According to the results released today and sighted by FMT, this constituted about 20%. In 2020, 417 of the 1,992 candidates, or 21%, passed while last year, 399 of the 1,656 candidates, or 24%, were successful.

This year, only seven managed to obtain a second class (lower) pass while the rest had third class. None managed a second class (upper) or first class. This year’s examination was held over a period of 10 days in October.

A total of 191 candidates managed conditional passes, which means they only failed one of the five papers and will be allowed to sit for this paper next year to qualify for a full pass.

However, the Legal Profession Qualifying Board (LPQB), in a notice, reminded them that they would only be given a maximum of three attempts, failing which they would not be allowed to practise.

It also reminded those who had failed the CLP examination four times that they had exhausted their maximum attempts allowed under the LPQB regulations.

Most of those who obtained conditional passes failed in the Civil Procedure paper (69), Professional Practice (59), Criminal Procedure (26), Evidence (16) and General Paper (21).

The low percentage of passes and the cap on the number of times the law degree holders can sit for the CLP had come under attack from several groups in the past who said this had resulted in thousands of Malaysians being unable to practise after having spent a lot of money to obtain their degrees.

They had called for a review of the CLP examination to make it more practical-oriented, instead of basing it on memorised cases.

Critics said many law students wanted to see a revamp of the whole CLP examination structure, which they felt to be obsolete because of the need to commit so much to memory, especially with so much ground to cover.

Some had also alleged that there could be an unwritten quota but the examiners told a briefing session for prospective candidates in October that there was no such thing.