The Attorney General has rejected a resolution by Parliament for the General Legal Council to admit some 499 law students who were denied admission into the Ghana School of Law despite making the 50 percent pass mark.
Parliament on Friday (29 October 2021) passed a resolution to compel the General Legal Council (GLC) to admit all the 499 aggrieved law students who obtained at least 50% in the entrance exams but had been denied admission to the Ghana School of Law.
The resolution received bipartisan support after deputy majority leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin and deputy minority leader James Avedzi made a case for the resolution to be passed. The resolution also compels the Attorney General and Minister of Justice to see to it that the GLC enforces the resolution.
But in a statement to Parliament on Monday, November 1, Godfred Dame said Parliament is “devoid of the power through the use of Parliamentary resolutions, to control the process of admission into the Ghana School of Law. The mode of exercising legislative power enshrined in article 106 of the Constitution does not admit resolutions.”
“In accordance with section 13(1)(e) and (f) of the Legal Profession Act, 1960 (Act 32), the power to regulate the admission of students to pursue courses of instruction leading to qualification as lawyers and to hold examinations which may include preliminary, intermediate and final examinations has been vested in the General Legal Council. It is correct that section 1(5) of Act 32 stipulates thus:
“The Council shall in the performance of their functions comply with any general directions given by the Minister’. In my respectful opinion, this provision underscores the capacity of the Executive not the Legislature, through the Minister responsible for the General Legal Council, i.e. the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, to direct and advise the Council on major matters of national importance.”
Attached is the Attorney General’s response to Parliament:
