It would deny candidates from poor financial backgrounds entry into the legal profession, Ipoh Barat MP M Kulasegaran added.

He said the attorney-general, as chairman of the Legal Profession Board, had to explain the rationale for this decision.

“It is absurd that the board has decided that students will be limited to a four-year period to complete their CLP,” he said in a statement.

On Dec 21, the board said it had amended the rules from the previous unlimited number of sitings.

“The sole purpose the CLP was established was to allow students who can’t afford to sit for their Bar in the United Kingdom to do it here,” he said.

Kulasegaran, a lawyer, said he had been calling for a Common Bar Examination for the past 10 years in parliament but to no avail.

In the UK, all law students have to go through the same examination to become a barrister.

“Yet, local universities have different entry requirements and then there is the CLP for foreign law graduates. Where is the uniformity in this,” he asked.

Kulasegaran said this disparity would not ensure quality lawyers when they entered the profession.

He said making decisions in air-conditioned rooms without knowing the real effect on students was outright childish.

“How many students come from poor families, who have to work part-time and pursue this exam, and now, suddenly, all their dreams have been dashed without reasonable notice,” he added.

Kulasegaran also questioned whether the AG was implying that just because students repeated a professional paper many times they were not qualified.

He said the board had done nothing much in the past 30 years to make the CLP examination more practical as in the UK.

“But the playing ground is tilted highly towards the local graduates compared with students who sit for the CLP,” he said.

Kulasegaran said he would raise this matter in parliament in March.