Going professional: Law students move court against new testing requirement

K-P Bar Council policy affects a graduate’s ability to apprentice.

PESHAWAR:

Law students have gone to court against a new policy that requires them to sit a test to secure an apprenticeship before they are granted a license to practice after graduating.

A writ petition to this effect has been filed at the Peshawar High Court by several law students, including Huma Niazi, Hassan Raoom and Mian Shah Faisal Kakakhel, through their counsel Mian Mohibullah Kakakhel. The petitioners have named the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council, Pakistan Bar Council, National Testing Service (NTS), University of Peshawar and a civil judge as respondents.

The law students said that after they were awarded course-completion certificates from their colleges they went to the K-P Bar Council to find out about submitting their first intimation forms. However, when they handed in the forms, the graduates were told that they first needed to sit a test through the NTS after their LLB-III results came out. The test would cost Rs3,000, states the petition.

“Up till now, first intimation forms were to be submitted just after you appeared in the LLB-III examinations and students would start their apprenticeships with any senior lawyer by submitting course-completion certificates with the relevant bar council,” it adds.

It claimed that the respondents were closing the door on fresh graduates and preventing them from becoming part of this profession, violating their right to complete their six-month apprenticeship before a written exam and interview.

“The NTS is a non-statutory body and the agreement with a professional body raises the question as to why they are more interested in qualifying exams after professional college exams, and that too by a body which is not approved by the Higher Education Commission or any legal authority,” reads the petition.

The petition maintains that the notification issued on March 7, 2013 by the Pakistan Bar Council to conduct tests via the NTS before and after the first and second intimation form was illegal, without jurisdiction, without lawful authority and against the basic fundamental rights granted by the Constitution.

Previously, LLB students used to first get their course-completion certificates from their institute or college and then submitted the first intimation form which informs the provincial bar council that he or she has joined a senior lawyer and is assisting them in cases.

After a six-month apprenticeship, law students submitted their second intimation form along with their degree and all other certificates. The bar council then took a written exam according to the rules of the Pakistan Bar Council and graduates were granted a license to practice law after an interview.

The petitioners demanded that the notification dated March 7, 2013 along with any other amendments on taking the test through the NTS be declared illegal, without jurisdiction and lawful authority.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 8^th, 2014.