Asking students to write exams to enter law school unconstitutional – Supreme Court
The Supreme Court has declared as unconstitutional the requirement by the General Legal Council (GLC) that persons seeking to enter the Ghana School of Law (GSL) needed to write and pass an entrance examination as well as go through a selection interview.
The court has therefore given the council six months to review LI 1296 which regulates admissions to the school, reports Graphic Online’s Seth J. Bokpe who was in court on Thursday afternoon.
In the unanimous decision, the court presided over by Justice Jones Dotse also directed the GLC to develop a quota system to admit students from the University of Ghana and other schools permitted to run the LLB programme.
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Related: Professors call for end to ‘unfair’ Ghana School of Law quota system
Professor Stephen Kweku Asare, a United States-based Ghanaian lawyer, in October 2015 contended that the number of people who were admitted into the Ghana School of Law was woefully small considering the number of people who possessed LLB.
He therefore sought a declaration from the Supreme Court that the GLC’s imposition of entrance examination and interview requirements for the Professional Law Course violated Articles ll (7) 297 (d) 23, 296 (a) (b) and 18 (2) of the 1992 Constitution.
He sought a declaration that that the GLC’S exclusion of persons who have qualified under Regulation 2 of L1 1296 from pursuing the Professional law course violated Article ll (7)297 (d), 23, and 296 (a) and (b) of the Constitution and therefore prayed the court for an order directed at the GLC to specify within 60 days; alternative places and modes of instructions that would afford all persons meeting the requirement of Regulation 2 of Ll 1296 an opportunity to pursue the profession component of legal education, the completion of which entitles them to take the qualifying certificate examinations as determined by the GLC.
Read also: Provide actual scores for Ghana School of Law entrance exams - Prof Kwaku Asare
Writer's email: enoch.frimpong@graphic.com.gh
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