The Lawyers’ Law, amended

By amending the Lawyers’ Law, recently passed by the legislative process and already promulgated by the President, parlament members, mayors, deputy mayors and chairmen of county councils who are interns and who have worked at least one term on the same position, can be made upon request lawyers.

Until the advent of this amendment, according to the Lawyers’ Law, in order to become a lawyer, a person had to pass two exams: the first consisted in the entry into the profession, after which it became an intern lawyer, and the second exam was the one of completion.

The amendment that changed the legal profession was proposed by two PDL members: Daniel Buda and Gabriel Andronache, both graduates of law schools.

it should be noted that the amendment has been accepted, although shortly before a similar amendment proposed by Eugen Nicolicea from UNPR had been rejected and critized by everyone as one that would bring priviledges for the Parliament Members.

Now, the amendment is part of a law, and this matter does not seem to be accepted by old lawyers, who have passed the examinations required before - says the dean of the Bucharest Bar Association, attorney Ion Ilie Iordanescu.

"This law is permissive in the sense that it allows these groups, which I previously mentioned, to not take the completion exam, therefore they acquire the lawyer position without passing through such a completion exam. "

From this point of view, I think that the certain law leads to the crowding of the Bucharest Bar Association with lawyers who become final without taking such an exam", stated the dean. According to Ilie Iordanescu, before the amendment of the law, the lawyer converted into the legal profession regained the status of intern lawyer and for two years he had to undergo a professional internship.

After this two year professional internship, the intern lawyer should take the completion exam.

The Bucharest Bar Association argues that the two years period was necessary in order to improve the quality of the professional training of the intern lawyers.

In his view, this period will have no consequences in terms of legal assistance.

Translated by Iulia Florescu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University