Law experts and professionals in certain fields, who have been working for 20 years, may get the lawyer's license without examination, according to a draft amendment to the Law on Lawyers.

The draft amendment was submitted to the week-long 29th session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), or China's top legislature, for a second reading on Friday.

The draft states that "experts with a bachelor's degree or higher, who have been engaged in law research and education for 20 years, or professionals who have been working in finance, intellectual property rights and information technology sectors for 20 years, can apply for the lawyer's license without examination."

"They can get the license after being approved by relevant departments under the State Council," the draft amendment said.

Other people who want to get the license have to pass the National Judicial Examination, a national uniform qualification examination held by China's Ministry of Justice, according to the draft.

During the first reading of the draft in June, some members of the NPC Standing Committee suggested to delete the item with the concerns that it would be unfair and affect the quality of lawyers by allowing a part of people to get the qualification without examination, according to Wang Yiming, deputy director of the NPC Law Committee.

However, the committee kept the item after discussion.

Wang said it would help relieve China's current shortage of lawyers with background in some special fields such as finance, intellectual property right and information technology, by allowing the experts and senior professionals to work as lawyers in those fields.

He said there were similar regulations in Japan, Singapore, the Republic of Korea and Canada.

Statistics showed that China now has more than 130,000 lawyers working in 13,000 law firms. In 2006 alone, Chinese lawyers dealt with more than 1.8 million litigation cases and 1.15 million non-litigation cases and provided legal aid in more than 5.2 million cases.

The Law on Lawyers took effect on Jan. 1, 1997. It is the first revision to the law since its promulgation.

(Xinhua News Agency August 25, 2007)