Pursuit of legal education in Ghana - The way forward
It is a known fact that until the 2006/2007 academic year, students who were admitted into the Ghana School of Law were mainly from the University of Ghana,Legon.
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But after 2007, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) was given the opportunity to train LLB graduates. This meant they had to compete with law students from Legon and other law graduates from other common law jurisdictions to be admitted in the Ghana School of Law.
At the moment, a number of private universities have also been given accreditation to run LLB programmes. All these accredited law institutions in the country would have to compete to have their students enter the Ghana School of Law to make their dreams of being called to the bar a reality.
At the undergraduate level, one has to undertake seven courses to pass the LLB exams. There are 12 undergraduate schools providing the Bachelor of Law course in Ghana, admitting over 2000 students every year, while less than 500 students are admitted to the professional law course. The General Legal Council determines the benchmarks through which one can get access to the two- year professional law course. It is the statutory body bearing the overall responsibility for organising legal education in Ghana and to determine the number of persons who are enrolled at the bar.
Concerns
It is worrying to realise that the 12 undergraduate universities are collecting between GH¢ 10,000 and 15,000 per student a year in a period of three to four years depending on the university before awarding an LLB degree. After paying all these monies and getting your LLB, candidates have to take a comprehensive written examination. The written examination is a two-hour paper in sections. Section A has 30 objective questions covering nine courses. Section B is made up of three essays and candidates choose one from the same nine courses. Candidates who are, therefore, able to attain the threshold mark which is determined by the council are allowed to go through an interview.
For one to pass the interview, you need to meet the following criteria: Appearance, confidence composure and general knowledge. The interview criteria is very invincible. If you fail the interview, you need to pass the entrance exam again the following year before being allowed to go through the interview process.
It is, therefore, disturbing that graduates with the Bachelor of Law had to go through this academic rigmarole in their quest to become professional lawyers. Through this stringent criteria, about 2/3 of those qualified are denied entry to the professional law course.
Between 2012 and 2016, many brilliant students have been denied entry with the General Legal Council raising the issue of capacity as the basis of rejection. One may ask, if capacity constraint is a major determinant, why should the council stand aloof and allow the universities that award LLB to admit the huge number of students and take huge sums of money from them knowing very well only a few would have access to their professional law course?
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This brings to the fore the teething question of whether the General Legal Council has any control in the admission policies of these LLB awarding universities or that they are just presiding over an illegality.
Most of these LLB awarding universities only concentrate on the profit they would make from admitting the huge numbers without recourse to the future growth of their students by admitting between 250 and 300 students every year.
It has now become evidently clear that once students fail to enter the professional law school, they have no career options available like other jurisdictions where students can move to solicitorship etc, leaving them in a quandary and not knowing what to do.
The issue of graduate unemployment we are facing in Ghana today would continue to grow if urgent steps are not taken as part of the Supreme Court ruling reforms to deal with the numbers who are not able to enter the professional law course.
It is within this core that all concerned Ghanaians welcome the landmark Supreme Court ruling on the illegality and unconstitutionality of going through an examination and interview process in Ghana School of Law admissions. The apex court said the system violates legislative instrument (LI) 1296. The LI requires an applicant to have passed seven (7) specific subjects during the LLB programme, be of good behaviour and hold an LLB degree in order to be considered for admission into the school. The suit filed by Professor Kwaku Asare in 2015 challenged the Ghana School of Law admission process of writing exams and passing an interview.
Prof. Asare deserves commendation for the gallant and bold step to have this illegality overturned to allow more people to enter the professional law course.
Although other legal luminaries and connoisseurs of the law in the country knew this act of illegality, their nonchalant attitude has helped perpetuate this, which remains a sword of democles hanging on their necks because they have sat down for long for this to persist. One cannot fathom why of all the legal brains in the country, it took Prof. Kwaku Asare who practies his profession outside our jurisdiction to challenge the unhealthy development. This is truly a scar on our collective legal conscience.
Recommendations
• This issue of quota system for the LLB awarding institutions should be implemented immediately with mentor institutions streamlining operations with their mentorees. If possible, mentor institutions could share their quota with their mentorees to make up capacity constraints already existing.
• According to the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) estimates, Ghana has roughly 2,800 lawyers in practice serving a population of 25.5 million. Allowing more students with LLB to do the professional law course without any hindrance stipulated in the LI 1296 would increase access for more lawyers to make up for the large legal deficit in the country.
• We believe that if all the monies that had gone into the legal education space since 2012 had been well managed and properly monitored, it should be able to help deal with the increased number of applicants to the law school and not compromise on quality of legal education in Ghana.
• Although the Supreme Court has ruled out any interference in the 2017 entry exams of the General Legal Council, we are of the belief that it is still illegal per the ruling.
To this end, the new Chief Justice should be mindful of the backlog of students created by this illegality and admonish the General Legal Council to come out with a strategy within a year or two to clear the backlog and give people the opportunity to purse the LLB. Ghanaians are, therefore, watching in anticipation how the Supreme Court judgement would be implemented.
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We believe that this judicial pronouncement by the Supreme Court is apt and could not have come at the right time. It is in consequence of this that all stakeholders, including the President, Chief Justice and other well-meaning Ghanaians, should come together to save our nation from the inherent quagmire of destroying legal education in Ghana.