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Yesterday on the 30th of June, President Zepz decided to sign the Bar Chips Amendment Part 2 which almost unanimously passed the Senate a day earlier with only one Nay vote. The amendment would introduce a requirement for lawyers to recertify once every year in order to remain bar certified and retain their right to practice the law. “Recertify” in this context would mean having to take the Bar Exam once again, and also participating in either a mock trial or an internship at the Department of Justice or Office of Public Defenders.
A similar amendment to the Bar Association Constitution (the "Part 1") had been proposed to the Senate only a few weeks ago on the 14th of July, but the 145th Senate decided to only pass one of its articles, the one setting a defined pay rate for the Bar Director, Assistant Bar Directors, and Mock Trial Judges. Its third article, which would have introduced the recertification requirement, was not passed.
Palmer, the current Bar Director who also wrote the aforementioned first Bar Chips Amendment, decided to have Liberal Democratic Party Senator Bill Rocky Moor sponsor his second Bar Chips Amendment. In the preamble to the amendment, he mentioned how “the last Senate didn’t like him” as reason for submitting basically the same Act once again, which was partially proven true by the 146th Senate deciding to pass his amendment, dissimilar to the 145th one’s decision.
The amendment didn’t come into effect after the President’s signature though, as it is tradition within SimDemocracy to have amendments to the Bar Association Constitution require approval by the Bar Association’s members themselves to be given through a simple majority in a 48 hour vote, although this wouldn’t technically be legally necessary.
While the vote hasn’t ended yet and won’t do so for another 24 hours, there already exists a majority for refusing the amendment. Many Bar Members who voted Nay cited reasons such as issues with potential corruption due to the Bar Director being able to exempt people from the mandatory recertification, and that there simply was no reason to require recertification in the first place.
Whether this (further) demonstration of significant divide in opinion between the Bar Director and the Bar itself, which they are supposed to govern, will lead to any more conflict is still partially unclear, but the most likely outcome is that nothing will happen as there is no concrete further political action, that also is proportional, able to be taken.