No more interviews at Ghana School of Law

Starting 2018 LLB students who apply to the Ghana School of Law would only be required to sit for an entrance examination after which qualified candidates would be admitted.

This follows an agreement between the General Legal Council and Parliament’s Subsidiary Legislation Committee to eliminate the interview session as an admission requirement to the school.

Committee Chairman, Mahama Ayariga, made the revelation after a closed-door meeting with the GLC and a deputy Attorney General on Tuesday, February 27, 2018.

The GLC’s Legislative Instrument (LI) before Parliament has spawned a fresh debate about legal education, with some lawmakers and critics mobilising support to prevent it from being passed.

The entrance examination and interviews as admission requirements at the Law School were introduced in 2012 but the Supreme Court in 2017 held that it was illegal.

The two are not in the Professional Law Course Regulations 1984 (LI 1296) that regulate law education in Ghana, the apex court said, and directed the GLC to get an LI to support the process.

But the LI had faced stiff opposition from some lawmakers, sections of Ghanaians and potential students who argue that the arrangement is not in the interest of the country.

Mr Ayariga made this known after a meeting to iron out concerns regarding the admission process.

He said: “the GLC and government have agreed to fix the problems at the Law School.”

“Unknown to us the government has taken some far-reaching decisions in this regard and the Deputy Attorney General showed us a cabinet communication that approved a substantive bill which will be brought to Parliament amending the parent legislation which is Act 32,” he said.

The Bawku Central Member of Parliament (MP) said there is also a bill on the establishment of law schools yet-to-be laid in Parliament that will address the issue of access to professional legal education.

Mr Ayariga was confident the two new bills the government was working on “will address the wider concerns” of Ghanaians.

The LI is due to be discussed in Parliament today, February 28, 2018, but the MP said it will be needless for his colleagues to reject it because the committee had attempted to address concerns of students.