SC seeks improvement of RP's law schools
Alarmed by the dismal passing rate in the bar examinations, the Supreme Court is seeking reforms in the country's law schools.
Chief Justice Reynato Puno said the high court is planning to form a special task force to study the possible reforms that need to be implemented by more than 100 law schools in the country to raise their standards and improve their passing rate in the bar exams.
"We need reforms in a lot of our law schools and you can see this in the percentage of passing of their candidates," Puno told The News Today in an exclusive interview here Sunday night after he spoke at the commencement exercises of the Central Philippine University. The school also conferred to Puno an honorary doctoral degree.
Puno said the plan was brought up during the court's en banc meeting before the result of the bar exams was released last Saturday.
"We're more troubled by the picture that we get from the various law schools. And that picture tells us of the continuing failure of a lot of these law schools to perform creditably well in the bar examination," he said.
The high tribunal this year lowered the passing rate to 70 percent from 75 percent, and the disqualification rate in three subjects (civil, labor and criminal law0 from 50 percent to 45 percent. This made possible for 1,289 of the total 5,626 takers ( 22.91 percent) to hurdle the examination.
"If we do not lower the passing rate, only about 5 percent of the examinees would have passed the bar. I think that would have broken the all-time low record (of) just over 10 percent," said Puno.
The bar examination, administered by the Supreme Court, was first held in the country in 1901, with 13 examinees. Last year's bar exams is the 106th year held in the country for aspiring lawyers.
Associate Justice Adolf Azcuna, who chaired the 2007 bar examinations committee, last week said that the passing rate was adjusted because of the "unusually strict" correction process.
Puno who was among four Supreme Court members who did not take part in the discussions on the bar exams because they had relatives among the examinees, said it is not a usual practice for the high court to lower the passing rate.
"We (only) do that when the passing rate is unreasonably low," he said.
The high court is yet to finalize the details of the formation of the task force and the study that it will conduct. But Puno said the task force will take "a hard look again" at the reforms which are needed by the law schools.
"Offhand, we want to look at the relevance of the curriculum that presently is being followed in these different law schools. We want to look at the quality of the professors teaching at our law schools and all these will be revisited by this special task force," he said.
Puno said they also lowered the passing rate because of the lack of practicing lawyers in the country.
"This lack of practicing lawyers is one of the causes why we have a backlog of cases especially in the trial courts. We have enough lawyers but very few are practicing the profession," he said.
The Chief Justice said most of the lawyers are in private corporations and in government and only a few percentage are practicing law.
"Our litigation lawyers are a vanishing breed," said Puno.