Ghana News

You can’t direct GLC to admit 499 candidates – A-G takes on Parliament

The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, has written a Parliament with the clear message that it cannot order the General Legal Council (GLC) to admit some 499 candidates who have been denied admission to the Ghana School of Law.

“While recognising the general legislative powers of Parliament in Ghana, except as have been circumscribed by the constitution, I am constrained to advise that Parliament is devoid of power through the use of Parliamentary resolution, 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 of resolutions,” he stated in a letter to the legislative body.

Following public outcry and a petition by the National Association of Law Students (NALS) to Parliament over the denial of admission to the 499 students, lawmakers on Friday, October 29, 2021, voted in support of a motion filed by Majority Chief Whip, Alexander Afenyo-Markin.

The motion was to compel the GLC to admit all the students.

Following the resolution, First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Joe Osei-Owusu, directed the GLC to “proceed and admit all the students who passed in accordance with the advertised rules of the examination.”

The 499 students were refused admission despite scoring 50 per cent, which is the required pass mark.

The GLC has said although the students scored 50 per cent, they did not do so by scoring the required marks in both sections A and B of the paper.

The GLC said the students were expected to score at least 50 per cent of the total marks in section A and the same for section B.

This rule was not made known to the students prior to the start of the exams, and the decision to deny the students admission has been widely criticised.

In Mr Dame’s letter to Parliament, he states that it is rather the Executive that has the right to direct the GLC to admit the 499 applicants and not the legislature.

“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.”

Read his full letter to Parliament below.

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