The entrance examination for the Ghana School of Law and its subsequent interview may never be cancelled, the authorities have said.
Despite a Supreme Court ruling the process unconstitutional, the Registrar of the School, Nana Osei Bonsu, says there has to be a sieving process to admit LLB holders into the School.
Attempts anchored on the Supreme Court ruling to scuttle today’s entrance examinations were thrown out by the High Court Thursday, July 13, 2017.
The application seeking to halt the exams was brought by 11 LLB graduates who contended the General Legal Council was engaged in an illegality by proceeding to conduct the exam.
But the High Court disagreed, holding that declarations of the apex court were not absolute as claimed by the students.
After the Supreme Court’s decision a couple of weeks ago on a case brought by US-based Ghanaian, Prof. Stephen Kweku Asare, it was anticipated that at least next year, there will not be any entrance examinations and interviews.
But Nana Osei Bonsu says eliminating the exam and interviews is not the wisest thing to do.
“Obviously there should be criteria to select people who are coming; we can increase the capacity by getting more lecturers, by expanding the facilities and increasing the intake but there should be a way to select,” he emphasised.
Nana Bonsu hinted the School has initiated the processes to make the exams and interviews constitutional.
Speaking to Joy News’ Maxwell Agbagbah, the Registrar said, the examinations and interviews cannot be eliminated because “when you stop it, how are you going to admit 1,400 people? How are you going to do that”?
He said whilst more than a thousand people hold LLB degrees and hope to study for the Bar, the Ghana School of Law can only admit 500.
“There is a problem of both infrastructure and the availability of quality or qualified lecturers to teach. We have a problem of lecturers,” he stressed.
Some LLB Degree holders who took the exams Friday were clearly not enthused about the rigorous process they have to go through to become lawyers.
Managing Editor of the Daily Searchlight newspaper, Ken Kurachie who sat the exam said the process was too cumbersome.
Other students expressed similar sentiments.
