I think Franco Debono needs to be reminded that the University of Malta is an autonomous institution and this means that politicians should stay out of the matter of how it is run

Yes, members of parliament can voice their concern about certain aspects of its running and call for greater scrutiny or improvements, but certainly, they cannot dictate and they are wrong to believe, as Debono appears to believe, that they have some special right to be obeyed on the matter of what university entry requirements should and shouldn’t be.

Debono has said that entry requirements for the law course should be made more stringent so as to “protect the prestige of the law course”. This is ridiculous and wrong-headed on so many counts, and I must sit here and gather my thoughts comprehensively before saying exactly why. Let’s leave aside the matter of why university entrance requirements should never be a politician’s business – though a look back at past meddling and control should serve as a graphic illustration of why this is a very bad idea – and concentrate instead on why Franco Debono’s reasoning is faulty and illogical.

The problem with the law course, and this has been my beef for years, is not the entry requirements but the non-existent weeding-out process which allows people to graduate who should never even have made it beyond the first-year examinations. I notice that Debono has nothing to say about the total absence of an ongoing weeding-out process, is this because of unconfirmed rumours that he failed more than a few examinations himself, and that after making it through the six years his final thesis was nearly marked down for failure too and only made it through because of the (misplaced) sympathy of one or two examiners who suggested to him how it might be rescued?

Franco Debono’s reasoning is thoroughly faulty because gate-keeping is just a way of ensuring that the process of sieving out the weaker students, on an ongoing basis throughout the six years, does not become more cumbersome than necessary. In other words, you weed out the more obviously weak ones before allowing them to get in, but then you must carry on weeding out weak ones throughout the six years. This is what should happen. But this is precisely what is not happening. Once people are allowed into the law course, they are pretty much reassured of graduating and even of a warrant to practise at the end of it all. That’s why we end up with lawyers for whom logical thought is an alien concept, and who are barely literate. I saw a lawyer’s letter the other day which contained at least 10 errors of grammar and spelling in two brief paragraphs, and no, I am not talking about future deputy prime minister Anġlu Farrugia. But if you were to read anything the latter has written, or hear him speak, you will be forgiven for wondering about the weeding-out process in the law course. That’s right, it doesn’t exist. Anġlu Farrugia isn’t a lawyer because he got into the law course as a mature student or because of entry requirements which are not sufficiently stringent. He is a lawyer because – on the basis of what I have seen of his writing, his reasoning and his speaking – people who can’t write, reason or speak can get through six years of law, graduate and get a warrant to practise.

The country is full of rubbish lawyers. The quality of lawyers has fallen drastically year-on-year over the last couple of decades. Older generations of lawyers tended to be all-round educated (that means not just law technicians), well-spoken, with sound thinking skills and able to use language with a certain degree of precision. Now look at what we’re dealing with today: lawyers who can’t think, talk, spell or reason, with whom it is impossible to have a conversation because their general knowledge is so poor. Some of them are unfamiliar even with the law itself. Having learned most things by rote as they clawed their way through their six years of study, they cannot understand the basic concepts of the spirit of the law beyond the letter of the law. This level of ignorance is actually dangerous, leading to anomalies and failures of comprehension.

When the White Paper on the revision of our rent laws was published some years ago, it was riddled with flaws that were the direct result of illogical thinking and poor linguistic skills. Grandchildren, for example, were referred to throughout as ‘nephews’ in the English-language version. You will not need to have it explained to you why this is a high-risk anomaly when we are talking about a law which regulates the right of inheritance to a title of lease.

You would imagine that people who have read law for six years and practised law for many more years after that would have somehow acquired along the way the basic knowledge that ‘neputijiet’ might mean both grandchildren and nephews/nieces in Maltese, but English distinguishes between the relationships and even between the genders.

Future Minister of Justice Jose Herrera said during the same discussion that the law course has become a dumping-ground for poor students because of the entry requirements. Like his friend Franco Debono, he is wrong. It is the absence of a weeding-out system throughout the six years that has made the law course a dumping-ground for people of weak intellectual ability – some of whom, he should have been quick to add but did not, come from Labour’s propaganda machine, Super One. Entry requirements actually prove very little. The fact that I can get into the law course, should I ever wish to do so, as a mature student without an A-level in Maltese does not mean I am going to bring down the level or prestige of that course or that I am going to struggle to make it through the six years and end up as a lousy lawyer who can’t reason, argue a case or write a letter. Equally, the fact that somebody has an A-level in Maltese does not mean that he can think logically, has a reasonably good IQ, sort through and analyse information, or write well and succinctly.

The other professions which require a warrant to practise – architecture, engineering, medicine, even accountancy – have an extremely tough ongoing weeding-out process. Poor students are asked to leave and there are certainly no multiple opportunities for self-rescue. This is because there are obvious high risks to life and limb in having an architect, engineer or doctor who doesn’t really know what he’s doing, and other risks – though not directly to life and limb – in having an accountant who messes up. Bad lawyers, too, can prejudice their client’s situation pretty badly, but it appears that nobody is overly concerned with that any longer. A bad doctor or civil engineer can kill you, so the medicine and A & CE courses have in-built safeguards against foisting this kind of person on the unsuspecting public. A bad lawyer can do a great deal of damage, too, and it’s about time the university authorities – not our politicians, none of whose business it is – woke up to this fact and did something about it.

Kicking somebody out of the law course after five years of study is by far the better and more responsible decision than foisting on society yet another lousy lawyer who can do so much damage. It is thoroughly inappropriate to feel sorry for the student because he has ‘wasted five years’ and to ease things up to allow him to graduate, even with a thesis riddled with errors of grammar, spelling, reasoning and fact. It wouldn’t happen in medicine or architecture, so it shouldn’t be allowed to happen in law. It’s not the entry requirements that are the problem here, dear sirs, but the ongoing process of assessment. I might add here that perhaps Franco Debono himself is a spectacular example of this.

The problem is not how they’re getting in, but how they’re getting out at the other end.