Parliament orders GLC to admit 499 Law School applicants

The Parliament of Ghana has ordered the General Legal Council to admit all 499 Law School applicants for successfully passing the Entrance Exams.

This was a unanimous decision arrived at through a voice vote on the floor of the House on Friday, October, 29, 2021.

The call comes after a High Court adjourned to November 9, the case involving 143 Law School applicants and the General Legal Council(GLC).

Speaking on the floor of Parliament, the Deputy Majority Leader and MP for Effutu, Alexander Afenyo Markins indicated that the Ghana School of Law per its posture, is making the study of Law unattractive.

He therefore called on them to admit the 499 applicants since it was not too late.

“We are telling the Ghana law school that they continuously frustrating students, they are making the study of law unattractive. I know that the post call students they had started lectures , they started last week but for the Professional law they are starting next week,” he said

“It is not too late to admit them because they have passed,” he added.

When the case was called today, the Attorney General requested an adjournment to file certain processes.

Lawyer for the applicants, Martin Kpebu also indicated that they will be filing a supplementary response once they are served with the AG’s processes.

Therefore, the Court presided over by Justice Nicholas Mensah Abodakpi heeded the AG’s request, thus adjourning proceedings to November 9, 2021.

 “with the consent of the parties and their lawyers, this case would be adjourned to Nov 9, 2021.” he indicated.

Background

Two thousand and thirty-four(2,034) LLB Candidates failed this year’s Ghana School of Law(GSL) entrance Examination.

Only 790 applicants representing 28% out of the total 2,824 who sat for the exams, passed.

On 5th October 2021, the National Association of Law students(NALS) lamented the ‘inexcusable’ exclusion of some 499 candidates in the 2021 admission list of the Ghana School of Law despite their attainment of the IEC’s agreed 50% pass mark in a statement.

Furthermore, the President of the Students’ Representative Council(SRC) of the Ghana School of Law, Wonder Kutor at a press conference on October 7, 2021, called on the General Legal Council(GLC) to admit the 499 additional candidates who qualified into the Ghana School of Law but were denied admission.

499 aggrieved Law Students have also petitioned the Office of the President.

The petition, which was signed by Mr.Samson Adjei, one of the aggrieved students, reiterated the fact that they have obtained the Fifty percent (50%) minimum pass mark in the 2021 Ghana School of Law Entrance exams thus requesting admission.

The office of the President has acknowledged receipt of the said petition.

 A letter signed by the Secretary to the President, Nana Asante Bediatuo, and addressed to Mr.Sampson Adjei noted that the petition has been received and its content is being reviewed by the office.

143 applicants of the Ghana School of Law sued the General Legal Council and Attorney General, seeking an interlocutory injunction against the respondents.

According to the applicants,  they sat the August 24, 2021 entrance Exams of the Ghana School of Law and passed yet were unjustifiably denied admission by the General Legal Council.

The suit which is deposed to by one Daniel Sackey, an applicant of the GSL, is seeking the court’s intervention to curb irreparable damage that will be done to them if the 2021/2022 academic year of the Ghana School of Law is started without them.

Furthermore, they note that while pursuing their LLB, they heard about the 50% pass mark into the Ghana School of Law.

That this 50% pass mark has over the years been communicated publicly to Ghanaians and the same was done in 2019 by the then Chief Justice, Sophia Akuffo.

They also state that before the entrance exams in May this year, the Acting Director of the Ghana School of Law, Mr.Maxwell Opoku Agyemang reiterated the 50% pass mark policy.

Moreover, an advertisement to this effect was published on May 14, 2021, in the Daily Graphic as part of an invitation for applications from qualified LLB graduates for admission into the Ghana School of Law.

In summary, they indicate that the admission procedure involved them passing the written examination conducted by the 1st respondent per the requirement they had heard years ago.

However, the applicants lament that contrary to the above they sat the exams and obtained marks ranging from 50 to 61 but the General Legal Council has refused to offer them admission based on the illegal explanation that even though they attained the minimum threshold, if their marks were broken down, they will not obtain at least one-half(50%) of the marks in each section of the examination; A being a total of 40 marks and Section B being a total of 60 marks. Thus they did not obtain at least 20 marks in section A and 30 marks in section B.

Further in the suit, the applicants indicate that the new pass mark rule by the GSL was only published after they had already sat the exams and passed by the existing minimum threshold.

They note therefore that the raw scores provided by the General Legal Council showed that they have indeed made the pass mark but not the failure being asserted by the 1st Respondent.

Furthermore, the applicants say that the new rules being applied by the General Legal Council that has led to them being denied admission constitutes a retrospective application of the rule.

That the Constitution, 1992 prohibits retrospective application of legislation in article 107.

Also, they indicate that such retrospective application of illegal rule constitutes a violation of their fundamental human rights which includes their right to administrative justice of fairness, etc under article 23 of the 1992 Constitution.

In conclusion, they aver that the retrospective application of the illegal rule, also constitutes a breach of their educational rights in articles 25 and 17 of the 1992 Constitution thus called on the court to restrain the General Legal Council.