Tingkahlaku etika peguam di Semenanjung Malaysia

The main objective of this research is to study the ethical behaviour of lawyers in Peninsular Malaysia. The cross sectional studies' research design has been applied in this study. The data collection included the distribution of questionnaires. Respondents of this study are lawyers. 107 questionnaires have been analyzed. This study used the Defining Issue Test (DIT) measurement to measure the ethical behaviour. In general, the findings showed that the mean score of the stage of ethical behaviour among lawyers is at a post conventional stage with the P DIT index value of 55.74 on the maximum score of 100. The findings further showed
that there is no significant different on the aspect of the ethical behaviour between the male lawyers and the female lawyers. However, the findings did show that the stage of the ethical behaviour of female lawyers is higher than that of the male lawyers. The mean for the female lawyers is 61.35, while that of the male lawyers is 52.68. The findings has also shown that there is a significant different between
the respondents who have been exposed to ethical education at institutions of higher learning as compared to those who have never been exposed to ethical education. The perception of lawyers toward the execution of the law, rules and training are moderately high with a score of 3.3 over 5. All the independent
variables that were taken into account in this research tend to have a positive influence on the behaviour of lawyers, with the exception of the perception towards the code of ethics, gender, attending in-service courses or seminars on ethics and the long duration of being a lawyer. The knowledge and understanding of the lawyer's code of ethics has the most potential in influencing the lawyers' ethical
behaviour. The study found that training pertaining to the lawyer's ethics needs to be improved. Finally, it is suggested that there is a need to reinforce the code of ethics on all lawyers.