NDC Taking Advantage of Our Mismanagement of Law School Admissions – NPP Man Bemoans
A member of the ruling New Patriotic Party, Kofi Ofosu Nkansah, has bemoaned the government’s management of issues surrounding legal education in Ghana.
At the back of reignited calls for an expansion of legal education and other issues around admissions into the Ghana School of Law, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Accra Digital Center, the current government has failed to properly deal with the emanating issues giving room for the opposition National Democratic Congress to take advantage of the situation.
“I can’t agree with the Oman FM team more this morning.
“Students are friends of NPP. Law students are part of our ‘Constituency.’ We are not managing this law school admission issues well and NDC is taking advantage to score Political points. Not too late to fix this,” he shared in a Facebook post about a discussion on the same matter on pro-NPP radio station Oman FM.
Some 499 candidates who sat for the 2021 Ghana School of Law are demanding that they be granted admission into the school because they passed the exam.
Among accusations that the General Legal Council is deliberately limiting admission numbers into the Law School, the Parliament of Ghana has passed a resolution asking the GLC to admit the students saying they passed the entrance exams based on the advertised criteria of the Council.
The Attorney General in a response to the decision by parliament has stated that the legislature lacks the powers to cause the GLC to decide on the instrumentation of a resolution.
Meanwhile, two Members of Parliament from the Minority side have commenced processes to have the law that sets up and define the role of the General Legal Council reviewed.
MP for South Dayi, Rockson Nelson Defeamekpor and Francis-Xavier Kojo Sosu (Madina) have presented a memo to the Clerk of Parliament requesting for a bill to be drafted to amend the Legal Professions Act, 1960, Act 32.
Among other things, the MPs want the new bill to cause the exclusion of the Chief Justice and justices of the Supreme Court from the body responsible for the management and regulation of legal education in the country.
“Sir, we write to request the legislating drafting office to draft for subsequent submission to the Speaker, a bill to amend the Legal Professions Act 1960 Act 32 to exclude the Chief Justice as well as other justices of the Supreme Court from the GLC to redefine the functions of the GLC and to provide for reforms in legal education such that accredited Faculties of law with the requisite facilities would be licensed to run professional law courses, provide for discipline of lawyers and related matters to give effect to Articles 37(1) of the 1992 constitution,” the memo dated October 26, 2021, stated.