Prime News Ghana

Over 700 failed law students request answers from Legal Council

By Clement Edward Kumsah
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Some 797 law students who sat for their entrance examination in July are seeking an explanation from the General Legal council why they failed.

The Supreme Court of Ghana in June declared as unconstitutional the entrance exams and interview session before admitting new students into the Ghana Law School.

The Apex court, in a case brought before it by Professor Kwaku Asare, a United States-based Ghanaian lawyer in 2015, the requirements were in violation of a Legislative Instrument which gives direction for the mode of admission.

The Concerned Law Students who are the affected group reiterated the Supreme Court’s judgment saying “it will be a travesty of justice to still require qualified applicants to pass an entrance examination and subsequent interview in order to be admitted into the Ghana School of Law.”

In a statement, the group challenged the General Legal Council to release the raw scores of every candidate as they say it is absurd for 797 candidates to fail.

“We call on the GLC to release results of every candidate since it is difficult to fathom that the rest of the 797 candidates whose name did not appear on the pass list all failed. Assuming without admitting that this number failed, the GLC must publish their raw scores/total marks in order to ensure transparency and fairness.”

They, therefore, appealed to the GLC to do what is needful and offer automatic admission to all qualified applicants (all LLB holders who applied) as per the Supreme Court ruling.

 

Find below the full statement

The leadership of the Concerned Law Students note with concern some matters arising from the results published yesterday by the General Legal Council (GLC) of the entrance exams conducted by the GLC on July 14, 2017:

We wish to reiterate first of all that since the ruling was expressed on the illegality of the admission process, it will be a travesty of justice to still require qualified applicants to pass an entrance examination and subsequent interview in order to be admitted into the Ghana School of Law.

Secondly, the basis for the Independent Examination Body (IEB) and its operations was fundamentally flawed by the Supreme Court when it was declared unknown, therefore illegal and needs not be accorded presence beyond the Supreme Court’s ruling. Consequently, we cannot fathom the continuous role of IEB in the admission process.

Thirdly, we have studied with keen interest the results released yesterday and have the following concerns/queries:
We wish to know the number of candidates who turned up to write the exams Who, which body or institution supervised and or marked the examination scripts? Was it the IEB?

1. What was the average score of students?
2. What was the pass mark and how did the IEB arrive at such pass mark?
3. We call on the GLC to release results of every candidate since it is difficult to fathom that the rest of the 797 candidates whose name did not appear on the pass list all failed. Assuming without admitting that this number failed, the GLC must publish their raw scores/total marks in order to ensure transparency and fairness.
4. We are also aware that certain invigilators gave some candidates the wrong instructions, which affected their results in the multiple-choice questions as the machine rejected such scripts.

This in fact contributed to the late release of the results? Can the GLC explain what actually happened and how the issue was resolved?

5. Will the GLC go ahead with the illegal interview contrary to the Supreme Court’s ruling?
6. Finally, we entreat the GLC to do what is needful and offer automatic admission to all qualified applicants (all LLB holders who applied) as per the Supreme Court ruling.

Signed,
Ken Addor Donkor
Concerned Law Students

 

 

primenewsghana.com/Ghana News