Access to Law School an immense problem; expansion needed – Deputy A-G-designate

Deputy Attorney-General and Minister-designate for Justice, Mr. Godfred Dame says there is urgent need to expand access to legal education in the country.

Answering questions before the Appointments Committee of Parliament, the private legal practitioner said access to legal education has been an immense problem.

He said whilst many universities and other institutions have been licensed to offer Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) programmes, the Ghana School of Law remains physically incapable of accommodating the large numbers of LLB holders desiring to pursue the professional law course.

“Part of the problem is also due to the manner in which legal educations is regulated because you have those universities which are offering LLB doing so by virtue of having received accreditation to do the programme but the law profession itself is regulated by the Legal Profession Act (LPA) which stipulates that the General Legal Council shall have oversight responsibility for legal education and they have as a matter of fact delegated that function to the Board of Legal Education by virtue of its powers under the LPA (Act 32). So you find a situation where the Law School itself is fully managed by the General Legal Council but the General Legal Council does not have as much control over the universities which are offering LLB,” he said.

He said a two-pronged solution - statutory and physical space - is required to fix the problem of perennial anxiety by LLB holders scrambling to enter the Law School.

More soon…
Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com