Akufu-Addo petitioned again over law school admissions

• Posted on August 24, 2018
• by Ellsamwise King
• Comment

A group of law students who trained in Rwanda have petitioned President Akufo-Addo to intervene in securing their admission to the Ghana School of Law for their post call study.

The students say appeals to the Chief Justice and authorities of the Ghana School of Law have so far yielded no results.

According to the petition sighted, the students were compelled to study in Rwanda because of the difficulties associated with gaining admission into the Ghana School of Law.

Speaking in an interview, one of the petitioners, Nana Fredua Agyeman, said: “We are appealing to the President because he is the first gentleman of the land and he is also a legal luminary and he understands the issues. We are waiting for the General Legal Council to make a decision on our case.

“We are the first batch of Ghanaian students to have studied in Rwanda. Our concerns have not yielded results, that is why we are petitioning the President.”

Protest from students

A group calling itself the Concerned Law Students had earlier submitted a petition to Parliament against the new LI, accusing the GLC of a deliberate  attempt to frustrate them, a development they considered a violation of their rights.

Ken Addor Donkor, the leader of the group, said the proposed LI was an attempt to kill the dreams of law students.

Exams, interviews barred for Law School

When the Supreme Court declared the interviews into the law school as unconstitutional, it said 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 begin.

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.

The court subsequently struck out the case following an objection by the General Legal Council over what they described as a defective affidavit.

Professor Asare in his affidavit which he deposed to, had another person sign for him which contravenes the rules of the court.

After several attempts to convince the court to have the mistake corrected, a lawyer for the plaintiff, Kofi Bentil withdrew the application and filed a fresh one which was subsequently dismissed.

Source: CNR