Leonen to propose pass or fail Bar exam system

In a step towards "rethinking" the process of admission to the Philippine Bar, Supreme Court Associate Justice Marvic Leonen on Wednesday said he intends to propose a "simple pass-or-fail system" for the 2020 Bar examinations.

Leonen, the 2020 Bar chair, said he also wants to propose to his fellow justices in the SC the possibility of computerized tests to enable the conduct of exams in different areas.

He also said he will propose that the Court upload all Bar exam questions and suggested answers from the past 40 years to the SC website.

"These reforms have their own justification. I do not think this is the time that I will give my reasons. Suffice it to say that in any forum, I would be most willing to explain these justifications," Leonen said in a speech at the first Legal Education Summit held at the Manila Hotel.

The current Bar exam system requires examinees to write their answers by hand to questions covering eight subjects: political and international law, labor law and social legislation, civil law, taxation law, mercantile law, criminal law, remedial law, and legal and judicial ethics.

The exams are held across the four Sundays of November at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, and the release of the results months later is a highly-anticipated affair that usually leads off with the announcement of the top 10 highest scorers.

Scoring 89.3060%, an Ateneo de Manila University graduate topped the 2018 Bar exam. A total of 1,800 examinees, or 22.07% of the 8,155 aspiring lawyers who took the exams, passed the grueling tests.

"Any intelligent, coherent justice will want the Bar to simply be a qualifying exam. It is not an exam to find out the most brilliant of lawyers. It is only an exam to add into our ranks those lawyers that deserve to practice," Leonen said.

Of the 2020 Bar exam, the justice said: "It will be very reasonable."

Associate Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe is the 2019 Bar chair. —KG, GMA News