The Law Society of Ghana (LSG) has said it is concerned about a directive by the General Legal Council (GLC) that candidates seeking to sit for the Law School Entrance Examination sign an undertaking that waives their right to seek redress. problems that may arise from the examination.
A statement issued by the LSG said the undertaking, if signed by candidates, "takes away their right to request re-marking of scripts, re-calculation of scores or review of marks".
A statement signed by Secretary-General Atukwei Quay also said that candidates who sign the pledge "cannot also demand to see their marked answer scripts or the marking schemes used to mark the questions".
“Under the terms of the undertaking, any results published and published by the GLC will be final and no question can be raised,” LSG noted.
The group said its concerns "arise mainly from the fact that the GLC is a national statutory body responsible for training and licensing lawyers to practice in Ghana as well as regulating the practice of law in Ghana".
LSG said it "shares the concerns raised by the students" and many well-meaning Ghanaians who have spoken out against this "unjust, unfair, arbitrary and reckless GLC directive".
“What exactly is the intention of this directive? What is GLC trying to achieve? Like many Ghanaians, LSG also believes that the directive, if adopted, is likely to be a "potential source of corruption, nepotism and abuse of power".
"It is remarkable that the GLC, an agency that is supposed to train and license lawyers with ethical principles of fairness, justice, transparency and high integrity, itself wants to chart a course that is in direct opposition to these principles and is contrary to best practice".
"How can a body that seeks to educate people to defend the rights of others, to exude fairness and justice, try to demonstrate the very opposite of these principles?" the group wondered.
It says: "The GLC Directive is against best practice and we urge them to be transparent in their dealings rather than opaque in legal education".
"This brazen display of power and arbitrariness must not be allowed in a constitutional dispensation like our country," LSG insisted.
He added: “There are avenues for redress in our jurisprudence as a country. It is the constitutional right of every Ghanaian to seek redress when he is dissatisfied with the action of any public body”.
"Any such policy to displace the jurisdiction of the court is not acceptable."
“LSG calls on the GLC to withdraw the directive and instead put in place processes and procedures that will strengthen public confidence through transparency and accountability. The GLC must know that public confidence in legal education is rapidly declining and as an association we humbly call on the GLC to reconsider its position in order to gain greater public confidence.
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