Kwaku Asare slams GLC over “monopolistic” legal education system

They do not care so much about quality, and they destroy social welfare, and that is exactly what is going on.”

Is allowance instantly strangers applauded

Private legal practitioner, Kwaku Asare has called out the General Legal Council for operating what he describes as a “monopoly” in legal education and training in the country.

Some 499 students were deemed to have failed the just ended law school entrance exams , although they obtained the minimum 50% pass mark. A later communication by the Director of Legal Education, Mr. Kwasi Prempeh-Eck indicated that the candidates had to obtain the minimum pass mark in either of the two sections in the exam.

The candidates criticized this decision on grounds that the full terms were only communicated and applied after the exams had been written.

In an interaction with Accra-based Citi News, Mr. Asare blamed the members of the GLC for failing to correct the anomaly.

Four of the most senior Supreme Court justices sit on the General Legal Council and it is frightening to me that these four cannot understand that Article 25 (2) says you cannot have a monopoly. They cannot understand that you cannot issue administrative fiats to undo regulations… Only a monopolist that is convinced that the powers be cannot touch it can afford to do such a thing year after year. This is the sixth year that such unjust, capricious, arbitrary, unconstitutional, unethical practice has been allowed to go on..”

Mr. Asare further observed that by allowing a monopolistic system to thrive in Ghana’s legal education sector, the GLC had superintended over the creation of a system that “tends to restrict output”.

“The essence of the problem is that we have created a monopolist provider of professional law courses. Monopolists tend to restrict output. They do not care so much about quality, and they destroy social welfare, and that is exactly what is going on.”

“The Ghana School of Law is a monopoly and as economic theory predicts, it restricts output. It extracts rent from the students. It has no incentive to be productive and satisfy consumers, and it has destroyed social welfare from 2015 when I first noticed the problem till now.”