Accredit law faculties to run professional courses — MP

A member of the Judiciary Committee of Parliament, Mr Ebenezer Kojo Kum, has urged the General Legal Council (GLC) to accredit the various law faculties to run professional law courses to ease the pressure on the Ghana School of Law (GSL).

He said the GSL did not have enough facilities to admit the over 2,000 LLB degree holders from the about 15 law faculties every year, hence the necessity for the entrance examinations into the GSL.

Mr Kum, who is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ahanta West, told the Daily Graphic that until the various faculties began to run their own professional law courses, many potential students would continue to be denied the opportunity of becoming lawyers.

Independent body

Mr Kum said once the various faculties got the accreditation to offer the professional law courses, an independent body should run the bar examination and the GLC should call the qualified students to the Bar.

The issue of examination into the GSL had become a legal tussle between law students and the GLC.

The students claim the entrance examination is unfair and unconstitutional, while the GSL argues that the examination is the only way to limit the number of students that can be admitted into the GSL.

To give the entrance examination a legal backing, the GLC presented a Legislative Instrument (LI) on the entrance examination to Parliament.

Consequently, Parliament approved the Legal Profession (Professional and Post-Call Law Course ) Regulations, 2018 (LI2355) to allow for entrance examinations for LLB degree holders into the GSL.

With the approval, the LI will come into force after the expiration of 21 sitting days of Parliament in accordance with Article 11(7) of the Constitution.

Capacity

Mr Kum indicated that the various institutions should develop infrastructure to accommodate the students for the professional law courses.

He said Ghana had a lot of experienced lawyers and judges who could lecture at the various law faculties.

Mr Kum dismissed the suggestion that standards would fall when the various law faculties began running professional law courses.

He said the experienced lecturers and the criteria that would be set for the examinations would ensure the maintenance of standards.

Consequence

Mr Kum noted that the current system which produced many LLB degree holders who failed to gain admission into the GSL posed a lot of challenges.

For instance, he said, some unscrupulous LLB degree holders would hide in some villages and dupe unsuspecting people in the name of offering them legal services.