The Journey Of Horror That Is Legal Education In Ghana

Sunday, June 16^th June, 2019- Hundreds of repeating and referred students at the Ghana School of law, Makola, and its affiliates are today laboring under great tension as to whether examinations due to be held on Monday 17^th of June, 2019, would come off or not.

This is because whilst the students have served an injunction process on the school, the school authorities have remained absolutely silent as to what they would do on Monday.

So far, the Coalition for the Reformation of Legal Education in Ghana can state that students of the Ghana School of Law have filed an application for injunction on the examinations scheduled to commence Monday 17th June, 2019.

The Plaintiffs, represented by Lawyer Akoto Ampaw, contend that they were given only three (3) days’ notice to register and take their examinations five (5) days thereafter. They are of the view that this time table is just unreasonable and against their fundamental human rights.

The Coalition can state that the motion on notice is scheduled to be heard on Tuesday 18^th June, 2019.

There was an interesting development to the case on Friday when the lawyer for the plaintiffs sought to have a High Court in Accra to officially place an injunction the school through a motion exparte.

The High Court judge said that once the motion on notice had been served on the school, the school should know the consequences of that service.

Present at the court were Counsel for the General Legal Council, Mrs Franklina Adamu, who also serves as the acting Registrar of the Ghana School of Law.

The plaintiffs, led by the 2017-2018 President of the Students Representative Council of the Ghana School of Law Mr. Kobby Amoah, had filled one motion on notice and another one exparte. At the hearing of the exparte application on Friday, Justice Gifty Addo described the exparte application as ‘superfluous’ since the motion on notice has been duly served on the Defendants and that the Defendants ought to know the legal effect of that service.

Legal experts suggest that the service means that the Defendants are precluded from proceeding with the examinations on Monday. They suggest that that is the normal consequence. Whether or not the Ghana School of Law also knows what the meaning of the service on them of the injunction notice means, remains to be seen. So far, as at the writing of this release, the School had not demonstrated that it was going to go by what many believe to be the proper conduct. At least it had not indicated to the students that it was not going to go ahead with the examinations due on Monday.

On Friday, Mr. Akoto Ampaw, in reaction, explained that the Defendants filed the exparte motion out of ‘abundance of caution’.

Meanwhile, in spite of the fact that the Registrar of the School was present in the court when the proceedings were taking place, there had been no official reaction from the school as to what it would do on Monday, putting students on tenterhooks.

The present scenario would seem to be just an extension of the journey of horror that the students embarked on when they made the decision to study professional law, and so far, all indications are that the journey is very far from over.

Signed
Kenneth Kwabena Agyei Kuranchie
Convenor,
Coalition for the Reformation of Legal Education in Ghana