The Supreme Court released on Friday the results of the 2004 Bar examinations where 1,659 (31.6 percent) out of the 5,249 examinees passed. It conducts the Bar examinations every year based on a provision in the Constitution granting it the power to promulgate rules governing admission to the practice of law.
Instead of the Bar examinations, Miriam proposed the taking of a National Law School Aptitude Test (NLSAT) and a one-year legal internship as pre-requisites for admission in the study and practice of law.
"By introducing a NLSAT, it will be possible to better evaluate the verbal, writing, analytical proficiency, and reading comprehension skills of prospective law students," she explained.
Miriam said the NLSAT will be similar to the National Medical Admission Test (NMAT) for aspiring medicine students in that passing the NLSAT will be a requirement.
The lady senator from Iloilo is a former trial court judge and a former law professor at the University of the Philippines (UP).
"The Bar exams is not the best gauge of one’s aptitude to practice law because it fails to test the skills needed in the legal profession. It does not focus on the full spectrum of legal knowledge," Miriam said.
In batting for the abolition of Bar examinations, Santiago cited a recent study entitled "Survey of the Legal Profession" by former UP College of Law Dean Merlin Magallona and lawyer Manuel Flores Bonifacio which showed that a sizable number of lawyers think the Bar examinations is not a good index of legal competence for the following reasons:
1. Passing the Bar is not an absolute guarantee of successful practice of law.
2. The Bar examinations is a test of memory and not of competence.
3. Examinees are expected to know everything at one time.
4. Passing the Bar is a matter of chance and luck.
5. The Bar examination is just one index of legal competence, and other factors should be considered.
6. Actual practice of law is the best index of legal competence.
Miriam cited Bar examination statistics which showed that of the more than 5,000 law graduates who take the Bar each year, only 20 percent to 30 percent examinees actually pass the Bar.
She noted the very low percentage of examinees who passed the bar in the past five years: 20.71 percent in 2003; 19.68 percent in 2002; 32.89 percent in 2001; 20.84 percent in 2000; and 16.59 percent in 1999.
"A significant number of examinees who take the bar each year have already taken the examinations once, twice, even thrice in the past and flunked," she said.
If any testing should be done for admission to the practice of law, Miriam said aspiring students should take it before they enter law school and not after graduation.
"Put yourself in the shoes of someone who attended law school for four years of his life, took the bar gazillion times, and never passed it because he just did not have the intellectual aptitude for it. It is better to know early one that the legal profession is not for you, than to spend four years of your life studying law and never become a lawyer," she explained.
The one-year legal internship program, on the other hand, will enable aspiring lawyers to have the practical education, skills, and knowledge necessary to represent clients, she said.
"More so, they will be aware of the myriad of problems that confront the justice system in the country," she added.
