The Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional the requirement by the General Legal Council asking applicants to the Ghana Law school to undertake an examination and subsequent interview before admission.
According to the court, the requirements are in violation of the Legislative Instrument 1296 which gives direction for the mode of admission.The Justices in delivering their judgment, also indicated that their order should not take retrospective effect, but should be implemented in six months, when admissions for the 2018 academic year begins.
The plaintiff, Professor Kwaku Asare, a United States-based Ghanaian lawyer, went to court in 2015, challenging the legality of the modes of admission used by the Ghana School of Law. According to him, the number of people who were admitted into the Ghana School of Law was woefully small considering the number of people who possessed LLB. The Ghana Law School has been criticized for being overly rigid considering that it serves 12 schools providing LLB degrees.
The current training regime limits the intake into the Ghana Law School to under 500 of the about-2000 LLB graduates annually. In his suit, Professor Kwaku Asare prayed for a declaration that GLC’s imposition of entrance examination and interview requirements for the Professional Law Course violates Articles ll (7) 297 (d) 23, 296 (a) (b) and 18 (2) of the 1992 Constitution.
He was seeking a declaration that the GLC’S exclusion of persons who have qualified under Regulation 2 of L1 1296 from pursuing the Professional law course violates Article ll (7)297 (d), 23, and 296 (a) and (b) of the Constitution.
The Plaintiffs also 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.
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