The Legal Profession Act of Maldives (Law no. 5/2019), introduced the following two essential requirements for becoming licensed to practice as a lawyer in the Maldives.

(1) completion of a 1-year training programme under the supervision of a licensed lawyer; and

(2) Passing a bar examination administered by the Bar Council.

At the time the Legal Profession Act was ratified, there were law graduates who had not taken the oath, and the Bar Council of the Maldives required time to develop the bar examination. The Legal Profession Act was therefore amended on August 5, 2020, to provide the opportunity to all graduates who had not taken the oath to receive special licensing after completing a 1-month special licensing training program (SLTP) conducted by the Bar Council of the Maldives. However, they were mandated to sit for the first bar exam, which was to be administered in the future by the Bar Council of the Maldives.

This clause enforcing bar examination on the recipients of the special licensing has been amended under the second amendment to the Legal Profession Act (Law no. 5/2019), and the recipients of the special licensing issued in 2020 are no longer required to sit for the bar examination to be administered in November 2022.

In addition to this, under the amendment, the Bar Council of the Maldives is required to determine the scope and structure of the training programme required to be completed by the law graduates.