This was contained in the 2022 annual budget submitted by the office of the Attorney-General and Ministry of Justice to the Finance Ministry.

“The General Legal Council enrolled a total of 309 lawyers to the Bar in 2021. The Council successfully disposed of 120 disciplinary cases out of 130 complaints received against lawyers as of September 2021.

“The Independent Examination Committee of the General Legal Council (GLC) conducted entrance examination for 2,884 applicants and out of these, 790 of the applicants were admitted while 499 applicants are awaiting admission next year,” portions of the statement read.

The Attorney-General, Godfred Yeboah Dame, earlier gave the GLC, three options to ensure the students get the opportunity to get legal education.

He said fairness required that when the GLC decided to change the pass mark, they should have communicated it.

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He added that the failure of the GLC to publish the pass mark in the Daily Graphic notice was a material defect that created doubt about the process.

Meanwhile, South Dayi Member of Parliament, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, reacting to the development, noted it is a pointer that one must never sleep on his rights.

From an initial vehement denial in Court that the 499 failed to an admission in Parliament that they actually passed the entrance Exams & are due to commence studies in January 2022, is a pointer that one must never sleep on his rights.

CONGRATULATIONS to my dear APOLLO 499. pic.twitter.com/3nwnvHChiA

— Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, Esq. MP. (@etsedafeamekpor) December 16, 2021

In a statement issued on November 17, the Union’s Secretary, Julius Kwame Anthony, and the Secretary for Societies and Welfare, David Hughes Devereaux, jointly expressed their gratitude to the GLC for finally granting access to the students to pursue their legal ambitions.

NUGS also expressed gratitude to the Attorney-General and Parliament for their separate efforts in resolving the issue that had been bothering the affected students for some weeks now.

“We thank the President of the Republic and the Attorney-General for taking prompt action to ensure a timely decision which satisfies all parties. We are particularly grateful to Parliament, especially members of the Constitutional, Legal, and Parliamentary Affairs Committee for responding to our petition and that of the National Association of Law Students by passing the 29th October, 2021 resolution, directing the Attorney-General to take necessary steps towards the admission of students,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, NUGS wants the General Legal Council to issue clearer modalities that will inform how the 499 students will be able to begin their studies effectively. The Union is further imploring Parliament to expedite action towards the reformation of legal education in the country.

“While we await the General Legal Council to issue a clear modality for the students to join their colleagues, we urge Parliament to proceed with steps to reform our legal education architecture by seeing through the amendment of Act 32, the Legal Profession’s Act,” the statement added.

NUGS is a national body, charged with the responsibility of seeing to the welfare of all students across the country. On the back of this, the Union has been fighting aggressively over the past few weeks for some 499 students who were denied admission into the Ghana Law School.

According to the General Legal Council, the said students failed to meet the requirements for admission. The students, however, refuted the decision of the GLC, arguing that they met the required threshold.

This subsequently sparked series of debates between the students, the GLC, NUGS, the Attorney-General and the Parliament of Ghana, as well as other relevant stakeholders.

Lawyer for the students, Martin Kpebu, who confirmed to Citi News that the case has been withdrawn, said the decision was premised on the AG’s letter to the GLC for the aggrieved students to be admitted.

The students took the matter to court on the basis that they were denied admission to the Ghana School of Law by the General Legal Council, although they passed the examination by the mandated 50 percent pass mark.

Several appeals were made for the students to be admitted, including Parliament, which directed the General Legal Council to admit the students.

The Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Dame in a letter to Parliament subsequently indicated that their directive was unlawful.

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However, it has emerged in a letter written to the GLC before the parliamentary order, that the Minister of Justice, Godfred Dame, had actually asked the GLC to grant admission to the students.

In the letter, the Attorney General suggested that the students be admitted in November this year or in May 2022.

He, however, recommended three pathways by which the admission can be done.

Parliament last week unanimously voted, directing the GLC to immediately admit the 499 students who passed but have been denied admission to the Ghana School of Law.

Parliament further directed the Attorney General to ensure that this resolution of Parliament is respected.

But in a letter addressed to the Speaker of Parliament, Mr Dame argued that Parliament cannot use a Resolution to make such directions.

“Whilst recognising the general legislative powers of Parliament in Ghana, except as have been circumscribed by the Constitution, I am constrained to advise that Parliament is devoid of power through the use of Parliamentary resolutions, to control the process of admission into the Ghana School of Law.

“The mode of exercising legislative power enshrined in article 106 of the Constitution does not admit of resolutions,” he said.

The Attorney-General continued that it is instead the Executive that can lawfully make such directions to him. And noted that the President was already taking some actions on the matter.

“It is correct that section 1(5) of Act 32 stipulates thus: “The Council shall in the performance of their functions comply with any general directions given by the Minister.

“In my respectful opinion, this provision underscores the capacity of the Executive, not the Legislature, through the Minister responsible for the General Legal Council, i.e. the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, to direct and advise the Council on major matters of national importance.

“In this regard, it is pertinent to indicate that by a letter dated 18th October 2021 received at my office on 21st October 2021, His Excellency the President forwarded the contents of a petition by the ‘499 candidates’ to me for my comments in order to enable him to respond. Another petition dated 20 October 2021 by the National Association of Law Students was also delivered to the President.

“Upon delivery of my comments on the matters raised in both petitions and following further consultations with my good self, by a letter dated 26th October 2021 (three clear days before the resolution of Parliament), received at my office on 27th October 2021, the President directed me to, pursuant to section 1(5) of Act 32,… make the necessary intervention to the General Legal Council, on behalf of the 499 students, to address the issue,” the statement continued.

A private legal practitioner has downplayed Parliament’s directive to the General Legal Council (GLC) to admit the 499 candidates who were denied admission to the Ghana School of Law.

Lawyer Nana Adjei Baffour-Awuah maintained that, the directive has no binding effect on GLC which is the creation of statute.

Members of Parliament ( MP) voted in support of a motion filed by Majority Chief Whip, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, which prayed the House to compel the GLC to admit all candidates who passed the entrance examination.

The Effutu MP described the actions of the GLC prior to the entrance examination, as unacceptable noting that, it has the tendency to make the law course unattractive to prospective applicants.

But lawyer Nana Adjei Baffour-Awuah vehemently disagreed with the assertion of the MP who is also a lawyer.

Speaking on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen programme Friday, he said the decision of Parliament is artisan and populists.

He indicated that, the directive by Parliament puts “needless pressure” on the GLC when it passed the law governing their operations.

The legal practitioner feared such interference in the work of the GLC would open the floodgates for quacks in the profession.

“Even at the court people are complaining about misconduct of some judges and lawyers. This is worrying so the GLC must be allowed to do its work,” Mr Baffour-Awuah added.

The case, ‘Ganaku & ORS. V General Legal Council and Attorney-General’ concerns the controversial results of the entrance exams of the Ghana School of Law and was scheduled for hearing on Friday, December 20, 2019.

Applicants said they arrived at the Human Rights Court only to learn that the case was not in the system.

The students say at about 8:00 am Friday, they went to the Accra High Court for a scheduled hearing, but after consulting the court clerk concerning the courtroom where the hearing was to take place, they were informed that “the case was not in the system.”

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Recounting the turn of events in a short release, the applicants gave the following account:

“The applicants upon further enquiries made their way to one of the Human Rights Courts which was opened at the time.  At the Human Rights Court, the clerk admitted knowledge of the case but informed the applicants that the case file had not been brought to the court.

“On the advice of the court clerk, the applicants proceeded to the Court Registry for further enquiries.

“At the Court Registry, the applicants were informed that the application had indeed been filed on 12th December 2019, but “they [Court registry] had forgotten to scan it and assign it to a judge.”

“While some applicants stayed at the court registry and demanded the anomaly be corrected, others went back to the Human Rights Court to ensure the clerk facilitated the hearing of the application.

“The clerk initiated the process of assigning the case. However, the clerk later announced that the judge at the Human Rights Court to hear the application ‘was indisposed’.”

The reliefs being sought by the applicants include the following:

1. A declaration that the undertaking imposed by the General Legal Council (GLC) on the Applicants to accept without question its decision in respect of the published results of the examination organized on July 26, 2019, as final is arbitrary, unlawful and void.

2. A declaration that the failure, refusal or neglect of the GLC  to publish a procedure for remarking the examination papers of the Applicants is arbitrary, unlawful and void.

3. An order directed at the GLC to publish the procedure for remarking the exam papers of the Applicants within 7 days.

The mass examination failure at the Ghana School of Law this year kicked started a series of agitations among the students.

Out of the 1,820 students who took the examinations to enable them to enter the law school, only 128 passed. The results follow a similar outcome in 2018.

Before heading to the court, the students petitioned Parliament over the recurrent poor results among other issues.

“Nothing at all happened at the Ministries, we did not call the police, what happened was after the law students had left the Ministry,” he said.

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He made this revelation in an interview on Joy News’ evening programme, PM Express.

Mr Dame condemned the manner in which the police handled the students, saying it wasn’t the right way to go about the situation.

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He further revealed that he wasn’t bothered by the events that happened including the manner in which he was hassled by the students at the Ministry, saying that he himself had also taken part in demonstrations before and so understood the students.

Source: Adomonline.com | Fuaad Dodoo

The group clashed with the police during the protest with 13 of its members arrested in a standoff between police and the protesters which lasted for several minutes. Police deployed water cannons and tasers to drive the charged crowd away.

Speaking in an interview on Accra-based Citi FM, the Information Minister said “the confusion is an embarrassing spectacle and generally, it is totally unacceptable that an otherwise peaceful demonstration by people who want access to legal education will end up in the scenes that we saw on television and social media.”

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To Mr Nkrumah, the police should have exercised restraint in dealing with the protesters and the situation that broke out.

“The government also believes that the police must always abide by their clarion call which is to protect and serve. We are of the view that the handling of such a situation must always be done in a manner that allows a balanced achievement of the objectives,” he said.

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Source: Adomonline.com | Gertrude Otchere

Information gathered by Joy News suggested that a standoff between police and the protesters lasted for several minutes as police deployed water cannons and tasers to drive the charged crowd away.

A yen.com cameraman was hit by a shocker in the process leaving him with an injury in his arm.

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Watch video above:

Source: Adomonline.com

Results showed that out of the 1,820 candidates who sat for the entrance exam, only 128, representing 7 per cent passed.

The mass failure comes on the back of a similar failure in the Ghana Bar exam few months ago. More than 90 per cent of the 727 students who wrote that exams failed, sparking agitation among the students.

The affected persons marched to parliament where they presented a petition to have the General Legal Council address what they termed as a “systemic problem” at the School of Law.

Key among their concerns were the mass failure, the fees charged for resit and remarking, as well as the policy of rewriting all papers if a student fails more than three papers.

The difficulty in getting admission into the Ghana School of Law for the professional course to become a lawyer has provoked questions on the accessibility of legal education in Ghana.

The public has even become more concerned following recent comments by the Chief Justice, Sophia Akuffo, which seemed to suggest that there is a deliberate attempt to limit the production of lawyers in the country.

Addressing the Bench, Bar and Faculty Conference at the Labadi Beach Hotel on the theme ‘The Changing Landscape in the Law – the Judge, the Lawyer and the Academic’, the Chief Justice said any attempt to allow the production of lawyers without efficient control, checks and balances will be rejected irrespective of who is advocating for it.

“Those of us who have been too long on the General Legal Council, those of us who spent too long on the disciplinary committee, we have cause to worry because the kinds of misconduct are such that there is no way anybody envisaged these categories of misconduct when the Legal Profession Act was being enacted in the 1960s,” she said.

“Those of you lawyers and those of you lecturers who are busy advocating free scale, mass admissions into the professional law course, and mass production of lawyers, be careful what you wish for… Those of you lawyers and those of you lecturers who are busy advocating free scale, mass admissions into the professional law course, and mass production of lawyers, be careful what you wish for,” she added.

But, the Students Representative Council of the school, under the leadership of Jonathan Alua disclosed their petition to parliament yielded some results by way of recommendations which he urged the General Legal Council to implement.

Source: 3News