The government has decided to close the path to becoming a lawyer after the age of 35, according to Law Minister Md Asaduzzaman.
Moves are also under way to end the practice of people from the administration and other jobs taking up law late in life after retirement, he said on Tuesday, stressing the need to raise the dignity and image of the profession.
“I have asked for an initiative to close the path,” he said. “A decision has already been made to close the path to becoming a lawyer after 35. We want to bring the profession to this position.”
Corruption, Accountability
Regarding lawyers’ ethics, Asaduzzaman said a good lawyer must also be free of greed for money. Many lawyers talk to a judge in chambers, he said, then tell clients the judge has been bought.
“You win the case, the money stays in your pocket. If you lose, you say the word was given but it didn’t work out. ‘All right, let me see about getting the money back.’ Then the client trails behind you and you return half of it. This kind of business must stop.”
Lawyers must be held accountable like judges, he said, urging the Bangladesh Bar Council to keep a strict eye on legal ethics.
500 Interns to Be Selected 'on Merit'
The minister was speaking at the closing of the second batch and the welcome of the third batch of the AGO-UNDP Internship Programme, run jointly by the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Bangladesh.
The AGO aims to train 500 interns over the next five years, he said. Bright students from public and private universities are being brought into the programme.
On transparency in recruitment, he said: “We will not do any pick and choose for these 500 interns. We have asked to recruit those at the top of the merit list at universities.”
Even if his own daughter were among them, he said, he would have no scope to recruit her.
Asaduzzaman identified artificial intelligence (AI) as the biggest challenge ahead for the legal profession and advised interns to prepare for it through the everyday experience of the Supreme Court.
The government is also drafting a human rights commission law and a Transfer of Property Act, and amending the cyber law. He hoped the interns could contribute to the drafts.
Calling lawyers “social engineers”, the minister said a lawyer needs to know economics, sociology, political science and anatomy as well as law.
He also urged lawyers to be good people as well as successful professionals.
Since not every client could afford legal fees, lawyers should be willing to represent poor people free of charge, he added.