Meet the standards and you’ll have right to become a lawyer – Foh-Amoaning to law students

Legal practitioner and Civil Procedure Lecturer at the Ghana School of Law, Lawyer Moses Foh-Amoaning, says the only thing that gives anyone in the country the right to become a lawyer is by meeting a given standard including passing an entrance exam.

According to lawyer Amoaning, people questioning the legitimacy of the Law School entrance exam should rather look at questioning the stipulated standards and its objectives.

He made the statement when he was speaking as a guest on Metro TV’s Good Evening Ghana on issues surrounding a demonstration organised by law students in the country in Accra on Monday, October 7.

“If I have a BSC in Accounting it doesn’t mean I can be a Chartered Accountant, I have to pass the entrance exam and everybody knows it is difficult. You don’t have a right to become a lawyer if you meet the standards then you have a right. You might question the standards and how objective that standard is and if you have the facts then you can go ahead and prove it.”

He compared those arguing for LLB certification as grounds for law school admission to Junior High School graduates saying they deserve law school admission because they have a BECE certificate.

“It is like a JSS student or an SHS student saying I must come and read law because I have finished WAEC, no. you must pass before and meet the standard before you are accepted to meet the law when you are doing the LLB.”

According to him, an LLB certificate cannot be used to guarantee a pass in the law school exam as the stakes at the law school and the professional level are higher.

He faulted the Law School students for embarking on the demonstration saying the act was unlawyerly. He suggested that the students could have made use of the institutional arrangements available to them in seeking redress to their grievances.

“I think jumping into the streets, that’s very unlawyerly. I think they had good points but there are institutional arrangements that can address these issues.”

The Makola Law School, the only one in Ghana is known for recording mass failures in its exams including its entrance exams.

This year out 1,280 prospective students only 128 were reported to have passed the law school entrance exam. In 2017 and 2016, out of the over thousand students that sat for the exam only 500 and 450 students respectively passed the exam.

Students have raised various concerns about the trend with some calling for the abolition of the entrance exam.

The Monday, September 7 demonstration by the students were part of their efforts in pushing for reforms in the country’s legal education structure.

The students said they were protesting how legal education is being handled in the country, including the annual mass failure records at the Ghana School of Law.

The demonstration, however, ended abruptly when an effort made by the students to present their petition to the presidency at the Flagstaff House, resulted in a clash with the police which resulted in the arrest of some of the demonstrators.