SECTION 1. Section two hundred and seven of the Revised Administrative Code, as amended by Act Numbered Four thousand and seven, is hereby further amended to read as follows:
"SEC. 207. Qualifications for the office of justice of the peace.—No person shall be eligible to appointment as justice of the peace or auxiliary justice of the peace unless he shall be (1) at least twenty-three years of age; (2) citizen of the Philippine Islands or of the United States; (3) of good moral character and not convicted of any felony; and (4) admitted by the Supreme Court to practice law, if there be any available; if not, he shall be a person who has at least finished the courses of legal study in a recognized school, or shall have passed the civil service examination for clerk of court, or an examination to be held in each province before a board composed of the judge of the Court of First Instance, the provincial fiscal, and a practicing lawyer appointed by the judge, under rules and regulations to be prescribed by the Secretary of Justice. As vacancies occur and the circumstances of each case may require the Department Head may group municipalities into circuit courts, composed of at least two. municipalities: Provided, however, That the capital of the province shall not be grouped with any other municipality: Provided, further, That any designation that has heretofore been made of any justice of the peace of a provincial capital to act as such in any other municipality shall, from the date of the taking effect of this Act, be considered as cancelled and of no effect: And provided, finally, That the Secretary of Justice may, upon the recommendation of the judge of first instance concerned, designate the justice of the peace of the capital of a province or subprovince as clerk of court ex-officio of said province or subprovince.
"No person shall be appointed judge of the Municipal Court of the City of Manila and of the provincial capitals unless he shall have practiced law in the Philippine Islands for a period of four years or being a qualified lawyer shall during a like period have held in the Philippine Islands the position of clerk or deputy clerk of a court of first instance, or any office for which a lawyer's diploma is an indispensable requisite, and no person shall be appointed justice of the peace of any first-class municipality unless he has been admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands."