Law Students Hail Mahama’s Manifesto Promise For Law School

The leadership of the National Association of Law Students (NALS) have said that plans outlined for legal education in Ghana by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is better than what the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) is promising.

While the NPP claims the problem with law education is infrastructure, the NDC is promising an entire reform that will allow more accredited institutions to offer the final leg of legal education before lawyers are called to the bar.

In a statement issued today and made available to Whatsup News, NALS say it is “…very sceptical that infrastructure can adequately, sufficiently and timeously address access and year-on-year backlog.”

NALS continues: “NALS notes that no significant construction can take place in twelve (12) months, compared to legislative reform, to end the year-on-year backlog and forced dropouts. NALS notes that NDC‟s succinctly put message simultaneously gives hope and certainty, and portrays the NDC as more caring about the legal education crisis, as at least having understood and committed to resolving the problem.”

Other legal luminaries have hailed the NDC plan, including renowned US-based law professor, Professor Kwaku Asare who described the NDC solution as “more superior”.

“On the issue of making legal education accessible, it is fair to say NDC has done more listening than NPP and has offered a far superior solution to the problem. Universities, not some centralized government school, should be in charge of legal education,” posted Pro. Asare on his Facebook.

He has mounted a relentless crusade against what he calls a scam legal educational system in Ghana, following the mass failure of prospective lawyers a few years ago.

The opposition NDC in its 2020 Manifesto appears to have found a solution to the perennial problem that only enrich the legal council  of Ghana through the mass failure of desperate lawyers seeking to be called to the Bar.

According to the NDC, it will give accreditations to more certified law faculties across the country to broaden accessibility to legal education in Ghana.Currently, there is only one law school in Ghana that accredits lawyers to the Bar. The Ghana School of Law at Mokola in Accra has been fingered in many scandals that critics have said is due to its monopoly over legal education in Ghana.
A recent attempt by disgruntled law students to demand an expansion of legal education in Ghana was met with brutal police clampdown, that led to serious injuries for some of the protesting students. The students would later dub that brutal encounter “Red Monday”