US-based Ghanaian legal practitioner, Professor Kwazu Asare has downplayed the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) approach to tackling challenges with legal education in Ghana.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) in its 2020 manifesto promised to expand infrastructure to increase access to professional legal education should its mandate be extended in December 2020.
Prof. Asare, however, believes this approach is not a solution to the problem.
He said, breaking the monopoly created for professional legal education being administered by the Ghana School of Law is the best approach to resolving these challenges.
“It is kind of surprising that after eight years, the solution they came up with in their manifesto was one line talking about legal infrastructure. It connotes a lack of seriousness. They do not really see the problem.”
“I have made it clear in so many instances. There is already an infrastructure in place to deliver legal education. The law faculty can deliver legal education that they are talking about. The only thing that is stopping them now is a law promulgated by the General Legal Council that says that only the Ghana School of Law can offer professional legal education,” he told Citi News in an interview.
Professor Asare has been advocating for reforms in Ghana’s legal education.
The lawyer has on several occasions emphasized the need for the General Legal Council to be scrapped and replaced with an independent regulatory agency to regulate law education in Ghana.
He has consistently stated that the General Legal Council has departed from its duty of providing persons with law degrees the opportunity to pursue professional education to rather restricting them.