2022-06-30

west bank

West Bank / Core Program / position paper

Esteemed president and the members of the Palestinian Bar Association,

Subject: MUSAWA’s Monitoring Report on the Written Bar Exam Held on 23/06/2022 at Al-Istiqlal University - Jericho.

MUSAWA, The Palestinian Center for the Independence of the Legal Profession and the Judiciary, extends its warmest regards. In response to your esteemed Council's invitation to monitor the written Bar examination, which was held on 6/23/2022 in the halls of Al-Istiqlal University in Jericho from 11:00 AM until 2:00 PM, MUSAWA entrusted the monitoring task to its team, headed by Adv. Shurooq Abu-Qare' (legal awareness officer at MUSAWA), and the team members (Adv. Asala Njoom / Adv. Iman Qasrawi / Adv. Fatmeh Njoom / Adv. Oday Bassa / Trainee Lawyer Tala Hamdan). The team monitored the exam proceedings from its start to finish.

Based on the reports of the monitoring team, MUSAWA notes the following:

– There were several instances of cheating in halls no. 206 and 204 in the security sciences faculty building, as there was mass cheating during the final hour of the exam involving laughs and loud sounds that can be heard from outside the hall, accompanied by loud discussions between the proctors over who allows cheating and who does not.  One of the examinees was caught wearing a Bluetooth headset connected to her phone and using it to talk to someone during the test. The headset was confiscated and she was allowed to finish her test. (The proctors’ names are reserved at MUSAWA).

– The members of the Palestinian Bar Association (PBA) who were checking the exam proceedings entered in separate groups. Each group consisted of one or more of the members accompanied by several lawyers, which disturbed the peace and caused chaos in the exam halls.

– The inaccessibility of the exam halls to people with disabilities, as a visually-impaired examinee was accompanied by an employee from the PBA to an exam hall that does not meet any of the requirements for him to take the test, which upset him as he looked uncomfortable and dissatisfied forcing the employee to take him elsewhere.  

– Some of the exam halls and especially the ones at the faculty of law were not equipped with working air conditioners, which clearly affected the examinees and the proctors of the exam that is held in Jericho. 

– A few of the proctors held a discussion over the exam questions, and this loud discussion happened right outside the halls without any regards to the examinees who are taking the exam.

– The lack of female lawyers proctoring the exams as most halls did not have female proctors, which led to the discomfort of the female examinees who wished to go to the restrooms, as some were allowed to go accompanied by male proctors. It is worth noting that some proctors allow examinees to go the restroom, while others do not. There was one instance where a male proctor asked one of MUSAWA’s team members to accompany a female examinee to the restroom, which is not her duty or responsibility to do so and ended up being accompanied by a male proctor. It is worth noting that one of the female examinees, in the halls that allowed examinees to go to the restroom, has gone to the bathroom 4 times.

– The PBA did not provide enough stationery as some of the halls lacked stationery, especially a stapler where only one was available, which forced the PBA employee to travel back and forth between the halls passing around the stapler.

– A noticeable absence of some proctors in most of the halls as some of them were late and others were absent, which delayed handing out the exam papers until 11:30, even though it was scheduled to start at 11:00AM and end at 2:00PM. Due to the delayed start, the exam finished at 3:30PM  

– The distribution of the examinees was not in proportion to the size of the halls, as MUSAWA’s team noticed the number of proctors in one of the halls was half the number of examinees, and the number of proctors was the same in both small and big halls. 

– Some proctors moved a number of the examinees to a different hall without consideration of the standards and without clear legal grounds.

– The lack of buses to transfer the examinees from the governorates, even though it became an acquired right considering that it was implemented in previous exams. This caused some examinees to arrive almost half an hour late.

– Chaos broke loose in the distribution of the exam papers.  

– There is a contradiction in the exam procedures, as some of the proctors allowed the examinee to ask questions during the whole period of the exam, while others limited questions to only the first 15 minutes of the exam. 

MUSAWA requests that your esteemed council closely examines these notes and take the legal measures to overcome these flaws and shortcomings stated in the report once and for all. MUSAWA suggests changing the exam’s location especially when held in the summer, increasing the number of female proctors to ensure that the test is administered in a fair and transparent manner void of cheating, implementing the principle of equality in terms of the facilities made available to the proctors, adapting the halls to the needs of people of disabilities, and holding whoever cheats, contributes or turns a blind eye to cheating accountable.

Sincerely,                                                     

Ahlam Tarayra

Executive Director

30/06/2022