A United States-based Ghanaian lawyer, Professor Kwaku Asare, has resuscitated his dispute with the General Legal Council, following the latter’s announcement that it intends to administer entrance examination on July 27, 2018.
In a writ of summons filed on June 4, 2018, and a motion for interlocutory injunction, filed on June 11th, 2018, the Professor is asking the Supreme Court to halt the impending examination and to direct the Council to follow the Court’s order of June 22, 2017, to use whatever law is in effect on December 22, 2017 for the 2018 admissions to the Ghana School of Law.
[contextly_sidebar id=”QK3AW0fi0hXBV1GQzk7K92z70IdUNsM8″]In his sworn affidavit, Prof. Asare asserts that “the failure to make changes to LI 1296 either puts the defendants in contempt of the Court’s order cited supra or requires the constructive inference that they have complied with the Court’s order by impliedly endorsing LI 1296 as the law to govern the admissions in 2018.”
He further avers that “in either case, it is undisputable that as at December 22, 2017 (the Court’s deadline), LI 1296 had neither been amended, repealed nor replaced, and thus remained unequivocally the only law on admission to govern the 2018 admissions.”
It would be recalled that Parliament passed LI 2235 in March 2018 that got rid of the interviews while retaining the entrance examination for admissions to the Ghana Law School.
However, Professor Asare does not think that this new LI 2235 can govern the 2018 admissions, as indicated by his sworn affidavit to the effect that “Plaintiff is aware of and asks the Court to take judicial notice that the defendants laid LI 2235 in Parliament after the Court ordered deadline and same become law on March 15th, 2018. Plaintiff verily believes that this LI, even if constitutional, which Plaintiff strongly doubts, has come too late to be relevant for the 2018 admissions vis-à-vis the Court’s June 22, 2017 order. It is Plaintiff’s belief that as between the parties in Asare v AG & General Legal Council [Unreported Case, Writ no. JI/1/2016], this Court’s judgment that the law in place on December 22, 2017 shall govern the admissions of 2018 cannot be assailed by LI 2235 or any other statute.”
Hearing Date:
In a series of Facebook posts, Professor Asare questioned why his motion for an interlocutory injunction, filed on June 11, 2018, has not been heard.
He is particularly concerned that the registrar seems to settle on a date after the exam.
“When I reached him to inquire about the status of the motion, he said: “the General legal Council acts as if it has the Supreme Court in its pocket.”
“The Supreme Court has a duty to shed this image by sending the clearest message ever that its orders are serious and binding on all parties.”
He is asking for a hearing date within the next 4 days.
Supreme Court ruling
When the Supreme Court declared the interviews unconstitutional, it said the requirements are in violation of the Legislative Instrument 1296, which gives direction for the mode of admission.
The Justices in delivering their judgment, also indicated that their order should not take retrospective effect, but should be implemented in six months, when admissions for the 2018 academic year begin.
The plaintiff, Professor Kwaku Asare, went to court in 2015, challenging the legality of the modes of admission used by the Ghana School of Law. According to him, the number of people who were admitted into the Ghana School of Law was woefully small considering the number of people who possessed LLB.
The Ghana Law School has been criticized for being overly rigid considering that it serves 12 schools providing LLB degrees.
The current training regime limits the intake into the Ghana Law School to under 500 of the about-2000 LLB graduates annually. In his suit, Professor Kwaku Asare prayed for a declaration that GLC’s imposition of entrance examination and interview requirements for the Professional Law Course violates Articles ll (7) 297 (d) 23, 296 (a) (b) and 18 (2) of the 1992 Constitution.
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By: Marian Ansah/citinewsroom.com/Ghana