The Development and Expansion of University-based
Community/Clinical Legal Education Programs in Malaysia:
Means, Methods, Strategies
Bruce Lasky* and Norbani Mohamed Nazeri**B

eginning in 2003, the not-for-profit international human rights
organization Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia Community
Legal Education Initiative (babsea cle) began focusing on assistingin the development and expansion of university-based community/clinicallegal education programs1 in Southeast Asia. Since that time, and as a result of this focus, university-based cle programs have been developed or
expanded in Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Indonesia and Laos,with a continuously growing network of universities, both nationally andregionally. One of the flagship achievements of these activities has been the
successful establishment of an accredited cle program in Malaysia at the
University of Malaya.
This article identifies strategic next steps in the development of thiscle movement within Malaysia, as well as its connection to institutions regionally throughout Southeast Asia and how the cle movement intends tobroaden its reach both within Malaysia and internationally.
Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia Community Legal Education Initiative
Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia Clinical Legal Education Initiative(babsea cle) is an international access to justice, legal education organization, that focuses on ethically oriented legal capacity development andcommunity empowerment. Since 2003, babsea cle has been working collaboratively with universities, law students, law faculty, lawyers, membersof the legal community, and justice related organizational partners to develop cle and legal clinic programs throughout Southeast Asia. These programs and clinics assist communities, provide legal aid services and simul-*Founder and Director of the Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia Community Legal
Education Initiative (babsea cle).
**Associate Professor of the Faculty of Law, University of Malaya.

145

146

H u m a n R i g h t s E d u c at i o n i n A s i a - Pa c i f i ctaneously help build the next generation of social justice, pro-bono mindedchampions.
Clinical Legal Education DefinedClinical legal education is a progressive educational system most often
implemented through university-based faculty of law programs to help develop better-trained, more socially conscious ethical lawyers. Yet, while thistype of educational program is often implemented by law faculties, it is not
limited solely to such institutions and can readily be practiced by a wide assortment of other faculties and in interdisciplinary programs.2
Clinical legal education is a process whereby students learn by doing.
It is an experiential problem solving based model, in which students actively involve themselves in either real client/personal interaction or simulation lessons set up to mirror real client/personal scenarios. The process
is conducted under the supervision of experienced law clinicians and legal
practitioners. As a teaching device, this type of experiential problem-basedlearning is considered a highly effective means of adult learning where, unlike in rote memorization situations, students can learn and retain a vast
amount of what is taught. The use of this interactive method of teachingfocuses these students on becoming more able, thorough and ethical advocates, solicitors, governmental and private employers/employees, as well as
global citizens.
The Goal of Clinical Legal Education
What are the goals of Clinical Legal Education? Clinical Legal Education
seeks to achieve multifaceted goals. Although this list is not exhaustive,
some of these goals include:a) Providing a progressive method of education that focuses on students learning and improving skills that they will utilize as attorneys and inother professional positions. These skills include those abilities needed toeffectively represent clients through the use of ethical value-based actions.
b) Applying experiential learning methods with students to give themthe opportunity to learn more effectively and apply what they learn to actual realistic situations in a way that traditional teaching, through a lecturebased system, can never do.

University-based Community/Clinical Legal Education Programs in Malaysia

147c) To provide “back up” legal services and other services for indigent
and marginalized community members who may not have an alternative
access to the legal and other support systems.
d) Developing within students the idea of public interest service, with asimultaneous goal of formulating and increasing an ethically aware, proactive community.
e) Providing ways and means for clinical professors to make important
contributions to the development of scholarship on skills and theories oflegal practice that can provide closer links between the legal bar and theacademy.
f ) Strengthening civil society through supporting lawyers’ responsibility and providing legal services to the vulnerable who find it hard to accesslegal services.
Clinical Legal Education is a fervent mechanism which can be used toreach these aspirations as it both helps to instill a public interest centeredcharacter within students and then pragmatically builds on this character toprofessionally train the students, via experiential teaching methods, how toreach such objectives.
Clinical Legal Education exposes students to the actions and innerworkings of communities and in doing so, gives these students insight into
issues affecting marginalized groups of persons.
Through this exposure, students begin to understand and learn thatthey have the ability to make a positive societal difference through theirskills as advocates and educators.
The Development of Clinical Legal Education in Southeast Asia
and BABSEA CLE’s Role
Clinical legal education is somewhat new to Southeast Asia. The basic model of clinical legal education, simply defined as students and university faculties somehow involved in the provision of basic legal consultation services,
has existed in some Southeast Asian countries for more than two decades.
More than twenty-five years ago, Thammasat University in Bangkok established a clinic that focused on providing a broad variety of legal services tothe public. Other Thai universities, such as Chiang Mai University (cmu),
followed Thammasat University’s lead and model and created programs
centered on providing free legal advice and consultation to members of the148

H u m a n R i g h t s E d u c at i o n i n A s i a - Pa c i f i ccommunity. Established in 1994 and staffed by students and professors on
a volunteer basis, the cmu program not only provides free legal counsellingto the community, but also serves the additional function of instilling theidea of duty and public service into the minds of the participating law students. Similar types of non-credited, voluntary legal aid or legal service clinics have been established at a variety of universities in Indonesia, including
the University of Indonesia in Jakarta, where students and professors workwith actual clients. A number of other programs allow for students to work
alongside lawyers at legal aid societies as a type of internship experience.
In Malaysia, limited clinical programs began more than twenty years ago
at Universiti Teknologi mara, where final-year students learned lawyeringskills through a simulated program requiring them to work in a mock legal
firm or clinic.
While the Philippines has had clinics for more than two decades, initially supported by the Ford Foundation, most other clinic type programs existing in the region were more service-related clinics, with little to no jurisprudential pedagogy being used, and without a specific focus of working with
marginalized and vulnerable communities. During this period, while there
was some international support for more modernization of legal education
in Southeast Asia, this aid was centered around the more traditional legal
education models and not Clinical Legal Education. This began to change
during the early part of this decade with the development of a Clinical Legal
Education program in Cambodia with the help of the Open Society JusticeInitiative and Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia Community Legal
Education Initiative, as well as in Indonesia, and more recently in Vietnam,
where the United Nations Development Program is now fully engaged in
advocating the support of cle initiatives.3
Despite the existence of all these programs, there was no consistentclinical legal education model that provided both a social justice mission
and simultaneously integrated the program into an accredited legal education course-with the exception of the Philippines. Strongly influenced bydevelopments in the United States, the clinical movement in the Philippines
was much more expansive than those of its neighboring countries, taking
root first at the University of the Philippines and then spreading outwards
to universities such as the Ateneo de Manila University. The structured programs in the Philippines, unlike those at law faculties elsewhere in the subregion, were not only incorporated into the university curriculum, but also

University-based Community/Clinical Legal Education Programs in Malaysia

149

charged with the mission of providing much-needed legal services to socially vulnerable, marginalized, and economically deprived members of thecommunity. These clinical programs and the schools which incorporated
them are currently involved in an almost-religious mission to spread clinicallegal education throughout the country, with some schools making clinics a
mandatory course and others setting them up as an elective subject.
More recently, the model adopted in the Philippines—once an anomaly
in Southeast Asia—has been recognized increasingly as an effective meansof creating a more social-justice-minded legal profession and a more progressive legal education pedagogy. For example, Pannasastra University of
Cambodia (puc) established a fully accredited, social-justice-oriented, clinical program in 2003 with support from the Open Society Justice Initiative(osji), which had a long history of assisting in the development of clinicallegal education in Eastern Europe and Africa, and with the support of babsea cle.
Puc’s clinical program began as a two-section clinic, with one section involved in Community Legal Education activities-often referred to as
Street Law-and the other section working as a live-client legal services clinic
where students worked with a local non-governmental organization (ngo)to provide legal aid services to indigent persons accused of crimes. The
strategy was to establish this type of program and then use it as a demonstrative model to promote clinical legal education within Cambodia and inneighboring countries.
By late 2005, a significant number of outreach activities had occurred in
nearby countries, including Thailand, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Viet Nam,and Singapore. Potential additional partners and supporters had been identified, and other organizations began to show interest in the development ofclinical legal education in select Southeast Asian countries.
All of these activities resulted in the First Southeast Asia Clinical Legal
Education Conference held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in November 2005.
The conference, using the puc Legal Clinic as a type of model, provided aforum to discuss opportunities and challenges for creating clinical programs
at Southeast Asian universities, as well as the role of clinical legal educationin promoting access to justice and a culture of pro bono service. Aimed at
fostering an environment in which participants could exchange ideas forpromoting clinical programs, the conference was attended by more thaneighty representatives from universities, the legal community, and Southeast

150

H u m a n R i g h t s E d u c at i o n i n A s i a - Pa c i f i c

Asian civil society—as well as regional and international experts on clinicaleducation and access to justice. Many who attended came from countries
in Southeast Asia interested in establishing clinical programs, while others were already engaged in clinical legal education and were interested in
expanding their programs to include both a social justice theme and an accredited course program.
A companion workshop to the Phnom Penh conference—the FirstSoutheast Asia Clinical Legal Education Training of Trainers Workshop—
was held at the Ateneo de Manila University in Manila in early 2007.
Similar to the first conference in Phnom Penh, the Manila workshop acted
as a means of training nascent clinicians, focusing on the development ofclinical programs, clinical teaching methods, and administrative skills. The
workshop also served as an opportunity to expose the participants to, anddevelop linkages with, more established clinical programs, further cultivating network contacts among clinicians in the region initiated at the Phnom
Penh conference.
Both the Phnom Penh and Manila events seem to have achieved manyof their desired objectives, having played a part in the establishment of anumber of additional accredited social-justice oriented clinical course programs. For example: the University of Malaya launched the first accredited
clinical program in Malaysia in 2008; in 2009, cmu, after operating a completely volunteer supported, in-house consultation clinic for fifteen years,
approved and implemented a two-section, fully accredited clinical program
consisting of both an in-house consultation clinic and a parallel Community
Legal Education section; and in 2009 the National University of Laos Facultyof Law and Political Science began working on having its Community Legal
Education program approved to be included as one of the selective options
for its mandatory student field studies requirement. The bona fide potential
for a significant number of other such programs in Southeast Asia continues.
Relying on lessons learned and models of successful clinic programs
and networks, babsea cle is currently active in Thailand, Cambodia, Viet
Nam, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore and has established working partnerships with a number of university, governmental
and non-governmental as well as community-based organizations throughout Southeast Asia.
Babsea cle is actively working to encourage cooperation between
these programs as well as among the larger legal community in Southeast

University-based Community/Clinical Legal Education Programs in Malaysia

151

Asia. Operating in so many Southeast Asian countries at the same time is achallenge babsea cle faces with its cle initiative. However, while acknowledging the existence of this challenge, babsea cle also sees it as a very logical and strategic step in simultaneously working with a variety of partners
for a number of reasons.
Firstly, babsea cle’s objective is to work with each of these partners todevelop pilot cle programs in each country and use these core cle programs
to then broaden the reach of cle throughout Southeast Asia. As many ofthese partner universities are located in different, yet neighboring countries,
this greatly assists in the outreach efforts. Each neighboring country has adifferent type of legal and educational system. Yet with all their differences,each country is ready and able to begin and support cle programs.
Secondly, each of the cle programs is somewhat similar in nature andthe partners learn from each other, from the beginning, as their cle programs are being developed. Most of the university partners eventually intend that their programs use a similar two-section clinic model, one focusedon in-house legal consultation and referral services and the other section
focused on providing community legal education. Due to this similarity inprograms, there are many lessons that can be learned from each of the universities that will likely be strongly pertinent. In working closely with eachpartner, babsea cle is able to apply and share working models and systems,
lessons, curriculum, etc., from each of the programs while helping to avoid
and not re-apply challenges and obstacles that have arisen in one or moreother programs.
As mentioned in brief above, one way in which babsea cle works
to achieve the outcomes of social justice through practical education isby ardently promoting and assisting in the implementation of universitybased community legal education clinic programs. Originally began at
Georgetown University in Washington D.C. in 1972, cle programs havebeen implemented throughout the years by universities around the world.
They are also referred to by many schools as “Street Law”4 or “Practical Law”
programs. These university courses teach students about law, human rights
and civics and then teach them how to teach legal rights in the community,
in a student-centered, participatory manner. The university students take
both their substantive legal knowledge, as well as their acquired pedagogicalskills, and transfer this knowledge and these skills to marginalized communities. Through this process, the students learn by doing, as they simultane-

152

H u m a n R i g h t s E d u c at i o n i n A s i a - Pa c i f i cously teach and learn from the recipients of their lessons. This carries withit a strong reflective learning approach. We often find that the law students
learn much more from their community students, simply by being exposed
to individual and community problems and issues that are new to them.
The cle programs utilize a wide variety of student-centered activities intheir teaching methods. In part, these methods include role plays, simulations, mock trials, games, debates, small group discussions, opinion polls,
field trips and street theater.5
Cle programs focus on working with people in a practical way, to understand how they can access both the formal and non-formal justice systems, as well as effective, empowering methods to advocate for social justice and change. The cle programs not only raise awareness of the law andrights of persons in a theoretical manner; the community teachings provide
practical information on how to assert these rights and protections, as well
as some of the effective mechanisms for doing so. Moreover, the programs
encourage persons at grass-roots levels to reflect on their current and future
legal, social and economic environments, and provide empowering ways toimprove these arenas. All of this is accomplished with an aim of doing so ina practical and simple manner.
The communities which the students go to are exceedingly varied andwide ranged. They have included, in part, prisons, juvenile detention centers, community centers, domestic violence shelters, life skills teaching organizations and lower socio-economic secondary schools. The communities are located in both urban and rural areas of countries. In many of thecountries we work in, the students often go to areas where there is little tono understanding of the law or of people’s rights.
At the same time, the students frequently involve themselves in nonlaw-related projects to immerse themselves in the communities and gain abetter understanding of the hardships of others.
In university based cle programs, the targeted communities vary, ranging from those of urban areas, rural areas, government staffs, community
organizations, youth organizations, community leaders, correctional houses, religious organizations to secondary school students.6 Other programs
focus a significant portion of their teachings on prison and juvenile justicesettings,7 ethnic minority communities,8 single mother shelters9 and drug
rehabilitation centers.10

University-based Community/Clinical Legal Education Programs in Malaysia

153

The determination of the targeted communities very much depends
on demand from, and cooperation with, the communities themselves. For
instance, beginning in December 2007 the cle program at International
Islamic University Indonesia, through a program called Legal Service
Outreach: Community Empowerment to Achieve Equality of Rights andImprove Access to Justice, has focused the cle Program in areas most devastated by the catastrophic earthquake of 2006.11
As can be expected, many challenges exist when introducing new, andoften unheard of, methods of education in trying to get across cle/social
justice ideology. While faced with these challenges, babsea cle acknowledges the incredible advancement and success in the expansion of cle inSoutheast Asia.
Some of these cooperative cle successes have included:• Jointly attended community legal education teachings by both professors and students alike from throughout Southeast Asia.
• Organizing more than two dozen thematic cle regional workshops
and conferences since 2005.
• Regional strategic program planning development sessions.
• Continuously working with experienced clinicians and senior students from partnered programs to assist other, more nascent cle programs
to develop.
• Quarterly student and professor cle exchanges throughout the
sub-region.
• Joint research and academic paper development by regional partners.
• Sharing of curriculum, lesson plans, cle manuals and other resources,
between cle partners, both nationally and sub-regionally.
• Continued enrollment and participation in the babsea cle Annual
International Legal Studies Internship Program, which has been attended by
students, professors, and other legal educators from countries throughout
the sub-region and around the world.
Types of Support BABSEA CLE Provides to CLE Partners
While babsea cle does provide a limited amount of financial support forsome of its cle partners, the mainstay of support is in the area of technicalsupport centered on creating local sustainable programs. This has included:

154

H u m a n R i g h t s E d u c at i o n i n A s i a - Pa c i f i c• Assisting cle partners in the development of activity planning, budgeting, proposal writing and other necessary program tasks.
• Assisting cle partners with the development of administration procedures and policies and process for clinics.
• Assisting cle partners with development of legal clinical curriculum,
teaching modules and teaching syllabuses (including integration of professional ethics).
• Assisting cle partners to develop a cadre of trainers, through trainingof trainers programs, to increase capacity in clinical education methodology
and pedagogy.
• Facilitating visiting foreign clinic experts to share/exchange experiences with cle partner programs.
• Co-organizing, with local cle partner hosts, and delivering nationaland sub-regional workshops for cle partners.
• Organizing study visits and exchanges for professors and students toother regional and international university legal clinics.
• Supporting the establishment of national, regional and international
networks between clinics.
• Supporting the establishment of peer-to-peer mentor relationships
between existing cle partners and nascent cle programs.
• Providing general organizational capacity development and training
support to cle partners.
• Supporting the development of linkages between university clinics and legal stakeholders (lawyers, prosecutors, provincial justice departments) and other organizations which may be providing legal assistance.
• Working with cle partners to help increase the knowledge of communities of their legal rights and obligations and how to access justice throughongoing community programs delivered by law clinics, including the use ofneeds assessments, base line studies and post-training evaluation.
• Providing trainings to improve teaching skills and participatory methodologies being implemented by law clinic professors.
• Assisting cle partners in developing and delivering community advocacy programs.
• Assisting cle partners to develop fundraising strategies and grant
proposals for funding.
• Assisting in supporting dialogues between cle partners and government/state officials on policy and law reform issues relevant to the operationof law clinics.

University-based Community/Clinical Legal Education Programs in Malaysia

155

Main Commitment Requirements for BABSEA CLE Partner Institutions
In helping universities to establish similar programs, babsea cle has employed an ideology that the collaborative partnerships must be a two-way
process. This has meant placing the following requirements on all of its
partners:• Programs must significantly focus on marginalized and vulnerable
communities and individuals and must offer free support.
• Professors, students, lawyers and others involved in the programs
should be strongly encouraged to become involved in a voluntary capacity.
• Partners must be open and willing to working collectively with otherpartners and be fully open to share knowledge, ideas and assist other cle
programs to germinate and develop.
• Partners must offer in-kind support in some form, usually in the form
of offices or premises that are used for cle as well as human resource supervision and administrative materials.
• Partners must have a concrete plan to infuse the cle program into thecore curriculum either as an elective or mandatory subject.
Malaysia and the Expansion of CLE
Babsea cle began cle exploratory visits to Malaysia beginning in 2005.
Various contacts with Malaysian universities, the Bar Council, ministry officials, ngo personnel and other key policy decision makers and implementers were achieved. These initial activities resulted in a number of successes
early on, with a fervent and current contemporary expansion. Firstly, in 2006
babsea cle helped to organize and facilitate the following three events:
1) The First Malaysian cle Training of Trainers Workshop held at the
Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM)
2) The First Malaysian Bar Council cle Supervisor Training Workshop
3) The First Malaysian cle Conference held at International Islamic
University.
Following these key instrumental events, in 2006 the Universiti
Teknologi Mara12 appointed babsea cle Director Bruce A. Lasky to the position of Adjunct Professor to assist in the development of a non-simulated
cle program. This resulted in the formal registration of the currently operating Student Community Law Club (sclc). The setting up of such a club in

156

H u m a n R i g h t s E d u c at i o n i n A s i a - Pa c i f i c

the University helps to realize one of the missions of the university in regard
to community service programs. The members of sclc, comprised of students from the Faculty of Law, ranges from the first through fifth semester
students. These students join the sclc on a voluntary basis as one of theirstudents’ activities of the Faculty. The objectives of sclc are to provide legal
knowledge and awareness to the communities. In adopting these methodologies the sclc works with communities who often have a minimal knowledge of the law. These sessions therefore greatly benefit them.
In 2007, with the assistance of babsea cle, members of both UiTM andthe University of Malaya were taken on a study visit of cle programs in thePhilippines. As a result of this visit, and with positive partnership with babsea cle, the University of Malaya began to develop what has now become aleading cle program in Malaysia.
Introducing CLE to Malaysian Universities: with particularreference to the University of Malaya
Malaysian law schools strive to have a satisfactory number and selectionof courses to cover the essential areas of the law. A common temptation oflaw schools is the constant search to ensure a sufficient variety of subjects
to prepare their students for various vocations. While core subjects are important, one important principle that law schools have come to realize isthe necessity of a broad view of legal education in its goal to produce goodlaw graduates. Thus the focus of law schools for an undergraduate program,in addition to substantive law subjects, must be the development of intellectual abilities in understanding, critical thinking, reasoning, analysis andapplication,13 and also to inculcate values and social awareness. This is inline with the spirit of the World Declaration of Higher Education14 to educate responsible citizens who can contribute to society. Law students must
be inculcated with values and must be made aware of their roles to ensurejustice in society as preparation for their future careers, whether as a member of the judiciary, practicing member of the Bar, or as an officer to thegovernment.15 To inculcate such values, it is a challenge to all law schools,
particularly traditional law schools such as the Faculty of Law, University of
Malaya, to realize that the focus of law schools now is not only to transmit
knowledge, but to improve course materials and methodology to encourage
students to evaluate an issue, test a hypothesis and to find solutions.16

University-based Community/Clinical Legal Education Programs in Malaysia

157

The Faculty of Law, University of Malaya is a professional law school
producing graduates with academic and professional qualifications (LL.B
Hons).17 Unlike in England, Malaysia has a fused profession.18 Establishedin 1972, the Faculty of Law, University of Malaya then was the pioneer law
school in Malaysia. With the aim of producing local lawyers and legal officers, the curriculum emphasized mainly substantive law subjects19 (in bothprivate and public law) as well as procedural law20 with greater emphasison the law in Malaysia, such as the Malaysian Legal System and Islamic
Law. Much of the curriculum followed the curriculum taught in English law
schools, as Malaysia adopts the common law system.21 The structure has
been generally maintained and is periodically reviewed to meet the challenging demands of the Malaysian legal profession and industrial needs.
Since its establishment in 1972, clinical education has always been in
the faculty’s future plans. It was agreed when the faculty was first establishedthat while teaching the letter of the law is an important function of the law
school, it is not the only function.22 What is needed beyond the teaching of
the law is a system of legal training devised to assist law students to acquire
certain skills of thought, social as well as scientific thinking. Law students
need to clarify their moral values, social goals, and to orient themselves toward the future. A law student needs to acquire the scientific knowledge andskills necessary to implement objectives within the context of contemporary
trends. It is believed that with a good system in place, the law student will
not only become a lawyer for the future but also be a social technician or asocial engineer.23
With this in mind, in 1998, the faculty proposed to set up a Legal Aid
Clinic. The faculty realized the need of external assistance from the Bar
Council in running the clinic. This is due to the fact that since the Universityof Malaya is a public university, an academic staff member as a government
servant is not permitted to practice law (represent clients).24 There is alsoneed for special training for academic staff in the management of clinics,
and teaching skills. Due to a shortage of academic staff between 1999 and2004,25 the introduction of the clinic was postponed.
It was not until 2005 that the idea of the proposed clinic resurfaced.
Academics were sent to The First Southeast Asia Clinical Legal Education
Conference at Pannasastra University in Cambodia in 2005, and made two
trips to the Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines, first to attend the FirstSoutheast Asia Clinical Legal Education Training of Trainers Workshop and158

H u m a n R i g h t s E d u c at i o n i n A s i a - Pa c i f i c

a separate, smaller Malaysian Clinical Legal Education study tour visit soonafterward in 2007. All programs aimed to familiarize participants with theinnovative and interactive law teaching methodology used in Clinical Legal
Education programs, as well as Street Law methods.26
In 2007, with three trained academics and four students, the clinical legal education program known as the Community Outreach Program (cop)
was introduced as a faculty activity. The program is purely a communitybased teaching program. A community-based program was agreed rather
than a Legal Aid Clinic for the practical reason that this program can be runsolely by the faculty. About thirty students were recruited into the program
when it first started in 2007. These students went through a three-day training workshop which not only trained them on the clinical legal educationand street law methods but also to work as a team.
Setting up such programs requires great planning, dedication andteam work. The faculty needs to set up partnerships with institutions forthe teaching of the program, if the program is to run continuously in these
institutions. Issues and needs of the institutions will have to be identified
and agreed upon before community teaching starts. Cop started with a focus on juvenile delinquents and partnerships were set up between cop andjuvenile institutions, such as the prison, approved schools27 and secondaryand primary schools.28 Cop students were made to research statutory provisions and the law relating to crime and child rights before they started theirprogram with these institutions.
In particular, they studied the Child Act 2001,29 the Penal Code,30 theUnited Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Prison Act
1995.31 With this in mind, students were able to focus on their involvementwith their clients to gain more understanding on issues involving juvenile
justice and welfare. Although cop’s main focus is on teaching law, this does
not mean that cop only teaches juveniles in institutions their rights, responsibilities and the criminal law. They also encourage their clients to continue
their studies and pursue their ambitions. Cop students become good rolemodels to these juveniles.32
One achievement that cop is very proud of is its involvement in encouraging and assisting ten boys from the juvenile prison to pursue theirstudies in local universities. Cop has been involved with juveniles in prison
since 2007. Students are exposed to life in prison and the kinds of offences
committed by these juveniles—an experience not many law students canUniversity-based Community/Clinical Legal Education Programs in Malaysia

159

acquire. In consequence, many cop students were encouraged to do theirproject paper33 on issues involving children, crime and the prison. In theprison, cop students work closely with all types of offenders, including thosefound guilty of murder. Juveniles found guilty of murder are imprisoned for
an indefinite period until they are given clemency by the Yang di Pertuan
Agong (King).34 In the case of these juveniles, cop not only exposes them totheir rights in prison, but also helps them write letters requesting clemency
to the King,35 assists lawyers in their appeals and in the preparation of their
mitigations. This is such a valuable experience for students, who sit witheach juvenile discussing and finding out information for their mitigation,
which is then submitted to the respective lawyers.
One example is the assistance given to the appeal case of Mohd Haikal& Ors v PP.36 In this case, eight juveniles were convicted by the High Courtof the murder of a fellow student in their school hostel in 2004. Their appeal
to the Court of Appeal was rejected in 2009, and in the appeal to the Federal
Court, the Federal Court overruled the decision of the Court of Appeal
for the conviction of murder. The juveniles have since been released fromprison (29 March 2010), and cop is now involved in assisting them in theirrehabilitation and their university studies.
Cop is also involved with schools, educating children on issues of crime,
bullying and problems of children and the Internet. Currently, with the university’s involvement in internationalization,37 i.e. accepting exchange students from institutions with a Memorandum of Understanding, cop hastaken part in training exchange students whether in their country, or in the
University of Malaya. Currently, cop, with the assistance of babsea cle,is training students from the Law Faculty, Prince of Songkla University,
Thailand, and Faculty of Law, University of Pancasila, Indonesia. It is hopedthat when students from the University of Malaya start their exchange program to these two universities, their cop/cle programs will be underway,
and Malaya students can join them in cle activities in those countries.
With the success of cop, in 2008, the faculty introduced cle as an accredited optional course for 2nd and 3rd year students. In introducing thecourse, a number of factors had to be taken into consideration. Firstly, as
part of a faculty course, cle has to be structured to comply with the LL.B
program objectives. When the faculty was first introduced, it was autonomous and enjoyed the privilege of having its own law programs and curriculum, but since 2008, all programs must comply with the Malaysia Qualifying

160

H u m a n R i g h t s E d u c at i o n i n A s i a - Pa c i f i c

Framework (mqf) set out by the Malaysian Qualifying Agency (mqa) whichaccredits university programs in Malaysia. Programs in universities mustalso comply with the Ministry of Higher Education guidelines which underline government policies. With this in mind, cle was introduced with themain objective to develop better-trained and more socially conscious lawyers. This is in line with three of the faculty’s program objectives38 namely:(i) to demonstrate social skills and responsibility towards society and thelegal program; (ii) to communicate in both local and English language aswell as lead and work as a team; and (iii) to solve legal problems by applying
relevant laws critically. Secondly, while an optional paper is usually taught
by one member of academic staff, for the cle course, at least three academic
staff are needed to teach and assess students. For a faculty with limited academic staff39, a number of compromises needed to be made to convince theadministration of the need for the course.
Academic staff taking charge of the cle course need to put in extra
hours of teaching and assessment on top of their normal teaching hours.
Due to the shortage of academic staff, there is a need for new appointments.
To be appointed as a member of academic staff of the university, a person
must acquire a Ph.D40 or a Masters degree equivalent to a Ph.D. Due to thestrict criteria for appointment, the faculty had to outsource and appoint
part-timers and visiting academics. This is where babsea cle was able toassist by sending part-time lecturers and visiting academics.
The cle is a three-credit course and is based on a continuous assessment. The course is purely community based. Part of the course concentrates on the development of lesson plans, knowledge and skill. Students areassessed on their; (i) teaching performance, which includes teaching methodology, legal research and lesson content, lesson plan and creativity; (ii)clinical participation, which includes in-class participation, demonstrationteaching and individual supervision; (iii) administration responsibility andtheir reflective journals. The course has a limit of fifteen students The course
has run for two years since it was introduced, and although appointmentsof new academic staff are very slow, on the positive side, graduates of thefaculty have come back to assist in the program this year. The program has
also welcomed juveniles who were once clients, now released from prisonand members and facilitators of cop University of Malaya.

University-based Community/Clinical Legal Education Programs in Malaysia

161

Conclusion
Despite the many challenges it faces, cle continues to move forward inSoutheast Asia and Malaysia and is gaining greater acceptance.41 The current developmental approach is a slow and sustained engagement between
national and regional partners to develop networks of programs that canlearn from both each other’s successes and set-backs. All of the Southeast
Asian clinical programs require further support—not simply financial, but,
more significantly, technical and institutional—if they are to mature into
fully accredited programs that are valued by university faculty, students, andcommunity members alike.42
As clinical education progresses in Southeast Asia, the clinical movement will undoubtedly look to other countries’ experiences for lessons andexamples. Other nations, especially those from civil code countries can allprovide the Southeast Asian clinical movement with examples of how best toproceed with developing such an important part of formal legal education.
This article originally appeared in the Summer 2011 issue of the International Journal of Clinical
Legal Education. Except for slight corrections, the rest of the article is reproduced here in toto.

Endnotes
1 BABSEA CLE uses the broad term Community Legal Education (CLE) whenreferring to its overall program, which includes working with grassroots communities as well as universities. BABSEA CLE uses the term Clinical Legal Education
when referring only to university-based programs.
2 For example, at Pannasastra University of Cambodia, the CLE program
was set up in 2003 as an interdisciplinary accredited course program where students from all streams and faculties are permitted to enroll in the CLE Community
Teaching Program.
3 In June 2010, BABSEA CLE and its local Vietnamese partner, the Institute on
Policy, Law and Development Vietnam (PLD-Vietnam), were engaged by the UNDP
to spearhead an applied CLE research project throughout Viet Nam, whereby they
will be working with universities throughout the country to develop and/or strengthen CLE programs by, in part: 1) Assessing the value of different forms of support toclinical legal education programs in Viet Nam; 2) Demonstrating how CLE programs
contribute to the enhancement of legal education in Viet Nam through improving
the educational and lawyering skills value of students enrolled in law faculties; 3)
Providing evidence-based and objective recommendations to assist the Governmentof Viet Nam, university law faculties, UNDP and other development partners to formulate broader and longer-term programs of support.
4 Street Law is a registered trademark of Street Law Inc a non-profit organization based in the United States (www.streetlaw.org). Both the Georgetown University

162

H u m a n R i g h t s E d u c at i o n i n A s i a - Pa c i f i c

Street Law Clinic and Street Law Inc., provided significant technical support, advice
and materials, in the process of developing these community legal education clinic
programs.
5 See David McQuoid-Mason, South Africa Street Law Practical Law for South
Africans, 2nd Edition, Juta Law Co, Ltd. 2004.
6 Nandang Sutrisno, Community Legal Education (Street Law) Program at theFaculty of Law Islamic University of Indonesia (7-13 December 2008) (paper presented at the Global Alliance for Justice Education Conference, Manila, Philippines).
7 Chiang Mai University, Thailand, University Malaya, Malaysia, andPannasastra University of Cambodia.
8 Chiang Mai University and National University of Laos Faculty of Law and
Political Science.
9 Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Malaysia.
10 National University of Laos Faculty of Law and Political Science, Lao PDR.
11 These have included Kecamatan (Sub-regency) Imogiri, Kabupaten(Regency) Bantul, and Propinsi Daerah Istimewa (Special Province) Yogyakarta.
12 Prior to this time, the UiTM Faculty of Law operated, and continues to operate, a simulated CLE program which is introduced in the final year for students of
the LL.B (Hons) Program. It is a simulation program in which students are required
to work in a mock legal firm or clinic, where they are taught the necessary lawyeringskills.
13 Cheong M. F., “The Role of Curriculum in Malaysian Legal Education,”
Masalah Pendidikan 2007, Jilid 30(2), page 11.
14 UNESCO. Word Declaration on Higher Education the Twenty-First
Century: Vision and Action. (1998).
15 Rachagan S., “The Role of Lawyers and the Bar Council in Society,” [1995]
2 MLJ xxix.
16 Ibid., note xvi, page 13.
17 A four-year course (eight semesters) combining the academic and certain
professional aspects of law. The LL.B degree is recognized as initial qualification
for admission to the legal profession. See Ahmed Ibrahim, “The Law Teacher in
Malaysia” (1976) JMCL 252.
18 An LL.B graduate from the University of Malaya will only need to go througha nine-month pupilage (reading in chambers) period with a legal firm before she/heis called to the Malaysian Bar as an advocate and solicitor.
19 Such as Contract Law, Tort, Constitutional Law Criminal Law, Land Law,
Equity and Trust, Law of Association and Jurisprudence. All these courses are stillpart of the Faculty curriculum.
20 Such as Evidence, Civil and Criminal Procedures.
21 Malaysia was a British colony until it gained independence in 1957.
22 Ibid., note xvi.
23 R. Segal, S.R. Bhosale, “Legal Education in India: Restructuring andReshaping,” Indian Bar Review 1999, 37-46. See also Dyutimoy Mukherjee, Law
Schools and Legal Education, indlaw.com.
24 An advocate and solicitor must have a license to practice. A government
servant is not permitted to be in any other employment.

University-based Community/Clinical Legal Education Programs in Malaysia

163

25 The Law Faculty employs about thirty-eight academic staff with a hundredundergraduate intake a year. This makes the faculty one of the smallest faculties in
the university. Between 1999 and 2004, a number of academic staff were sent for
further studies.
26 R. Rajeswaran, Legal Education in ASEAN in the 21st Century, paper written
for the ASEAN General Assembly Workshop.
27 Institutions under the Social Welfare Department Malaysia for juvenile delinquents and those identified as “in moral danger”.
28 The coordinator of CLE/COP specializes in Juvenile Justice and Welfare andCriminal Law. She is also a consultant with the Social Welfare Services Malaysia, andworks closely with the juvenile prison.
29 Act 611, the law relating to children (those under the age of eighteen years).
30 Act 574, the law relating to criminal offences.
31 Act 537, the law relating to prison and prisoners.
32 In Malaysia, ‘Juvenile’ includes a child. Child is defined as someone under
the age of 18 years, and in criminal proceedings, over ten and under eighteen years
old. See s.2 Child Act 2001 (Act 611). Juveniles in prison are between 14 and 22 years
old. In approved schools, they are under eighteen.
33 A compulsory short thesis for 3rd year students.
34 Section 302 Penal Code (Act 574) provides a mandatory death penalty forthe offence of murder. But section 97 Child Act 2001 (Act 611) provides that a childcannot be sentenced to death, in lieu, they are sent to prison ‘at the pleasure of theruler’.
35 Case involving PP v KK [2007] 6 CLJ367.
36 See Court of Appeal decision [2009] 1 LNS 292.
37 See International students, www.edu.um.my
38 The Faculty of Law has eight program objectives. See www.um.edu.my
39 The Law Faculty has an intake of one hundred undergraduates for one
academic year with about thirty active academic staff. Intake for post graduates isunlimited.
40 See recruitment, www.um.edu.my
41 Bruce A. Lasky and M. R. K. Prasad, “The Clinical Movement in Southeast
Asia and India, A Comparative Perspective and Lessons to be Learned,” page 44,
in The Global Clinical Movement Educating Lawyers for Social Justice, Oxford
University Press (2011).
42 Ibid., note xxxiv.