IT is sad that police roadblocks caused massive traffic jams which in turn caused inordinate delays leading to late or non-arrival of candidates at the Certificate of Legal Practice (CLP) examination centre for the Civil Procedure paper on July 14.

It is little consolation for students to hear CLP director Muniandy Kannyappan say that “a candidate who passed the four other papers would be given a conditional pass, i.e. a pass on condition he passes the Civil Procedure paper because he was caught in a traffic jam due to the roadblocks”.

We must bear in mind the enormous psychological stress that a candidate underwent when he or she made a mad rush to get to the centre on time that day.

For instance, it was reported that “a female student who was caught in the jam jumped out of her friend’s car, stopped a motorcyclist and begged him to take her to the examination centre where she proceeded to take the exam at 9.25am”.

Given such harrowing ordeals, how does the CLP director expect the candidates to have performed at their best?

It could have come to pass that the candidates who missed the paper (Civil Procedure) might have passed it but for the roadblocks.

Therefore, in all fairness, a candidate who missed or arrived late for Civil Procedure but passes three out of the other four papers should be allowed a conditional pass, i.e. a pass on condition he/she passes Civil Procedure and the other referred paper, given the extraordinary circumstances due to the police roadblocks.

DR A. SOORIAN, Seremban

Source: NST – July 24, 2008