Legal Practice: is it a Dream or Reality?

Tasmiah Nuhiya Ahmed:

An honorable and independent profession, practicing law. Honorable, may be, but the independence of the legal business has itself become dependent on the wish and competence of few with the silent cries and desperation of many in the current legal system of Bangladesh.

The recently passed Bangladesh Bar Council examination has raised some enormous questions to the future of the mass choosing to enter the legal profession. The most obvious one being “Is it worth it anymore to dream of practicing in the legal field anymore?” An exam, which was previously held twice a year was not held for two full years putting the lives and fates of thousands of willing legal practitioner to a halt.

This is not the first time, the same was the case between 2015 and 2017 and the one before that. The Bar Council Examinations has become the identity of irregularity. No one knows, when one will take place. The endless processing of documents which requires students to travel to the capital from all over the country to submit and receive their documents. In Hon’ble Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s dream of digital Bangladesh, this is an analogue playground, where nothing gets done on time and everything requires multiple attendance.

What’s more unfortunate is the constant fight between the Universities and the Bar Council with regards to the validity of their degrees. The sufferers at the end are the students, who pay the Universities their dues and don’t know if the Bar Council will accept their certificates. The amount of uncertainty in this regard is colossal. With the added crease of equivalency for students holding foreign degrees, that uncertainty and headache reaches another level.

So, what is the future trend? Recently, the Bar Enrollment Committee was very vocal about standardizing the Bar Council Examination to the level of examination of the Bangladesh Civil Service and the Bangladesh Judicial Service examinations. Now, that would have been fine if becoming a lawyer meant getting a government job where the government is paying the salaries and providing all the other high facilities that we all know and appreciate the government to provide for its employees.

That is not the case for lawyers. Lawyers are liable to find their own place for practice, their own clients and then earn their living. These lawyers are supposed to hold up the backbone of justice in this country, instead they don’t know if they will have enough to support their own backs. Most interns in law chambers work endless hours without minimal appreciation and have insignificant pay in return. Nothing is standardized there but the examination! Then, when the Bar Council calls for an examination, the number of candidates have tripled, they are made to stand like animals on an open field for hours to retain their documents, travel from all over Bangladesh to Dhaka for an examination where the pass rate is below 18%. That surely is a standard.

Now for the candidates, do wait a couple more years when the Bar Council will probably add physical exercise to the syllabus which already has a multiple choice exam, a written and an oral exam. And if you want to practice in the Supreme Court, well then your number will come soon enough, or not.

So, what should the mass take from this? If the Bar Council is now just eliminating future competition by introducing the least number of lawyers into the system and creating a most unfriendly way to enroll lawyers, then a fantastic job is being done, because in the present scenario, it is surely not supporting anyone willing to practice in the legal arena. Whatever future holds, if this remains the condition, then the legal field is only destined for a disaster.

The Writer is an Advocate at Supreme Court of Bangladesh