The University has defended its decision to toughen entry requirements for the law course for 2015 admissions.
It has also insisted that legal studies – a new subject being offered at sixth form – should not be accessible to aspiring lawyers who would cover the same material in their first year of University.
Students joining the University of Malta in 2015 must have English and Maltese at Advanced level, Italian or French at Intermediate level and two other subjects from the humanities and science groups.
Legal studies have been placed in a fourth group of subjects, precluding law student hopefuls from choosing it.
Student organisations Pulse and Għsl, have criticised the decision, arguing that legal studies could provide the necessary preparation for aspiring law students.
Legal studies would, thus, be chosen at the expense of other humanities core subjects
“Legal studies are being introduced for the benefit and enrichment of students who will not have the opportunity, during their future studies, to gain a basic understanding of the Maltese legal system,” a spokeswoman for the University explained.
“Such knowledge will be most useful to those taking up any of the traditional professions or going for other fields of work in the future,” she added.
The Senate took the decision because it feared “most potential law students would probably take it up”.
“Legal studies would, thus, be chosen at the expense of other humanities core subjects, such as philosophy, economics, history, psychology and sociology, which are of fundamental importance for the general basic education of students entering the law degree course at the University,” the spokeswoman added.
Pulse and Għsl insisted that they spoke to the Dean of the Faculty of Law, Kevin Aquilina, who, they said, confirmed that the faculty board was perturbed by the decision to keep law students from the subject.
The board’s minutes, they added, clearly showed that legal studies were intended to give prospective law students a basic grounding in the subject and would not duplicate the same material of the law course.
When asked about the University’s decision to base law requirements so much on languages when industry has such diverse demands of lawyers, the University insisted it “makes a lot of sense”.
“This is because the main tool used by students and, subsequently, in the legal profession, is languages,” the spokeswoman said.
“Maltese is the language of the courts, English is the language of the common law system and Italian and French are the languages used in the civil law system,” she added. Sixth form students could still choose a subject from the humanities group and one from the science group, meaning other subjects would not be excluded.
However, the University did concede it was unfair for students who chose German or Spanish at secondary school (instead of Italian or French) to be indirectly excluded from entering the law course.
“The Faculty of Laws is looking into the matter. Although students have been given more than two years advance notice for this change, as per standard procedure, the faculty board will be meeting in September to propose to the Senate that, in 2015, students will need to offer a third language at Intermediate level to be eligible to apply for the LL.B. Honours course and that the measure regarding Italian and French only will apply at a later date, probably in October 2017,” the spokeswoman said.