Attorney General Must Halt Law School Interviews

US-based Ghanaian law professor, Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare has called on the Attorney General and Minister of Justice Mrs Marietta Brew Appiah Oppong to intervene and call for the suspension of the impending interviews of 298 qualified Bachelor of Laws degree holders who have applied to Ghana School of Law (GSL). Consequently, he said this would enable all the 298 applicants to proceed to the GSL instead of resorting to interviews which apparently is to further reduce the number of qualified LLB students who can start their professional education in October 2015. Professor Asare explained that �I am writing you today because you are a member of the General Legal Council (GLC). But even more important, I am writing you today because of your power under Act 32(1)(5) to give general directions, which the Council is obliged to comply with� �I am cognizant of your position as the Minister of Justice, which obligates you to be in the forefront of promoting respect for rights, the rule of law and the Constitution. I have noted your membership of the GLC and your power to give general directions to same� he added. The law professor also tasked the Attorney General to call for an emergency meeting of the GLC to discuss strategies of allowing the additional 577 qualified LLB holders to pursue the Qualifying Certificate (QC) at the GSL or using other private arrangements. He also wants a review of Act 32 to bring it to the 21st century as well as wanting the AG to direct that major policy decisions by the GLC be backed by Legislative Instruments and based on substantial public input. Professor Asare who is leading a crusade to overhaul the process used in admitting candidates into the Professional Law Course describing the current situation as not transparent, fair and rational. He explained that the GLC has invited the 298 LLB holders, who obtained a score of 66 or higher on the recent Law School Entrance Examination (LSEE), to attend interviews. According to him, the criterion for "passing" these interviews remains a mystery or as they say "lies in the bosom of the interviewers." He was of the view that one cannot find any legal instrument to support this interview requirement, and naturally the "passing" grade. He described the interview as one more arbitrary hurdle in the way of those who seek to enter the legal profession. �I need not remind you that the GLC is obliged to operate under the 1992 Constitution. In particular, the GLC is obliged to exercise its discretionary powers consistent with Article 296, which calls for fairness, candidness and due process in the exercise of such powers. �I am concerned that these interviews are not an acceptable tool for admitting students to the Ghana School of Law as they create an enormous opportunity for the admission power to be exercised arbitrary, capriciously and in biased fashion. �I have communicated with several students who have "failed" these so called interviews in the past and I must say I am extremely horrified by their stories. �I draw your attention to the fact that the GLC's admission process has no memory� he said. Professor Asare explained that qualified LLB students who "fail" these so called interviews in one period have to register to retake the LSEE in a subsequent year and attend another interview, conditional on meeting the new threshold of that subsequent year. According to him, with no "feedback" on why they failed the interview and having to retake the LSEE with the most recent LLB graduates and the hundreds of prior LLB graduates who have not been allowed to proceed to the GSL, the affected students face increasingly dim prospects of ever being admitted to the GSL. At the same time, he also wants to draw your attention to the 577 highly qualified LLB students who have not been invited to these problematic interviews. He noted that these students were denied the option of pursuing the Qualifying Certificate (QC) presumably because they scored less than 66 on the LSEE. �I hasten to add that this threshold has nothing to do with whether these 577 students can qualify as lawyers but rather have to do with a contrived "facility availability" problem� he said. He stated that in reality, with various innovative strategies, including privatizing the QC education and virtual classes, it should be possible to train all the LLB holders even though they still have to meet the QC requirements before being admitted to the Bar. �Incidentally, I must say I have grave concerns about the LSEE. I have located, at least, one student whose reported score was 40 points less than the actual score. �This raises fundamental questions about the LSEE quiet apart from the arbitrariness of the threshold, which fluctuates from year to year with no rhyme or reason.