A new subject, Legal Studies, intended 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, has been introduced into Group 4 of the Matriculation Certificate at Intermediate Level.
Such knowledge will be most useful to those following any of the traditional professions or other fields of work in the future. The University Senate felt that the humanities core subjects in Group 2 of the Matriculation Certificate Examination, such as Philosophy, Economics, History, Psychology and Sociology, are of fundamental importance for the general basic education of students entering the Law degree course at University.
It should be noted that the work covered in Legal Studies at Intermediate Level will be dealt with in much greater depth in the first year of the Law degree.
As from October 2015 there will be an emphasis on languages as entry requirement to the University of Malta’s Bachelor of Laws (Honours) course.
The change in entry requirements reflects the fact that the main tool used by students and subsequently in the legal profession is precisely languages. 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.
In this way, once at University, students can study properly the Common Law and the Civil Law systems, from which Maltese law derives, in the languages used by these legal systems, in addition to Maltese as the language of the courts.
The requirements for entry into the LL.B. (Hons) degree course as from October 2015 stipulate:
(a) two passes at Grade C or better at Advanced Matriculation Level or equivalent in English and Maltese; and
(b) a pass at Grade C or better at Intermediate Matriculation Level in either French or Italian; and
(c) passes at Grade C or better at Intermediate Matriculation Level in one subject chosen from Group 2 and one subject chosen from Group 3 of the Matriculation Certificate Examination, apart from the General Entry Requirements for admission.
Although students have been given more than two years advance notice for this change as per standard procedure, the Laws Faculty Board is looking into the possibility that the measure concerning Italian and French only at Intermediate Level will apply at a later date, probably in October 2017.