and honoring it will
challenge every actor in the field—the law schools, the teachers
of law, the Supreme Court, the examiners, the students and the
parents who pay for their schooling —to recognize and to act on
major flaws in the education of the youth and the practice of law. A
continuing engagement with these questions will save us from
rationalizing Bar results or justifying corrective actions.
The integrity of the Bar will grow when there is
consistency in the system and a standard to promote and protect. We
do not need to fill a national quota for lawyers every year. We have
more than an ample supply. But we do need lawyers who passed on
their merit, whose appreciation of the law is not limited to the
courts or to private practice, but who appreciate public service
(including pro bono work), pay attention to the poor who need
protection, respect the Constitution and who see the higher calling
of the law as the search for truth and justice and as a tool for
civility, modernization and citizenship.
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