School of Law admissions: Parliament lacks power on processes - Dame submits

The Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Godred Yeboah Dame says Parliament lacked the power to use Parliamentary resolution to control the process of admission into the Ghana School and Law.

According to GBC’s Parliamentary Correspondent Bubu Klinogo, the Attorney General made this known in a letter he wrote to the Speaker.

Parliament is yet to comment on the matter.

Background

Parliament on October 29, 2021, by unanimous decision, passed a resolution directing the General Legal Council and the Ghana School of Law to admit every student who obtained the 50 % pass mark in the 2021 Ghana School of Law Entrance Examination as advertised prior to the Examination.

This implied that all the 499 students who had been denied admission into the school must be admitted at all cost.

Law School Full

President Akufo-Addo recently commented that there was no space to accommodate the aggrieved 499 law students who were denied admission into the Ghana School of Law.

His comments came 24 hours after the aggrieved students demonstrated and presented a petition to parliament and the Presidency

President Akufo Addo admitted the concerns but added that the school cannot be forced to admit all students.

Background

On Wednesday, October 20, aggrieved candidates, as well as their sympathizers, who sat for the 2021 Ghana School of Law Entrance Examination, hit the streets to register their concerns over how some 499 candidates were denied entrance.

The protest organized by the National Association of Law Students (NALS) dubbed ‘Red Wednesday’, accused the General Legal Council (GLC) of intentionally failing a chunk of the candidates because of a new quota system.

The controversies over the mass failure in the Ghana School of Law Entrance Examination are a result of the GLC’s decision to apply a new rule requiring candidates to obtain a pass of 50% in each of the two sections, namely A and B.

Appeals

Ghana School of Law, Students Representative Council had earlier called on the General Legal Council to reconsider its decision to admit 499 candidates into Ghana School of Law in accordance with a legitimate expectation of 50% pass mark.

The student representative body argued that they have finished auditing the raw score of all candidates who took part in the Entrance Examination and they have extracted about 449 students that are equally qualified to be admitted into Ghana School of Law without further delay.

According to Wonder Victor Kutor, the SRC President at the News Conference on the ‘Ghana School of Law Entrance Examination Results and matters arising submitted that, “it is unfair to law students to be treated in such an unfair manner and it goes against all detects of our constitutional democracy. Especially at the time the three arms of Government: The President, The Chief Justice and The Speaker are headed by astute lawyers and we know that lawyers are trained to be the vanguard of the Constitution”.

It is against this background “the SRC had respectfully called on the General Legal Counsel to reconsider its decision which we deem unfair, and they must reconsider and admit 449 candidates’ for peace to prevail, “we are keeping our card to our chest.

Attorney General delays case

Meanwhile, Correspondent Yvonne Asare-Ofei reported that the Attorney General had asked the Human Rights Division of the Accra High Court for a short time to file certain processes pertaining to the suit filed by the aggrieved students of the Ghana School of Law.

Now that the Attorney General, AG, and Minister of Justice had written to the Speaker of Parliament notifying the House that it had no jurisdiction over the Ghana Law School admission processes, Parliament may have to respond to the matter.

For now, the AG says President Akufo Addo has directed him to expedite the case relating to the admission of the 499 aggrieved Ghana Law School Candidates.