797 failed law students demand answers from Legal Council

Some law students who failed their entrance examination taken in July, are crying foul and demanding an explanation from the General Legal Council.

797 students failed the entrance exam, which was contentious, to begin with.

Prior to the examination, the students had petitioned the Council over a ruling by the Supreme Court which declared the examination and interview requirements as illegal, but the Council rejected their petition.

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

According to the 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 the Legislative Instrument 1296 which gives direction for the mode of admission.

The affected group under the umbrella name, Concerned Law Students, reiterated the Apex 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.”

The group, in a statement, has now challenged the General Legal Council to release the raw scores of every candidate as they say it is unthinkable 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.”

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 express 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

0204021899