We don’t intend to block anybody from joining the bar – Chief Justice nominee
The General Legal Council has no intention of blocking or preventing any student from joining the bar, Chief Justice nominee, Justice Kwasi Anin Yeboah has said.
With advocates of legal reform on the neck of the GLC to open access to the professional law programme, Justice Anin Yeboah said the GLC gains nothing from blocking people.
He adds that it is necessary to ensure that standards are not dropped.
“We are not taking any steps to block anybody. If you clear me, I am going to insist that the General Legal Council publishes the results, for the consumption of Ghanaians to see what is currently going on in the faculties,” he said.
He was responding to a question on the nature of the examinations contributing to the mass failure of law students seeking to enter the Ghana School of Law when he appeared before Parliament’s Appointment Committee on Monday.
“It will be a very serious indictment if we sit here and say we don’t want some lawyers to join the bar when there are so many lawyers needed in the various administrations and judiciary, ” he insisted.
According to him, the current crop of law students has performed abysmally hence the need to take the necessary steps to deal with the situation.
“We have compiled our records. If it were up to me, I will publish the results that we marked. For the first time in history, it is horrific. I have been a lawyer for 38 years now, and this has not been the trend, ” he stressed.
“For the first time in the history of the legal education, you’ll see a law faculty headed by the acting Dean who has never studied law before.
“ It is in Ghana that we see this. All over the world, this is happening only in Ghana. You go to their library and at the faculty level, you will see non-professional law books than even the basic law books we have. ”
This, he argues has been one of the contributing factors, adding that when he becomes the Chief Justice, he will see to it that the right things are done in the law faculties.
He further said the GLC is putting in measures to address all the problems and concerns about legal education.
However, he maintained that the GLC will not lower the standards in any way.
The nominee’s response comes on the back of a storm generated from the massive failure of LLB candidates seeking to enter the Ghana School of Law.
Law students who took to the streets of Accra to protest and petition the Presidency were assaulted by the police.