Josiah Aryeh to head law school

OSIAH ARYEH TO HEAD LAW SCH? As Mills' Fight Against Corruption Will Suffer Impediments If NPP Control of Law Institutions Continue

The legal system in this country is under threat. The influence of the NPP in the nation's law institutions, and of course, the Judiciary is a threat to the administration of justice in this country. To effectively counter this threat, the Mills administration must to appoint objective law luminaries to take prominent positions at our legal institutions; otherwise it cannot prosecute its fight against corruption and other crimes.

It is for this reason that some Ghanaians, mostly students and some concerned citizens who are closely watching the trend of the justice delivery system in the country, have called on the government to appoint such legal brains in the country as Dr. Josiah Aryeh as Director of the Ghana Law School.

Dr. Josiah Aryeh, they claim, is a fine gentleman whose unblemished character would be imprinted on the performance of the Law School. In addition, they have also called on the Mills government to make changes in our State-owned Universities to effect changes in the faculties of our legal training institutions. They explained that some of the lecturers are not imparting to our future lawyers and judges what should reflect the nation's determination to bring about sanity and improvement in the quality of the administration of justice.

They have also attributed the declining standards in the nation's law institutions to the deliberate attempt by the authorities of the Law School to sabotage students perceived to disagree with NPP politics, since most of the lecturers are either active members of the Party or its sympathizers who may want to fail any such students no matter how good they may be.

Citing some examples to back their assertion, they explained that during NPP regime, the Party tried to ensure that students perceived to hold opposing views about it were failed to deny them the LLB qualification to enter the Ghana School of Law. When these students went abroad to get the LLB qualification from foreign Law Schools, or sat the London LLB and those from other parts of the world and passed, the authorities of the Ghana Law School at Makola, again as part of the Party's agenda, refused to admit them into the Ghana School of Law On assuming power, the NDC opened the door for holders of LLB from foreign law schools to gain admission into the Ghana Law School. It introduced a quota system for the admission as follows. Of the intake of 200 students, 80 students are to come from the University of Ghana, another 80 from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and 40 students from foreign law schools.

This did not go down well with the NPP. Our information has it that the authorities of the Ghana School of Law are bent on denying such students admission on the basis of flimsy excuses that would in the long run adversely affect performance of the School, and, of course, the justice delivery system in the country, even though some of them came out with flying colors in their examinations.

For example, they are claiming that they cannot accommodate more students now because those students who failed to pass out this year are to return to the school to re-write their exams. However they have told these students to study at home and come to re-write the papers in the School. In other words, they will not use the classrooms for lectures.

It is also alleged that the Director and Registrar of the Law School have admitted 15 students on 'protocol' basis, even though there have not been any admissions yet for people who have passed their examinations. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education has issued a directive against admission into schools on ‘protocol’ basis.

The questions most people are asking are 'Where did the 'protocol' list for the admission of the 15 students come from?” or “Are they just for financial gains in the interests of the Director and the Registrar?” It is alleged that tongues are wagging to the effect that there are the names of some lecturers’ wards in the protocol allocation. The whole issue is an NPP agenda and their agents in our law institutions give priority to their students, and in some cases it is alleged they even pass these students when they fail their examinations. These are the students who gain admission through the backdoor.

These questionable activities remind many of the controversy that surrounded Mr. Gabby Asare Okyere-Darko, one time Managing Editor of the pro-NPP Statesman newspaper and now Executive Director of the Danquah Institute, another pro-NPP organ, who was reported in the media to have failed his examinations at the Law School but was passed after some influence was peddled from high up in the NPP government.

In fact in the last eight years’ rule of the NPP, many students, including some from the Faculty of Law and the Ghana Law School, were thrown out from the Law Institutions in what was evidently a deliberate plan to frustrate perceived NDC student sympathizers. Classic examples are NDC members like Dr. Tony Aidoo , Baba Jamal, Haruna Iddrissu (whose Masters degree in Sociology from the University of Ghana was withdrawn), Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa, one of the current deputy Ministers of Information (whose certificate was seized until about two or three weeks ago).

It is believed that there are even more of such NDC sympathizers that have been marked to be weeded out from the Law School for being perceived to be opposed to the neo-colonial politics of the NPP.

Information rife is that the NPP wants to continue to cling on to its control of the legal system in the country, by ensuring that their people qualify to fill all gaps. Obviously, this is in order to protect its former officials who are alleged to have committed crimes against facing the full rigors of the law to account for their stewardship.

The danger to the Mills administration is that it will be providing its enemy with arms and ammunition if it fails to tackle the issue of the biased justice system.

From the foregoing, it can be seen that not only did the previous government corrupt the judicial system as part of its diabolic agenda, but it also ensured that it saturated the nation's law institutions with its stalwarts. Another point to buttress this assertion is the case of Hon. Atta Akyea, the NPP Member of Parliament for Abuakwa, who let the cat out of the bag in the infamous taped conversation when he allegedly claimed that the NPP had judges, who are supposed to be independent, on its side.

Some legal experts have also joined the fray, arguing that if the agenda is allowed to continue, the Mills administration would also continue to suffer impediments in ensuring that wrongdoers are punished.